In Quest of Gold; Or, Under the Whanga Falls

by Alfred St. Johnston

"Come, come, you don't expect me to believe that," said Starlight, laying his hand on George's arm. The action was gentle, it looked almost like a caress, but the hand, although so soft, was iron-sinewed, and the boy felt his arm grasped as though in a vice.

Starlight's touch seemed to act upon him as a charm; it aroused him from the state of stupor of despair in which he was plunged, and fire coming back to his eye and life to his voice, he shouted—

"Loose my arm!" and swinging himself round in the saddle in his lithe, quick way, he tore his arm from the bushranger's grasp. Starlight made a rapid clutch at him as Geordie swerved aside, but missed his aim, and the boy, seizing his opportunity, clenched his fist and swung his stout young arm round with a backward blow, and striking the bushranger full on the side of the head almost felled him from his horse. Several of the men, thinking that things had now gone far enough, sprang to the side of the boy, and one of them, dealing him a stunning blow with his huge fist just behind the ear, roughly seized him round the waist with one muscular arm and threw him heavily to the ground. There the lad lay quite white and senseless, with the blood pouring from his nostrils, across the gnarled roots of a burnt and blackened tree stump.

During this little mêlée, Murri, who was not blessed with an entirely valiant heart, noticed that the observation of the party was fixed upon the little central group of George and his opponents. Taking advantage of this very momentary chance he silently slipped from his horse, without stopping it, and darting to a place where the stumps of several burnt trees were still standing, his black body was instantly concealed in the shadows.

The next minute one of the men noticed that Murri's horse was riderless.

"Hallo!" said he, "where the blazes is that fellow gone to?"

"Didn't see him go," answered one of the other men. "It don't matter, it was only one of them blarmed nigs; he've sneaked off."

This had not occupied a moment in happening, and it was just as Geordie was flung to the ground that Alec came upon the scene. Seeing his brother struck from his horse, and noticing that the body, which lay so white and stark in the moonlight, was quite motionless, he felt sure that this time death had claimed his own. He was maddened with passion and rage, and singling out the man who had done it, a great, swarthy fellow twice his own age, he rode at him like a fury. He was entirely without personal fear, and believing that his brother, who was his chief tie to life, was dead, he was utterly reckless of consequences to himself. He had no weapon with him but the pistol he had just fired at Keggs, but grasping this by the barrel he struck the man full in the mouth with the heavy butt of it. The passionate blow bruised and cut the bushranger's lips terribly, and shattered several of his great white teeth, and maddened with the pain of it the fellow howled a curse at Alec and drew his pistol from his belt. Alec aimed another rapid blow at him with his weapon, but his hand being wet with sweat the polished barrel of the pistol slipped from his grasp, and, as it darted from his fingers, struck the bushranger a startling blow on his bronzed cheek-bone just below the eye. The man was now absolutely beside himself with the agony of these two blows, and like a wild beast he turned to rend his enemy.

The two men, Alec and the bushranger, were now quite at close quarters, and pressing one hand to the bleeding cut on his cheek, and with an infamous oath on his lips, the man again raised his pistol to fire. But Alec had not taken his eyes from his opponent, and guiding Amber only with his knees he suddenly stooped to his saddle as the man fired, and before he was ready with his second shot had sprung upon him. He clutched his outstretched arm and bore it down with his sheer weight, and then, exerting all his strength, he grappled with the fellow, and tried to tear him from his horse.

They were not equally matched, for the man was not only much older and heavier than Alec but much stronger too, but Alec was much the more active, and being wiry and muscular he gave the bushranger as much as he could well do. The other men looked on without offering to interfere, for after all they were Englishmen although thieves, and a rough feeling of fair play prevented them interrupting what was so evidently a single combat.