Читать книгу Gentleman Jack, Bushranger - Don Delaney - Страница 5

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"Bail up!"

The words rang out sharp and clear as pistol shots and the driver of Cobb & Co.'s coach on the Southern road pulled up his horses with a jerk when he found himself looking into the barrel of a levelled pistol held by a heavily-bearded man, who sat his big bay horse in the moonlight with graceful ease.

Scared faces appeared at the windows of the coach and the horseman's voice rang out again.

"Keep your seats all of you," he roared. "The first one who stirs gets a bullet. Swing your horses round Jim and drive slowly off the road and up that track into the bush. There's a small clearing a quarter of a mile up the track; pull up there and remember that I've got you covered all the time."

The lumbering coach swung slowly round and the streaming horses were headed straight into the bush. The track was narrow and deeply rutted, also it was thickly strewn with logs and boulders, so that Jim, the driver, had some difficulty in piloting the clumsy vehicle. The broad expanse of undulating country was silvered with moonlight, but when the coach left the main road it was engulfed in the heavy timber, and the coach-lamps merely served to make the darkness visible.

So with much grinding, creaking and bumping the heavy vehicle advanced further and further from the main road and into the dark solitudes of the bush where that resolute horseman could work his will secure from interruption.

"That'll do, Jim. Pull up. Fetch out the mail bags and drop them on the ground. If you try any tricks on me you're a dead man."

The driver pulled out the mail bags and dropped them.

"Now, down you come. Stand with your back to that iron-bark, and don't move a step or you'll never move another."

Jim, the driver, complied in surly silence. He knew that he was "up against it."

The horseman rode up to the side of the coach and bending from his saddle turned the handle and wrenched the door open. "Stop lively," he shouted, "for I'm a busy man and I've no time to waste. Let's have a look at you."

There were subdued mutterings and protests inside the coach and then a stout elderly man with a very white face alighted and immediately began to fumble nervously in the pocket of his overcoat.

"Hands up!" roared the horseman, "and see that you keep them up. A mistake like that has cost many a man his life. Stand there!"

Mr. John Goss, a well-to-do storekeeper, who was travelling home after a business trip to Sydney, presented a tragically ludicrous appearance as he stood there under a bangalow palm, at midnight, with his podgy hands raised aloft to heaven in the attitude of Ajax defying the lightning. But he had too much regard for his skin to change his attitude.

"Next, please," shouted the horseman.

A sallow-faced Frenchman with a black pointed beard almost fell out of the coach. Jules Ducroz was a well-known gold-buyer and a man of some note. He was on intimate terms with Sir Francis Maynard, the superintendent of police.

"Ah, monsieur," said the horseman politely. "Charme de vous voir. Ayez la bonte de rester la."

The Frenchman scowled at his captor, but, took up his position beside Mr. John Goss, wondering who the cultured marauder could be who addressed him so easily in his own language.

"Hurry up, inside there," shouted the horseman. "Delays are dangerous, you know." He tapped the barrel of his pistol expressively. Mr. Herbert Henderson, travelling inspector of the Royal Bank, descended from the coach and surveyed the horseman with a cold stare.

"No good getting into a temper about it, Mr. Henderson," said the horseman affably. "I'm only going to transfer your gold reserve after all. Toe in line please."

Mr. Henderson did as he was told with a shrug of the shoulders and took his place beside the Frenchman. The fellow knew him, that was clear. Probably he also knew about those notes. Well, it couldn't be helped.

"Anybody else in there?" called the horseman, still holding his pistol levelled. It was a curiously impressive scene, with the four sweating horses standing quietly in their harness, Jim, the driver, with his back against the iron bark tree, the mail bags on the ground, and the three passengers side by side under the bangalow palm. Mr. John Goss, the storekeeper, being suspected of carrying some lethal weapon in his overcoat pocket, still had his hands up, but the other two men stood at attention with their arms by their sides.

"Now then, hurry up you inside the coach there, and let's have a look at you. My patience is nearly exhausted."

The bearded horseman sat on his horse, with his eyes fixed on the door of the coach, and the barrel of his revolver pointing straight into the interior. He half expected that the last passenger might prove to be a trooper.

And then he got the surprise of his life, for, out of the coach and into the circle of light thrown by the near side coach lamp stepped a tall fair girl, with flashing eyes and the manner of a princess.

Although surprised, the horseman was not disconcerted. "Kindly take your place beside the gentlemen, miss; I beg your pardon, but I'm afraid I have not had the pleasure of being introduced to you before. May I ask your name?"

"Hope Thellusson," replied the girl in a steady voice, looking the bearded horseman straight between the eyes. "What do you want of me."

"Your watch, purse, rings, and any other trinkets of value that you have about you," said the horseman briefly. The lamplight played upon his heavy red beard and showed something like a smile in his blue eyes. "Please stand beside Mr. Henderson, Miss Thellusson, I will attend to you directly."

The girl took her place beside the bank manager with a glance of ineffable scorn at the three male passengers and the burly driver, who had tamely allowed themselves to be captured by this solitary red-bearded horseman. Oh, that she had been a man! Surely she would have found a way of dealing with him instead of basely submitting to his will. Miss Thellusson's bosom heaved with emotion and a tear of rage rather than of grief rolled down her cheek.

"Sorry to inconvenience you, Mr.—Mr.——"

"Goss," said the storekeeper resignedly, "John Goss, of Goulburn."

"Thank you, Mr. Goss, you may put your hands down. What money have you in your pockets, Mr. Goss?"

Mr Goss put his hand into his capacious breeches pocket and pulled out a couple of sovereigns and a handful of silver which he held out to the horseman.

"No good at all, my dear sir," said the red-bearded man slipping off his horse, but still keeping the big pistol pointed in the direction of his row of victims. He hung his bridle over the branches of a tree and advanced on foot towards the luckless passengers.

"I'm surprised that you should offer me such a miserable sum, Mr. Goss; really it's not worthy of a man of your position. Let's see what else you have got."

With incredible swiftness the red-bearded man explored all the pockets of Mr. John Goss, but could extract nothing except a silver watch and a bunch of keys.

"Well, Mr. Gross," said the marauder ironically, as he transferred the two sovereigns to his own pocket and handed back the small change, "it seems to me that you go about half an ounce to the ton. Scarcely worth crushing, in fact. Take your change. You want it more than I do possibly. And, anyhow, I never take silver from anybody. Hullo, what's this?"

He pulled out a cheque-book from the inside breast pocket of the storekeeper and glanced at the forms. "Bank of Australia, Goulburn branch," he muttered. "Good enough, too. Ah, Mr. Goss, you are a good business man I see. Always bank your credit balance on the butt of the cheque. This butt shows that your balance at present is £142 10/. Is that right?"

"I suppose so," muttered the unfortunate storekeeper.

"Well, Mr. Goss, I really cannot accept two sovereigns as a sufficient offering from such a substantial business-man as yourself, so I must trouble you to write me a cheque for, let us say, one hundred pounds, payable to bearer, at once. I always carry pen and ink for these little emergencies."

The red-bearded man took a small flat ink-bottle from his pocket and a quill pen, which he carefully unwrapped from a piece of newspaper. Then placing the pen in Mr. Goss's hand and the pistol barrel to Mr. Goss's head, he curtly bade him write.

Mr. Goss sat down on a convenient log and wrote out the required cheque, which he signed with a bold flourish and a loud groan.

"Now, Mr. Goss," resumed the bushranger, "if this cheque is returned with the endorsement 'signature unlike' or for any other reason, I shall do myself the the honor of waiting upon you at your place of business and blowing your brains out."

He placed his pistol on the log for a moment while he folded up the cheque, and it was as he did so that the thing happened.

M. Jules Ducroz, the well-known gold buyer, had over two hundred ounces of gold in a chamois-leather bag in his valise, and he had a well-founded conviction that the red-bearded man, for all his ironical raillery, was perfectly aware of that fact. The Frenchman was an adept at the exercise called "la savate," which may be roughly translated as "boxing with the feet." He had been meditating over his unpleasant position and had formed a tentative plan.

In the same instant that the red-bearded man put down his pistol on the log in order to fold up the cheque extracted from the storekeeper, the Frenchman struck his blow for freedom. He struck it with his feet, turning sharply round and letting fly with an upward and backward kick at the red-bearded man's jaw.

But M. Ducroz was not quick enough by a fraction of a second. He was a bit out of practice and he was also carrying a bit too much fat. The consequence was that the bushranger saw the kick coming, and ducked like lightning. With the same movement he snatched his pistol from the log and brought the butt down with a crash on the Frenchman's skull. M. Ducroz sank down in the ferns temporarily stunned and incapable of taking any further interest in the proceedings.

Mr. Henderson, the bank inspector, and Jim the driver, both started forward, but stopped when confronted by the red-bearded man, who seemed to have grown several inches taller, and whose eyes were blazing with anger.

"Take warning by that," said the bushranger, pointing to the motionless form that lay among the ferns with a thin stream of blood trickling down the white forehead. "The next man who tries any funny business with me will be shot dead."

