Story 3--Chapter XIX.
Mr Meadows’s Weakness.
Mr Meadows struggled on, hour after hour, with his companions, only enabled to keep up with them by their exceedingly slow progress; for, from time to time, he would sit for a few minutes while they passed on for some little distance, and then, following the track, he would overtake them at their slow, watchful pace.
He pressed on; sometimes tottering, sometimes resting so long that he had to strive hard to reach the last man. The heat seemed to overcome him; and at last, seating himself by the bright stream, upon whose banks he was, he let five, ten, twenty minutes, an hour slip away, heedless of all save the exhaustion that had enervated him.
Gradually a delicious sleep stole upon him, and then for a while all was blank.
But at length the weary man awoke, and started in pursuit of his companions, reproaching himself for his cruelty in sleeping at an hour like this; though, at the time, his forward progress was but a weary totter from tree to tree, against whose trunks he was often glad to lean his hands.
“It is of no use,” he groaned. “I’m worn out; and until Nature has done her part of restoration, I am helpless as a child.”
He sat down, and rested again, and then rose; for the distant report of a gun fell upon his ear; repeated, too, once or twice; and turning from his companions’ track, he faced towards that side of the Gap from amidst whose craggy fastnesses the sound seemed to proceed.
“I have no strength,” muttered Mr Meadows feebly; “but I have still my eyesight, and I may be able to play the spy. Why are they not here? They have gone on too far; but if they hear the firing, they will soon return.”
He passed through the dense undergrowth, and then stopped short, for he had hit upon a well-marked track, which looked as if the grass had been trampled down by footprints to and fro.
“Strange,” he said, “that it should fall to the weakest of the party to discover this. I’ll go on; but not in the guise of warfare;” and he leaned his gun against a tree, and toiled patiently along the track. No easy task, for it led up and up, along the valley side, higher and higher; each few steps giving a view over the tops of the trees just passed.
“Not the way taken by the gallant young man,” he muttered, “for not one of the branches he was to have broken, has met my eye. It is plain that I have not struck upon his track; but I may be able to report good news to our friends on my return.”
Once more came the faint, muffled sound of a gun; and collecting his fast-flagging energies, Mr Meadows pushed on, until breathless, and with bleeding hands and knees, he stood looking down with astonishment into a little rocky amphitheatre, strewn with provisions and the plunder taken by the convicts from the Moa’s Nest.
He stepped down, for the place appeared to be quite forsaken, and vainly tried to make out the cause of its being untenanted, when, looking round, he started with dismay; for half-seated, half-lying, with his back to the rocks, was the form of a human being, but so disfigured, that it seemed impossible for life to exist in such a ruin. But life was there; for, to the clergyman’s horror, he saw that the man was engaged with a knife in his left hand, slowly and deliberately trying to back off his right at the wrist.
For a few moments, Mr Meadows could not speak; then, hurrying up, he arrested the man, exclaiming, “Surely, friend, that operation cannot be necessary?”
“Let it be—let it be,” was the answer, in a strange, muttering voice, which came from the mutilated face. “It’s a vile hand—a bad hand, stained with crime.”
It required but little effort to wrest the knife from the convict’s hand; and then, binding a handkerchief round the bleeding wrist, Mr Meadows gazed, shuddering, in the man’s face, as his head fell back, and he fainted.
“He cannot live through those injuries,” muttered the clergyman. And leaning forward, he dropped a little brandy from the flask he carried between the man’s lips, when, after a few minutes, he revived, and spoke in a more collected way.
“Is any one there?” he asked.
“Yes; there is one here,” was the reply.
“Come back to finish your work, I suppose?” said the man hoarsely; and he raised his arms, as if to protect his head, but only to drop them directly.
“Where are your companions?”
“Companions—companions?” said the wounded man inquiringly. “Who, then, are you?”
“One of those whom you so much injured.”
