"Good-bye."
CHAPTER XVI Summer Days
In this far country spendthrift November used up one by one its days. Each fiery noontide pulled the sun a little higher into the sky. His way was set in a wide field of blue, where seldom came one timid cloud to loiter an hour and float fearfully away. The season of the rains drew near; but as yet was no sign of the storm wrack, which drifts up evening by evening and drifts away—a herald of the deluge which presently shall burst upon the land. Night, hot and passionate, followed night, hot and passionate—each night roofed with high white twinkling stars. The Scorpion was falling from his lofty place, and Orion carried his sword and belt up from the horizon.
In the mornings of those long November days as the eight o'clock whistle blew shrill from the engine house, the men of Surprise Valley descended into the bowels of the hills, there to drive and to stope, to put up their rises and put down their winzes, to employ hammer and drill in the damp places and in the hot places, to push their trucks, to set their fuses, to batter with their spluttering machines until the day was worn out, and the five o'clock whistle called them to the surface. A strange land theirs of gloomy tunnelled ways; a land of shadows dancing before moving candles; a land of roofs which dipped and soared; a land of grim, cheerless walls and floors, patched with damp, where black holes opened out and ladders led up and ladders led down; a land of changing colours as here and here the green copper looked out from its hiding place. In such a country lived the men of Surprise Valley between the two whistles of the day.
At the house of Mr. Neville, manager of Surprise, November was accepted with small complaint. Many a dawn of day, every set of sun found Selwyn striding like an honest man into the bush. Lean and pinched he showed at early morning, hat tilted jauntily forward, cigarette end pushed out below his clipped moustache, trusty gun under hooked right arm. Leaner still he looked at evening, as he followed his long shadow across the ground, marching towards a gully in the hills, where one might blunder on the Lord knew what—kangaroo, wallaby, or even a python. A python, be Gad! at one's very back door!
Each November morning Mrs. Selwyn, after privately counting off one more day to departure, took a book to the verandah, and sat in the cool to read a little and observe a good deal more. She was discreetly watching for evidence of the truth of Hilton's news. It was more than likely that he had got hold of the wrong end of the stick; still it was worth while discovering if there was anything in the story. If there was truth, the girl certainly had no inkling of the matter. She looked a little tired and worried now and then; but this impossible country would wear anyone out. It was a shame to think of her buried here indefinitely. She must think about asking her down for the summer. Thank goodness half the stay was over. Their rainy season began next month, and she was going to make certain of not being cooped up here then.
Of that household only Maud Neville found November more miserly of the hours than October. She was living her tragedy alone.