“Under Secretary.
“John Redgrave, Esq.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
De Profundis
Jack hardly knew how and in what fashion he left the city. Mechanically, and all aimlessly, as he steered his course, some old memories helped to guide his footsteps towards the desert, towards the great waste amid which he had joyed and sorrowed, toiled and endured, in which the palm-fringed fountains had been so rare, whence now the simoon had arisen which had whelmed all the treasures of his existence. From time to time as he wandered on, ever northward, and trending towards the outer bush-world, he accepted the rudest labour, working stolidly and desperately until the allotted task was concluded. In truth his mind was stunned; he had no hope, no plan. What was the use of his trying anything? Was he not doomed? Did not Mr. Blockham warn poor Guy against having anything to do with an unlucky man? He tried to forget the past and to avoid thoughts of the future by hard work and continual exertion. When he walked it was not in his accustomed leisurely pace, but as if he were walking for a wager, trying to get away from himself.
But this could not last long. One day, after he had left a lonely bush inn, he felt attacked with dizziness, which for a few moments would obscure his sight. From time to time he felt as if a mortal sickness had seized him, but he disregarded the warnings of Nature and obstinately continued his course, until all at once his powers failed him, and, sick to death in body and in mind, he flung himself down by the side of a sheltering bush and scarcely cared whether he lived or died. Faithful to the last, patient of hunger and of thirst, strong in the blind, unreasoning love of his kind, with a fidelity that exceeds the friendship of man, and equals the purest love of woman, the dog Help, with silent sympathy, lay by his side.
The form of the wanderer lay beneath the forest tree, which swayed and rocked beneath the rising blast. With the moaning of the melancholy shrill-voiced wind, wailing all night as if in half-remembered dirges, mingled the cries of a fever-stricken man. John Redgrave was delirious.
With recovered consciousness came a wondering gradual perception of a hut, of the limited size and primitive design ordinarily devoted to the accommodation of shepherds. A fire burned in the large chimney; and the small resources of the building had been carefully utilized. By the hearth, smoking on a small stool, sat an elderly man, whose general appearance Jack seemed hazily to recall.
As Jack moved, the man turned round, with the watchful air of one who tends the sick, and disclosed the white locks and rugged lineaments of the old Scotch shepherd whom he had relieved at Gondaree, and to whose gratitude he had owed the gift of the dog Help.
“Eh! mon!” ejaculated the ancient Scot, “ye have been mercifully spared to conseeder your ways. I dooted ye were joost gane to yer accoont when I pickit ye up yonder, with the doggie howlin’ and greetin’ o’er ye.”