“Injured—injured? What does it mean? What’s this red blind over my eyes? Where are we—in the valley? Or—I can’t see—can’t see with my eyes, nor yet with my understanding!” he gasped, apparently struggling hard with his misty, clouded intellect. “Yes, I can—I know now. Where is the girl?”
“Yes; where is the poor girl?” repeated Mr Meadows anxiously; and he again poured a few drops between the poor wretch’s lips.
“Girl! Yes, yes; I saved her. I told young Murray I’d pay him. Lee’s girl, the other woman told me. I knew the Lees once, at home. Yes, at home; and I saved her twice, and they saved her.”
He trailed off into a wild, incoherent string; and in spite of all Mr Meadows’s efforts and anxiety, no farther information could he obtain. He was about to turn and leave the dreadful spectacle, when he felt a light touch upon his arm; and starting round, he saw, standing pale and trembling by his side, a woman whom he hardly recognised as one of the shepherds’ wives he had more than once seen at the Moa’s Nest.
He elicited that she had lain concealed amidst the ferns for many hours past, so overcome with dread, that, though provisions in abundance had been almost within sight, she had not dared to crawl out until she heard a voice she knew to be friendly.
She told, too, how the miserable man at their side had twice acted in defence of Katie and herself; and how, in the midst of a wild struggle and confusion, Katie had been snatched away: when, availing herself of the absence of the convicts in pursuit, the woman had crawled amongst the ferns, and lain there, not daring to more. Then, some time after, she heard the oaths and raging of the men on their return, and the murderous way in which they had set upon their companion, whom they accused of betraying them, leaving him at last, probably for dead.
“And I did not dare to move, sir,” she sobbed; “but had to lie there, listening to his groans, hour after hour, till I prayed that he might die out of his misery, as I felt that I must, or else be driven mad.”
“But where do you think they are now?” said Mr Meadows.
“Somewhere up the valley that runs beside here, sir; and that’s where Miss Katie must have been taken, if they’ve not killed her, for there’s been shooting ever since.”
“Did you not see who snatched her away?”
“No, sir, no; it was all in the night-time, when she was clinging tightly to me, and I was struck down at the same moment.”
“Let us descend from here, my child,” he said; “for there are friends below in the valley, seeking for us.”
He turned to lead his new companion away, but she suddenly exclaimed, “They’re coming again! O, sir, save me—save me!”—and she clung to Mr Meadows, who heard far down below him the rustling and snapping of the trees, as if several people were forcing their way through them. “That’s the way they went,” sobbed the woman; “and they’re coming again.”
Mr Meadows had no doubt as to the truth of what she said; and glancing round, he tried to make out the part of the rocky wall around by which he had descended, but for a while his efforts were fruitless; and he could not leave the woman to search for his path, since at the least effort to unclasp her hands, she clung to him the tighter, imploring him in whispers not to leave her—not to go away.
“No, no; we will go together. Quick! the wretches are upon us, and we shall be taken. Heaven give me strength! What shall I do?”
His tones were anguished, for the crashing through the leaves seemed now to be close at hand; while, as he spoke, the woman fell from him, quite inanimate.
“Must I leave her?” he murmured to himself; and then he stooped and tried to lift her, but it was beyond his strength, and in his despair it seemed to him that he must be already seen. An hour sooner, he would not have cared so much; but, with the information he had gained and the care of this poor creature upon his hands, he felt that he would give anything to escape; for might not this snatching away of Katie mean an act of daring performed by Murray or the savage, and the shots fired, a conflict still going on between them?
The leaves and boughs crashed together, and whoever they were, either friends or foes, were coming ever nearer and nearer.
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The trees could be plainly seen moving now, and Mr Meadows caught a glimpse of an approaching figure. It was only a shadowy glimpse, but exerting his little remaining strength he dragged his companion on her side, forced her down amongst the waving undergrowth, and then crouched himself, gazing with swimming eyes between the strands down into the amphitheatre, and wondering whether, after all, his efforts had not been in vain.