"Come along then, and go before me to that tent you see up there."
I was actually driven, like a dumb beast, to the tent where the murdered man lay, and was told to go in.
"Blast him!" said "Thunder-and-Lightning." "Look at him! See his ghastly eye! Did you ever see a dead man stare like that? I never felt like this before. I'm going mad! No! No! it's only my nerves that have given way."
He seized the brandy bottle, poured about half a pint into the pannikin, and drank it to the last drop.
"Ha! that is better! now I'll play a tune. Shall it be 'Rafferty's Wake?' D—— it, man, why don't you speak?"
"Yes," I said, "'Rafferty's Wake.' Ha! ha! well spoken, captain! You go before, and I'll follow with the body. We'll give him an illegant funeral."
"D—— you! You're a man after my own heart. You've got the nerve of twenty men! Just like me."
The brandy was working. He strutted about with the fiddle, and ran the bow up and down the strings. I followed him with the dead man in my arms, who was a little fellow and light.
The murdering ruffian marched before me playing "Rafferty's Wake," making the strings squeal and skirl, while he shouted, "That's something like! go it!" He arrived at the brink of the intended grave, and I was just behind him, when I gave a sudden lunge and struck him on the back with the dead man, which sent him sprawling, head foremost, into the hole. The murdered digger seemed to clutch him round the neck, and fell in with him. I sprang on top of them in a moment.