Читать книгу Red Lion and Blue Star - John Arthur Barry - Страница 9

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Meanwhile, above them in the prison over which her father reigned supreme, a man sat in the condemned cell waiting for death. From far inland they had brought him, captured by the Black Police, after much hunting of that wild land where the Big Lignum Swamp runs up nearly to the spurs of the Basalt Ranges.

"Combo" Carter, so called because of his habit of at times associating with the blacks, and for long spells living as one of a tribe, was still quite a young man—not yet three-and-twenty. Born at one of the border townships of the hinterland, even as a boy he had begun his career by gaining the reputation of an expert horse thief. Moving farther out, he and a gang of other rogues had "lived on the game," as they termed it, i.e., stealing stock and taking them South for sale. But this business proving too tame for a born desperado like Carter, he, one day, made his appearance in his birthplace bent on bigger mischief. Quite alone, mounted on a splendid horse, and with a couple of revolvers stuck in his belt; cabbage-tree hat at the back of his head; blue-shirt, riding-breeches and boots, he rode down the dusty single street of the little township that lay roasting in the fierce western sun. Halting in front of the weather-board branch bank of Cooksland, he swaggered inside, and at once covering the manager with his pistol, ordered him to "bail up."

But the other, instead of doing so, made a dash for a drawer in which was a revolver. Even as he moved, Combo shot him dead. Just then the eldest son, a boy of fifteen, entering, and boldly rushing at the murderer, fell over his father with a bullet through his shoulder. But now some of the townspeople, aroused by the shooting, were making for the bank; and Combo, seizing a packet of notes from the open safe, ran out and, keeping the people at bay with his pistols, mounted and rode away in safety.

The very next day he robbed and killed a travelling hawker, throwing his body into the tilted cart containing the latter's stock of goods, and setting the lot on fire. Then, driving the unfortunate man's horses before him, he had made back into the wild fastnesses of the Basalt Ranges, to live there a solitary outlaw, until, after months of weary tracking and trap-setting, at last the troopers, white and black, had made a surround and a capture.

Such was the man who sat in the condemned cell at Endeavor Goal—a human tiger, whose face, with its long, straight, thin-lipped mouth, high cheekbones, slits of restless black eyes that seemed always trying to see each other over the flat, fleshy nose, formed a fit index to the cruel, brutal character of its owner. A fair type, "Combo," of the back-blocks Bush-native, who fears neither God, man, devil, nor any living thing.

The condemned cell at Port Endeavor is merely a stone cage with the fourth side—the one that opens on to the broad corridor—formed of stout iron bars, in which is a wicket gate, just large enough to admit of one man passing through. And here on the night after the christening of the "Red Warder," sat Combo Carter, in the full glare of the electric light, watching with tigerish eyes the prison guard as he patrolled, rifle on shoulder, the length of the corridor, pausing each time he came opposite the bars to glance at the silent figure within.

The man, doomed to die three days hence, was not handcuffed. But a pair of strong though light irons, with a two foot chain between them, confined his legs. Since his conviction the prisoner had altered nothing from the same sulky indifference that had characterised his manner throughout. Rejecting with scorn the ministration of the chaplain, he either lay in his hammock dozing, or sat, as now, on the little wooden shelf fixed to the wall, and with that evil-looking, hairless, pallid face resting on his hands, watched in a crouching attitude through half-closed eyes the ceaseless pacing of the warder.

The latter, a young Englishman not long joined the force, had, when occasion offered, been able to do several little kindnesses to the convict, whose position, as one for whom life was getting so terribly short, appealed, in spite of his crimes, to a heart yet unhardened by much experience of prison sights and scenes. For the past few days he had suffered much from toothache, and even now his jaw was bound with a flannel bandage. Also, when he had relieved the last guard he had casually mentioned to him the fact of his having procured leave to go into the town that night and have the tooth drawn. His watch was nearly over—only another half-hour or so more—when passing the condemned cell, he saw something that drove all other thoughts out of his mind.

With a gurgling, choking sound, his legs apparently drawn up clear of the floor, Combo was hanging by a saddle strap he used as a belt from one of the iron hooks of his hammock. An older hand might have paused for a moment; for never, until now, had the prisoner shown the least inclination towards suicide, mouthing, indeed, with many oaths, his determination to "die game." But Ashton, laying aside his rifle, hurriedly pushed back the patent spring of the wicket, and in his eagerness almost tumbled into the cell. He had better have entered a tiger's. In a second the murderer was upon him with the whole weight of his long, lithe body bearing him down, and the sinewy hands gripping his neck like a vice, and throttling the life out of him even before they fell.

At last relaxing his fierce grasp, the prisoner rose and kicked heavily at the motionless thing that, with wide-open mouth and protruding eyes and tongue, stared blankly up at him. Then, giving a grunt of satisfaction as he saw that his work was complete, he searched the dead man's pockets, and soon finding what he sought, unlocked his leg irons. Then, peering into the corridor, he listened intently. But not a sound broke the silence except the purring of a distant dynamo. He, long ago, had heard the report of the nine o'clock gun from the battery on Flagstaff Hill, and knew that he had, therefore, not much time to spare. Rapidly and thoroughly he went about his business; until, once again, a sentry with muffled face and shouldered, rifle paced slowly up and down, pausing every now and then to glance into the cell where, over one of the straining hammock, a glimpse could be gained of a manacled leg. Suddenly his eye was caught by a white, square object on the floor of the cell; and, re-entering, he carelessly picked up a card and threw it into the hammock. If he had but known!