Ghost Stories and Mysteries (15 page)

The two men in question were seated on canvas chairs in the verandah, both lightly attired in shirt and trousers only, busily engaged in mopping the perspiration from their streaming faces, and swearing at the flies.

“Deuced sight hotter lounging about here than travelling,” said Davis, the elder of the two; “I vote we make a start.”

“I’m agreeable,” replied his companion; “the horses must be starving out in the paddock. We shall have a job to get Delaine away, though; he’s bent on seeing his cheque through.”

“That won’t take long at the rate he’s going. He’s got every loafer in the town hanging about after him.”

“Hullo! what’s that?” said the other, as the shrill whistle of a steam launch was heard. “Oh! of course, the steamer arrived at the mouth of the river last night; that’s the launch coming up. Shall we go down and see who is on board?”

The two men got up and joined the stragglers who were wending their way across the bare flat to the bank of the river. The passengers were few in number, but they included some strangers to the place; one of whom, a young-looking man with white hair and beard, immediately attracted Davis’ attention.

“See that chap, Bennett?” he said.

“Yes, Dick, who is he?”

“Some years ago he was with me roving for a trip; when we started he was as young-looking as you, and his hair as dark. It’s a true bill about a man’s hair going white in one night. His did.”

“What from? Fright?”

“Yes. We buried him alive by mistake.”

“The deuce you did!”

“He had a cataleptic fit when he was on watch one night. The other man—we were double-banking the watch at the time—found him as stiff as a poker, and we all thought he was dead, there was no sign of life in him. It was hot weather—as bad as this—and we couldn’t keep him, so we dug a grave, and started to bury him at sundown. He came to when we were filling in the grave; yelled blue murder, and frightened the life out of us. His hair that night turned as you see it now, although he vows that it was not the fright of being buried alive that did it.”

“What then?”

“Something that happened when he was in the fit, or trance. He has never told anybody anything more than that he was quite conscious all the time, and had a very strange experience.”

“Ever ask him anything?”

“No; he didn’t like talking about it. Wonder what he’s doing up here?”

By this time the river bank was deserted; Davis and Bennett strolled up after the others and when they arrived at the Royal, they found the hero of the yarn there before them.

“Hullo, Maxwell,” said Davis, “what’s brought you up this way?”

Maxwell started slightly when he saw his quondam sexton; but he met him frankly enough although at first he disregarded the question that had been asked.

In the course of the conversation that followed Maxwell stated that he was on his way out to the Nicholson River, but with what object did not transpire.

“Bennett and I were just talking of making a start to-morrow, or the next day. Our cattle are spelling on some country just this side of the Nicholson. We can’t travel until the wet season comes and goes. You had better come with us.”

“I shall be very glad,” replied the other, and the thing was settled.

Bennett had been looking curiously at this man who had had such a narrow escape of immortality, but beyond the strange whiteness of his hair, which contrasted oddly with the swarthy hue of his sunburnt face, and a nervous look in his eyes, he did not show any trace of his strange experience. On the contrary, he promised, on nearer acquaintance, to be a pleasant travelling companion.

The summer day drew to a close, the red sun sank in the heated haze that hovered immediately above the horizon, and a calm, sultry night, still and oppressive, succeeded the fierce blaze of the day-time. The active and industrious mosquito commenced his rounds and men tossed and moaned and perspired under nets made of coarse cheese-cloth.

The next morning broke hot and sullen as before. Davis had risen early to send a man out to the paddock after the horses, and was in the bar talking to the pyjama-attired landlord.

“You’ll have to knock off his grog or there’ll be trouble,” he said; “he was up all last night wandering about with his belt and revolver on, muttering to himself, and when a fellow does that he’s got ’em pretty bad.”

“I’ll do what I can, but if he doesn’t get drink here he will somewhere else,” replied the other reluctantly.

“Then I’ll see the P.M. and get him to prohibit his being served. It’s the only way to get him straight.”

At this moment the subject of their remarks entered the bar—a young fellow about five or six and twenty. He was fully dressed, it being evident that he had not gone to bed all night. The whites of his eyes were not blood-shot, but blood-red throughout, and the pupils so dilated that they imparted a look of unnatural horror to his face.

“Hullo, Davis,” he shouted; “glad to see a white man at last. That old nigger with the white hair has been after me all night. The old buck who was potted in the head. He comes around every night now with his flour-bag cobra all over blood. Can’t get a wink of sleep for him. Have a drink?”

His speech was quite distinct, he was past the stage when strong waters thicken the voice; his walk was steady, and but for the wild eyes, he might have passed for a man who was simply tired out with a night’s riding or watching.

The landlord glanced enquiringly at Davis, as if to put the responsibility of serving the liquor on him.

“Too early, Delaine, and too hot already; besides, I’m going to start to-day and mustn’t get tight before breakfast,” said the latter soothingly.

“O be hanged! Here, give us something,” and the young fellow turned towards the bar, and as he did so caught sight of Maxwell who had just come to the door and was looking in.

The effect of the dark face and snow-white hair on his excited brain was awful to witness. His eyes, blazing before, seemed now simply coals of fire. Davis and the landlord turned to see what the madman was looking at, and that moment was nearly fatal to the newcomer. Muttering: “By—he’s taken to following me by daylight as well, has he? But I’ll soon stop him;” he drew his revolver and, but that Davis turned his head again and was just in time to knock his hand up, Maxwell would have been past praying for. The landlord ran round the bar, and with some trouble the three men got the pistol from the maniac, who raved, bit, and fought, like a wild beast. The doctor, who slept in the house, was called, and, not particularly sober himself, injected some morphia into the patient’s arm, which soon sent him into a stupor.

