CHAPTER IV
The tent was standing, just as he had left it on Sunday. There seemed to be a disconsolate, pathetic droop in the limp folds of the ragged canvas. Pathos and expression are not confined to living things. Some inanimate objects are invested with joy, others with a heritage of woe. A deserted digger's tent is the mournfullest thing in the world, the embodiment of misery in every fibre—desolation painted on canvas, as never limner's brush equalled.
He unpinned the tent flap and looked in. He almost expected to see the dead man, prone on the bed, staring with glassy eyes at the ridge-pole. He went into the tent and sat down on a block of wood which had served as a seat. Then he took the portrait from his pocket, and pinned it in the place where he had found it. He examined the diagram once more, and tried to get at the heart of it. It had a story to tell—a riddle might be guessed from it. He was here to learn what fate would unfold.
The sun was going down full of fire: long, inky shadows were creeping up the hills. Bill watched one of them going, inch by inch, nearer and nearer to the rim of the Devil's Punch Bowl, when, lo! just at the edge, hit by the last patch of red, stood a tree, with two branches touching the ground, as in the diagram, one on either side, as if two men were hanging there.
"That is the tree, at any rate," he said. "Happy discovery! I'm on the track!"
Darkness began to come down like a shroud; a dingo howled up the gulley; a gun cracked in the distance, and echoed among the hills; a bittern boomed its dreary call; and a mopoke drawled its woebegone cry. Everything was weird and uncanny. Bill's hearing seemed preternaturally acute to-night. The sounds thrilled every nerve; he felt them in his bones and marrow. He was unutterably wretched, up here, above civilisation, warmth, and human society. He feared to be alone in the dead man's tent.
He had been pushed into his present position—mere clay in the hands of a higher Power. He felt in the presence of his Maker. He went into the tent, groped about for a candle, lit it, and fell upon his knees. When he arose there was a great peace in his soul. He was not doing his own will, but the will of Him who had sent him here for some purpose not yet apparent. It was hidden, but he had no doubt it would be made plain. It would develop as a bird develops in the shell.
He was tired, so he unwrapped his blankets, spread them on the bed, undressed himself, lay down, and was soon fast asleep.
When he awoke the sun was up, and shining cheerily through the thin canvas. Three magpies were chattering on the ridge-pole, telling the news of the night and all talking at once—all mouth and noise, like a cannon on the Queen's birthday, or like boys let loose from school—plenty of shouting, but no listening; pearls of wisdom dropping, and no one picking them up.
He rose, and made a fire by the side of a log; then filled the kettle and put it on; then he went to the creek and had a wash. He felt fresh as a trout, and sat down to wait till the steam came out of the hole in the lid of the kettle. In the meantime chops were frizzling in the pan. His appetite was in a state of exultation.
After breakfast he washed up, and was then ready to dive into the mystery wrapped up in the diagram. He stood silent for a few minutes in expectation, as nature stands hushed when waiting for a thunder shower. Spreading the diagram on his knee, he pored over it for half an hour. He was at a standstill. There was a deadlock. He had got the clue to one end of the line, for the tree was on the hillside clearly enough, corresponding exactly with the tree on the drawing; but what was the triangle at the other end of the line? He tried to imagine a three-sided figure, composed of the creek, a fallen log, and an outcrop of the rock; but he gave it up as a bad job, the lines being more like a dog's hind leg than a triangle. He spelled triangle over and over again. Nothing came of it. He was fairly cornered at every point. He cuffed and whipped his brains to no purpose.
At last he looked up, and his weary eyes rested on the tent. Viewed from the front it had a triangular shape.
"Fool!" he said, "not to see it before."
A line projected from the tent to the tree would give the line in the diagram.
"Now," he thought, "I must walk over the ground and find out whether the old man intended the figures to be 45 or 65, and whether he measured from the tree or the tent." He jumped up, placed himself in a bee-line between the tent and the tree, and walked fifteen paces, each of which he believed to be three feet. This distance would make forty-five feet. Then he looked for some indication, some mark or sign. There was nothing to indicate that man had ever disturbed this solitude. Forty-five was evidently not the distance. He would try sixty-five; so he paced to about this distance and stopped, but could see nothing unusual—nothing to guide him. He felt like a blind man groping his way in the Sahara.