At last the cart stood still. The driver swinging his lantern went on alone and in a few moments was lost sight of in the bush. The mules began to quiver in an eerie way, and the trembling of them subtly communicated itself to the cart which also began to quiver and creak like an animate thing. I shivered and pulled a rug round my shoulders. It seemed we had come to a lonely and desolate spot. The trees standing black against the stars looked enormous and sinister, and there was something menacing in that sound of swift rushing water.
After a long while the driver came stumbling back, fixed his lantern on a hook in front of the cart, and began to be extremely busy with the mules. The jingle of harness falling to the ground was heard, accompanied by more creaking and shivering. My interest was aroused.
“What are you doing, driver?” I asked sharply. I knew quite well this could not be right. If the mules were unharnessed how could we reach that most desirable little tin hotel? The driver answered in a voice considerably thicker and more incoherent than the last time I had heard it (greased lightning, I had observed, frequently has this effect upon the vocal cords):
“River’s full—cart can’t cross d’ drift to-night.”
“But the little tin—the hotel—?”
“Hotels d’ other side,” was the laconic response, and he continued to undo the mules. Harness fell around him like hail.
“But what are you going to do?” I faltered.
“Going to put d’ eisels into d’ stable,” he answered stolidly, indicating with his arm a mass of blackness on his left, that might have been either a hay-stack or a cathedral, “an’ shut me in wid dem. You better come saam, Miss.” He gave a drunken chuckle. I fingered my Colt, and that gave me courage to answer in a clear voice that betrayed no sign of the panic in my soul:
“Nonsense, driver! of course there must be some decent place for me to spend the night. Take me to it at once.”
He had all the mules loose, and holding each by a small head-rein they radiated from him like the rays of a black star of which the lantern in his hand was the scarlet centre. By its light I could see his stupid brutal face clearly, though I was hidden from his vision in the dimness of the cart. However he could recognise authority when he heard its note, and looking towards me answered with a faint shade of respect in his voice if not in his words: