"Here, where's my share?" he cried to his companion.

The other spurred his horse.

"Ride for it," he called back, as he dashed into the shadow ahead; and at the same moment the sounds of the others crashing through the bush behind them came to Tap's ears.

"Don't leave the mare--think of the pain she's in," the man on the ground cried out, as he strove to rise, and fell back, writhing in agony.

The sound of Tap's horse galloping away came to him with the sounds of others approaching. The light from the little fire Tap had made was just enough to show where the five pursuers reined up in time to miss the sudden drop in the ground. The man's eyes gleamed as he saw them, and he tried to pull out a revolver.

"Morton and I'll ride on; fix him up and follow," Peters shouted, as Murray, having dismounted, rushed across and seized the man's hand.

While Murray took the revolver from the man's pocket, the young selector threw enough twigs on the fire to make it blaze up brightly. Tony, noticing the state of the impaled mare, cried out--

"Poor brute! Here, lend me that pistol, Murray, till I put it out of misery."

The gleaming eyes of the injured man followed him as he went over to the mare and ended its agony. Murray stooped and tried to move him into a more easy position, and only then did the gleaming eyes leave Tony's face.

"d.a.m.n you!" he said, as he looked up for a moment at Murray.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A TANGLED SKEIN.

The man with the broken thigh lay still on the rough-made stretcher the men had put up for him before starting, and Tony, sitting on the other side of the fire, smoked in silence, not moving arm or leg lest by so doing he should attract the attention of the sufferer and so disturb him. For the same reason he did not replenish the fire, now burning down to a glowing ma.s.s of embers, which threw out a dull red glare and fell upon the form of the man where he lay, wrapped in a blanket, and played weird tricks of shade with the grizzly beard and the unkempt locks that strayed across the forehead.

Viewed either by firelight or sunlight, it was not a face to hold the glance, nor to call for a second look, unless the mind were morbid and animated by a love for the grotesque and devilish. Not even the unsteady, deceptive glare of the ember light, throwing streaks and patches of shade, ever changing and ever moving, across the ragged surface of the beard, could hide the square ma.s.siveness of the jaws and the curve of the hard yet sensuous lips. There was strength in the nose, strength and cruelty, and the straight black band that formed the heavy brow added to the repellent expression. Such a face it was that, looking at it, one understood the man turning with an oath upon those who sought to aid him in his misery, much as one can understand the fury of an imprisoned snake which turns back upon itself and plunges its fangs into its own flesh until it dies, the victim of its own malicious instincts.

As Tony sat watching, the sufferer turned his head from side to side languidly, and a moan of pain escaped his lips. Tony rose to his feet, gently, and the man, opening his eyes, looked at him. At once the expression of pain that was in them as the lids rolled up gave way to a flash of hate.

"You--d.a.m.n you!" the man muttered, as he set his teeth.

Tony stepped across to the stretcher and stooped down.

"Don't touch me," the man exclaimed fiercely.

"All right, old chap, I won't hurt you; only I thought I might make you more comfortable," Tony answered.

"You want to make me comfortable?" the man asked in a scoffing tone.

"Why, yes, if I can," Tony replied.

"Then see here," the man exclaimed. "I've never feared anything yet, and I don't begin now. I'm close up a dead 'un, but that's nothing. When I'm dead, I'm gone, and that's all about it. I know, and I don't give a shearer's curse for it, so don't you fancy I care. It's your maudlin gospel-millers who get scared at the chance of kicking. You understand?

That's the sort of man I am. I was never afraid and never sorry all my days, and I'm not going to begin now at the end of them."

His eyes were wild in their gleam and his lips twitched as he spoke.

"Yes; that's all right," Tony said soothingly. "You're as plucky as they make them, and I like you for it; so go slow and rest, because there aren't too many like you, and we don't want you to go."

The keen, bright eyes looked steadily for a moment, and then a forced laugh came from the man's lips.

"_You_ don't want me to go!" he said, with a sneer. "_You!_ Well, see here, young fellow. There's one thing I'd be sorry for--if I went without telling you what I've got to say."

"Keep it till the morning," Tony answered.

The man laughed again.

"I shall be fit for planting hours before the morning. You listen while you may. You'll be interested. Make the fire up, and sit down where you were. Then I'll talk--and don't interrupt, because I'm pushed for time."

To humour him, Tony threw some logs on the fire, and sat down again in his old place; and the man lay with his face turned towards him, the ruddy firelight shedding a brighter glow upon the unkempt hair and beard, and making the gleam of the eyes more vivid.

"I'll tell you the yarn like a story-book," the man began. "Once upon a time, there was a woman and two men."

Tony, sitting on the other side of the fire, leaned forward to reach a burning ember with which to light his pipe, and carelessly puffed at it, while the man stopped talking, and watched him with a look that was fiendish in its expression of hate.

"There's no d.a.m.ned interest about this yarn for you, I suppose," he said harshly, raising his head slightly from the rolled coat, which did duty for a pillow, and letting it fall again as his mouth contracted with the pain the movement caused him. "Well, the woman's your mother. Now go on smoking," he added, with savage emphasis.

Tony looked round quickly.

"Yes; you're waking up now," the man sneered. "I reckon you'll be interested now."

"How--what do you know----"

"You'll learn what I know when I've told you. Hold your jaw and keep your ears open. I've not much time to tell you, and I'd be sorry to go without finishing."

"Go on," Tony said quietly; "I shall not interrupt you."

The gleam in the eyes satisfied him that it was only delirium in the man's mind; there was only a coincidence in the fact that he spoke of what Nuggan had hinted at, and what lay nearest to Tony's heart--the question of his parentage and the dissimilarity between himself and the other members of the Taylor family.

"I knew you in a moment, knew you by the likeness," the man went on.

"She don't know where you are, but she thinks of me still--me, the man who----but that ain't part of _this_ yarn. The woman--your mother--was married, but she's separated from her husband for many years. Separated, I said, sonny. Separated's good, though you don't know it;" and he laughed unmusically as he watched the set face Tony had turned towards him.

"There were two men and one woman, and the woman was married to one of them, but they both were mad with love for her and mad with hate for each other. Do you know what hate means, you white-faced boy? Do you know what it is to hate a man so that you'd go through h.e.l.l to grip him by the throat and feel him choking under your hands; so that you'd tear your own heart out twenty times a day to grind his infernal life into grey d.a.m.nation? Do you know what it's like to hate, waking and sleeping, drunk or sober, always having one object in front of you that you want to reach and kill? Do you? Then you know what I've felt for years and years, day and night; what I've lived for, longed for, worked for."

The eyes that had gleamed before were blazing as though some of the glowing embers had been taken from the fire and placed in the man's head, and the face glistened with sweat as the muscles worked and quivered under the paroxysm of fury that held him.

"That's enough," Tony exclaimed, jumping up.

The man held up his hand.

"You've got to hear it, all of it, and then find her out and tell her--from me who's dying. If you don't take a dying man's message to your own mother----"

He stopped and looked at Tony, his face growing calmer the while.

"If you get excited like that----" Tony began.