He made Mr. Henderson unlock his valise and take out a large bundle of notes—£5,000 worth—that the inspector was taking back to his head office to be destroyed, arrangements having been made to cancel them. The red-bearded man took possession of the notes. He also opened the Frenchman's valise, and took from it the chamois leather bag, bursting with nuggets. He relieved Mr. Henderson of all his money and his gold watch and chain and diamond pin. Then he handed him back the silver coin. Finally he turned his attention to Miss Thellusson.

"I'll trouble you for your jewellery, miss," said the red-bearded man.

Quietly the girl took off her rings, a gold bracelet, and a small diamond brooch and handed them to the spoiler. A diamond encrusted watch with a thin gold chain followed the other trinkets. She placed them all in the open hand of the red-bearded man without a word.

He looked her straight in the eyes then. "You can take back anything you choose of these things," said the red-bearded man, "because I like your spirit."

"I will accept no favors from you," said the girl, with a glance of imperturbable disdain.

The Frenchman in the ferns gave a low moan, but it was the only sound that broke the tense silence for a few seconds.

"By the Lord, madame, you'll accept one favor from me at any rate," said the red-bearded man, with a new note of mastery in his voice. And he stepped up to the girl, placed his arm around her waist and kissed her on the lips.

"Your cur," said the girl and struck him with the open hand across the mouth with all her force.

The red-bearded man's face went white for a moment and then he laughed lightly. "You shall have all your trinkets back for that," he said. "All except one, that is to say, I must keep something for a souvenir of that blow. By the Lord, Miss Thellusson you're the bravest woman I ever met."

He selected from the little heap of trinkets a lady's signet ring set with a bloodstone, which bore for device a lion's head with the terse legend "Fear Not." Then he placed all the remaining articles of jewellery on the log near which the girl was still standing, silent and contemptuous.

Taking three halters from the coach, the red-bearded man methodically tied up Mr. John Goss, Mr. Herbert Henderson, and Jim the driver. He also gagged them so scientifically that it was impossible for any of them to utter a word. The Frenchman was only stunned and would soon be all right, but it was not necessary to bind him.

Going to the coach, he unfastened the traces and took out the horses. A few cuts of the whip sent them scampering down the narrow track by which the coach had come up from the main road. "It'll take Jim an hour or two to round them up as soon as he gets free," muttered the red-bearded man to himself.

Then he coolly abstracted the big silver watch from the pocket of the trussed-up storekeeper and presented it to the girl.

"Miss Thellusson," he said very politely, "may I ask you to be my timekeeper. In my profession a man's finer feelings are apt to get blunted, yet after all I have treated you with some consideration. In return I put you on your honor not to release these men until the lapse of two hours after I have gone. It is now exactly two o'clock in the morning. At four o'clock you may cut the cords with the sheath knife which the Frenchman carries in his belt, but which he was not game to draw."

"And what if I refuse to wait for two hours before releasing these men?" said the girl haughtily.

"If you release them any earlier," said the red-bearded man thoughtfully, "and if they succeed in getting into Goulburn before daybreak and notifying the police, it is quite possible that I may be caught."

"Is that all?" asked the girl.

"And hanged," said the red-bearded man, with a smile in his blue eyes. "Good-bye."

He mounted the big bay horse and cantered down the bush track, leaving Hope Thellusson, with the storekeeper's silver watch in her hand, staring at three men securely roped and a fourth man groaning in the ferns with a nasty scalp wound, and the little heap of her own jewellery glinting in the moonlight.

She looked down the bush track after the red-bearded man, but saw nothing. Yet far away, she heard the faint cadence of his horse's feet, and listened till the sounds died away altogether. It came into her mind that it would be a pity if they hanged the red-bearded man.

It was exactly four o'clock by the storekeepers watch when Hope Thellusson roused herself from her reverie and saw the Frenchman sitting up in the ferns and surveying her with a dazed expression.

Then she got the sheath knife from him and cut the bonds of the shamefaced three.

Jim, the driver, found his horses after a long delay, and it was half-past ten o'clock when the coach at last drove into Goulburn.

Mr. John Goss lost no time in getting to the bank. He ascertained from the manager that half an hour earlier a red-bearded man riding a big bay horse had called at the bank and cashed a cheque for £100, drawn by Mr. Goss in favor of bearer. The cheque was quite in order, and of course was paid without demur. The man took it in gold. He also asked for gold for ten £10 notes and the paying teller was able to oblige him.

Mr. Goss felt horribly dizzy and sat down in the manager's office to rest himself. As soon as he recovered he explained the circumstances to the astonished banking official, and in five minutes' time Chief Constable Gordon, summoned by special messenger, was closeted with the pair.

"The biggest robbery that has ever taken place in this district," was the terse verdict of the chief constable, when he had heard all the facts. "Gentleman Jack again."