"Then let us go. I will take the Winchester, and if they are still about we must just slip in again quicker than we came out. But I think it's good enough to chance."
"So do I," said the piano-tuner, "most decidedly."
"Then down with the props. They have served us very well, and no mistake! You must keep them in your kitchen, Mrs. Potter, as a trophy for all time."
The old woman made no reply. Of what she was thinking none ever knew. Her life had run in a narrow, uneventful groove. Its sole adventure was probably the one now so nearly at an end. Ten years ago she had been ear-witness of a somewhat similar incident. And now she had played a part, and no small part, in another and a worse. At her age she might have come out shaken and shattered to the verge of imbecility, after such a night. Or she might have felt inordinately proud of her share in the bushrangers' repulse. But when at last the battered door stood wide open, and the keen morning air chilled their faces, and the red morning sky met their eyes, the old woman looked merely sad and thoughtful, and years older since the day before. Her expression touched Naomi. Once more she threw her young arms about the wrinkled neck, and left kisses upon the rough cheek, and words of grateful praise in the old ears. Meanwhile Engelhardt had pushed past them both and marched into the middle of the yard.
"It's all right, I think," said he, standing purposely between the women and the hideous corpse by the well-palings. "Yes, the coast is clear. But there's the horse you rode, Mrs. Potter, and Bill's horse, too, apparently, tied side by side to the fence."
"May God forgive them all," said Mrs. Potter, gravely, as she walked across the yard at Naomi's side.
They were the last words she ever uttered. As she spoke, the crack of a rifle, with the snap of a pistol before and after, cut the early stillness as lightning cuts the sky. Naomi wheeled round and levelled her Winchester at the two men who were running with bent backs from a puff of smoke to a couple of horses tethered among the pines beyond kitchen and wood-heap. She sighted the foremost runner, but never fired. A heavy fall at her side made her drop the Winchester and turn sharply round. It was Mrs. Potter. She was lying like a log, with her brave old eyes wide open to the sky, and a bullet in her heart.
"Take me away," said the girl, faintly, as she got up from her knees. "I can bear no more."
"There are the horses," answered the piano-tuner, pointing to the two that were tied up to the fence. "I should dearly like to give chase!"
"No, no, no!" cried Naomi, in an agony. "Hasn't there been enough bloodshed for one night? We will ride straight to the shed. They have taken the very opposite direction. Let us start at once!"