“Mulliner's be a dull pleace,” she answered, mechanically.
“Aye, lass, dull as hell in a fog. Mebbe I'll take thee somewheres for a spell.”
For nearly another week she nursed her hatred and planned her revenge; and Haughton, as he saw the dark rings forming under her eyes, and the cold, listless manner as she went about her work, began to experience a higher phase of feeling for her than that of the mere passion which her beauty had first awakened in him long months before.
It was five o'clock on Sunday afternoon. The fierce, blinding sun had just disappeared behind the hideous basalt range twenty miles away from the “Big Surprise,” when Nell Lawson put on her white sun-hood and walked slowly towards the old alluvial workings. When well out of sight from any one, near the battery, she turned off towards the creek and made for a big Leichhardt tree that stood on the bank. Underneath it, and evidently waiting for her, was a black fellow, a truculent-looking runaway trooper named Barney.
“You got him that fellow Barney?” she asked, in a low voice.
“Yo ai,” he replied, keeping one hand behind his back. “Where that plenty fellow money you yabber me vesterday?”
“Here,” and she showed him some silver; “ten fellow shilling.”
Barney grinned, took the money, and then handed her an old broken-handled crockery teapot, which, in place of a lid, was covered over with a strip of ti-tree bark, firmly secured to the bottom by a strip of dirty calico.