After a subdued and decorous meal, he retired early, and at the appointed hour deposited himself, Doorival, and Help in the unpretending conveyance which bore the toilers of the midmost plateaux to the breeze-swept cities of the “kingdom by the sea.”
Here, in due time, he was deposited as one who re-enters Paradise, after rejoicing in the as yet unforgiven outer world, amid the rayless toil of ungrateful labour, amid the briars and thorns of Earth—accursed and unreclaimed.
He lost not an hour after his arrival in despatching the inestimable “Tenders for (20) twenty five-mile blocks, situated on the River Marion, west of Daar Creek, and bearing south-west from the Camp No. XL. of Mr. Surveyor Kennedy.”
Having done this, Jack awaited impatiently the time when a reply might reasonably be expected to arrive. He sought the agents of Guy Waldron, and deposited with them the relics and the few lines in which the dying man had traced the record of his last wishes. He found these gentlemen kindly disposed, and grateful to him for the manifest sympathy which he exhibited.
“How the old squire will bear it I can’t think,” said the senior partner. “I am the son of a tenant on his estate, and I can remember him since I was that big. He was a terrible man when he was crossed, and Mr. Guy was always a wild youngster, but he was prouder of him, I used to think, than of all the rest put together. It will be a comfort to them all to see this lad here. I dare say he wrote about him; and as he saw him at the very last, it may please them to hear of his last moments.”
So the heroic Doorival was despatched, accompanied by poor Guy’s big outfit in a chest full of all his unused property, books, papers, &c., and arriving safely in Oxfordshire was installed as prime favourite, and second in command to the butler. Let us hope that he behaved better than one anglicised aboriginal, who was for some slight offence chastised by the butler. That official was solemn and awe-inspiring of aspect. But the wolf-cub had grown and strengthened; he turned fiercely to bay, and smote suddenly and so shrewdly his superior officer that a coroner’s inquest appeared imminent. Sentence of deportation went forth against him, afterwards commuted. But the son of the waste was respected after this outbreak, and in the servants’ hall was permitted to possess his soul in peace.
There was a balance of something over £300 remaining in the hands of Guy Waldron’s agents, and this sum, in the terms of his note, they paid over to Jack, as representative of the firm of Redgrave and Waldron. He had nothing now to look forward to but the acceptance of his tenders. He found that with the weighty and responsible task before him he was unable to interest himself in the ordinary frivolities of town life. He was deeply anxious to get his first lot of store cattle on the way; and to this end these tenders must be accepted and returned to him with but little delay.
Day after day he haunted the Lands Office, and by dint of pertinacity and daily application he managed to get his papers “put through” that excellent and long-suffering department. It is hinted that from press of work or other causes delay has become chronic in that much-maligned, calm-judging branch of the public service. Whether they pitied his manifest impatience, or whether the lives of certain officials were made a burden to them during the passage of the papers, certain it is that some weeks before the ordinary routine Jack had reason to believe that an acknowledgment of his communication would reach him in advance of the ordinary official period. Before the impatiently expected official communication arrived, Jack had made several important arrangements depending upon this contingency, so that no more time than was absolutely necessary might be lost. He was feverishly anxious to be again on the war-path.
He thought of joyous Guy Waldron lying beneath the solitary pine-tree, on the far sand-hill, swept now in the advanced season by the burning desert blast; and he pined for the moment when he could recommence his labour, and make some progress in fulfilment of his pledge to his dead comrade.
He thought of fair Maud Stangrove, lonely, weary with vigil and orison, enduring her prosaic, unrelieved life at Juandah; and his heart stirred with an unaccustomed throb as he pictured her wild joy upon receiving his letter, telling of the acceptance of the tenders, and his departure to stock the Wonder-land so dearly-bought, so hardly wrested from Nature and from man. He had arranged with certain stock and station agents for the placing of a certain number of the blocks in their hands for sale, upon the receipt of which security they were willing to advance the cash necessary for the purchase of a couple of thousand head of cattle.