“By Jove, Davis, you saved my life,” said Maxwell; “that blessed lunatic would have potted me sure enough only for you. Whom did he take me for?”

“He’s in the horrors, his name is Delaine, and he’s out on a station on the tableland. They had some trouble with the blacks up there lately, and, I suppose, it was the first dispersing-match he had ever seen. There was one white-haired old man got a bullet through his head, and he says he felt as though his own father had been shot when he saw it done. He’s a clergyman’s son; of course he drinks like a fish and is superstitious as well.”

“I trust they’ll lock him up until I get out of the town; but I’ll remember your share of this. Wait until we get away and I will tell you what brought me up here, but don’t ask me any questions now. Is your friend Bennett to be trusted?”

“In what way? Wine, women or gold? I don’t know about the first two, but the last I can answer for.”

“It’s a secret. Possibly connected with the last.”

“I hope so, I want some bad enough. I think I know where to put you on to a couple of good horses, and then we’ll make a start.”

CHAPTER II

The stove-like township is three days journey away; four men, Davis, Bennett, Maxwell, and a blackfellow are camped for the night by the side of a small lagoon covered with the broad leaves of the purple water-lily. In the distance the cheery sound of the horse-bells can be heard, and round the fire the travellers are grouped listening to Maxwell who is telling the tale he has never yet told.

“When I fell down on watch that night and became to all appearance a corpse, I never, for one instant, lost either consciousness or memory. My soul, spirit, or whatever you like to call it, parted company with my body, but I retained all former powers of observation. I gazed at myself lying there motionless, waited until my fellow-watcher came around and awakened the sleeping camp with the tidings of my death, then, without any impulse of my own, I left the spot and found myself in a shadowy realm where all was vague and confused. Strange, indistinct shapes flitted constantly before me; I heard voices and sounds like sobbing and weeping.

“Now, before I go on any further, let me tell you that I have never been subject to these fits. I never studied any occult arts, nor troubled myself about what I called ‘such rubbish.’ Why this experience should have happened to me I cannot tell. I found I was travelling along pretty swiftly, carried on by some unknown motive power, or, rather, drifting on with a current of misty forms in which all seemed confusion.

“Suddenly, to my surprise, I found myself on the earth once more, in a place quite unknown to me.

“I was in Australia—that much I recognised at a glance—but where abouts?

“I was standing on the bank of a river—a northern river, evidently, for I could see the foliage of the drooping ti-trees and Leichhardt trees further down its course. The surrounding country was open, but barren; immediately in front of me was a rugged range through which the river found its way by means of an apparently impenetrable gorge. The black rocks rose abruptly on either side of a deep pool of water, and all progress was barred except by swimming. The ranges on either hand were precipitous, cleft by deep ravines; all the growth to be seen was spinifex, save a few stunted bloodwood trees.

“What struck me most forcibly was that in the centre of the waterhole, at the entrance of the gorge, as it were, there arose two rocks, like pillars, some twelve or fifteen feet in height above the surface of the water.

“Below the gorge the river-bed was sandy, and the usual timber grew on either bank. At first I thought I was alone, but, on looking around, I found that a man was standing a short distance away from me. Apparently he was a European, but so tanned and burnt by the sun as to be almost copper-coloured. He was partially clothed in skins, and held some hunting weapons in his hand. He was gazing absently into the gorge when I first noticed him, but presently turned, and, without evincing any surprise or curiosity, beckoned to me. Immediately, in obedience to some unknown impulse, I found myself threading the gloomy gorge with him, although, apparently, we exercised no motion. It was more as though we stood still and the rocks glided past us and the water beneath us. We soon reached a small open space or pocket; here there was a rude hut, and here we halted.

“My strange companion looked around and without speaking, drew my attention to a huge boulder close to the hut and on which letters and figures were carved. I made out the principal inscription. ‘Hendrick Heermans, hier vangecommen, 1670.’ There were also an anchor, a ship and a heart, all neatly cut. I turned from these records to the man. He beckoned me again, and I followed him across the small open space and up a ravine. The man pointed to a reef cropping out and crossing the gully. I looked at it and saw that the cap had been broken and that gold was showing freely in the stone. The man waved his hand up the gully as though intimating that there were more reefs there.

“Suddenly, sweeping up the gorge came a gust of ice-cold wind, and with it a dash of mist or spray. Looming out of this I saw for a moment a young girl’s face looking earnestly at me. Her lips moved. ‘Go back. Go back!’ she seemed to whisper.

“When I heard this I felt an irresistible longing to return to my discarded body and in an instant gorge, mountains and all my surroundings disappeared, and I found myself in the twilight space battling despairingly on, for I felt that I had lost my way and should never find it again.

“How was I to reach my forsaken body through such a vague, misty and indeterminate land? Impalpable forms threw themselves in my path. Strange cries and wailings led me astray, and all the while there was a smell like death in my nostrils, and I knew that I must return or die.

“O, the unutterable anguish of that time! Ages seem to pass during which I was fighting with shadows, until at last I saw a sinking sun, an open grave, and men whose faces I knew, commencing to shovel earth on a senseless body.

“Mine!

“I had felt no pain when my soul left, but the re-entrance of it into its tenement was such infinite agony, that it forced from me terrible cries that caused my rescue from suffocation.”

Maxwell paused, and the other two were silent.

“You will wonder,” he resumed, “what all this has to do with my present journey. I will tell you. You remember Milford, a surveyor up here, at one time he was running the boundary-line between Queensland and South Australia for the Queensland Government. A year ago I met him, and we were talking about the country up this way. In running the line he had to follow the Nicholson up a good way, until finally he was completely blocked. He described to me the place where he had to turn back. It was the waterhole in the gorge with the two rock-like pillars rising out of the water.”