Читать книгу Fugitive Anne, A Romance of the Unexplored Bush - Rosa Praed - Страница 4

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IT was between nine and ten in the morning on board the Eastern and Australasian passenger boat Leichardt, which was steaming in a southerly direction over a calm, tropical sea between the Great Barrier Reef and the north-eastern shores of Australia. The boat was expected to arrive at Cooktown during the night, having last stopped at the newly-established station on Thursday Island.

This puts time back a little over twenty years.

The passengers' cabins on board the Leichardt opened for the most part off the saloon. Here, several people were assembled, for excitement had been aroused by the fact that the door of Mrs Bedo's cabin was locked, and that she had not been seen since the previous day.

Mrs Bedo was the only first-class lady passenger on the Leichardt.

Three men stood close to her cabin door. These were Captain Cass, the captain of the Leichardt; the ship's doctor, and Mr Elias Bedo, the lady's husband. Just behind these three, leaning on the back of a chair which was fixed to the cabin table, stood another man evidently interested in the matter, but as evidently, having no official claim to such interest. This man was a big Dane, tall, muscular, and determined-looking, with a short fair beard and moustache, high cheek-bones, and extremely clear, brilliant, blue eyes. Eric Hansen was his name, and he was also a first-class passenger. Further, he was a scientist, bound on a mission of exploration in regard to Australian fauna, on which he had been dispatched by a learned society in his own country.

At the other side of the table, opposite the Dane, and apparently interested too, in the affair of Mrs Bedo's locked door, stood an Australian black boy in European dress--that is, in a steward's dress of white linen, with a napkin in his hand; for it had happened that Kombo, Mr and Mrs Bedo's aboriginal servant, had, with the permission of his master and mistress, taken the place of a Chinese boy, temporarily disabled by a malarial fever. These people were at the upper end of the saloon, near which was Mrs Bedo's cabin. At the lower end, the remaining passengers, with the purser and another steward, had congregated. The passengers were few; a Javanese shipping agent, a Catholic priest, a person connected with telegraphs, and two or three bushmen on their way back from Singapore or Europe, as the case might be. These were all waiting, with gaping mouths and open eyes, for the tragedy which they imagined would be disclosed. For it was openly suspected on board, that Mrs Bedo disliked and feared her husband.

Mr Bedo had been knocking violently at the cabin door, but no answer was returned. He was a coarse, powerful person, with an ill-featured face, a sinewy throat, and great, brawny hands. He had started in life as a bullock--driver and was now a rich man, having struck gold in the early days of Charters Towers Diggings--before, indeed, Charters Towers had become officially established.

"Something must have happened," said the doctor. "Hadn't we better--?" and he waited, looking at the Captain.

"There's nothing for it but to break open the door," said Captain Cass.

"Try it, Mr Bedo."

Elias Bedo put his huge shoulders against the wooden panelling, and as the Captain moved aside, the big Dane stepped forward, and laid his shoulders--smaller, but even more powerful than Bedo's--also against the white door. There was a crash; the door fell inward, and Bedo entered, the Captain following.

The Dane had drawn back again, and the doctor, about to follow, paused, seeing that Captain Cass pushed back the door, and drew the curtain within, across the opening.

Every word, however, uttered within the cabin could be heard by those immediately outside.

A coarse oath broke from Mr Bedo's lips.

"--She's gone."

"What do you mean?" said the Captain, in the sharp tone of alarm which heralds calamity.

"Can't you see?" cried the husband, in a voice more infuriated than despair-stricken. "I've always told you that those window-ports are dangerous. It would be nothing for a thin man, let alone a girl, to creep through that one. Damn her! I was a fool to let her have a cabin to herself. She has gone overboard, and swum ashore."

"That's impossible," said the Captain, curtly.

"How is it impossible?" said the husband. "Anne Marley was a northern girl, born and bred on the sea-coast. She knows every sort of water dodge, and can swim like a fish."

"That may be," replied the Captain, "but Mrs Bedo has been three years in England, and must be out of practice in swimming. And why--?" The Captain paused dramatically, and straightly eyed Elias Bedo. "Why, Mr Bedo, should your wife risk her life in swimming ashore? Was it because she wanted to get away from you?"

Elias Bedo scowled for a moment, and did not speak.

"Well," he said presently, "I suppose that most of the chaps on board have noticed that my wife is a bit cracky--a shingle loose, as we say in the Bush." He looked shiftily at the Captain, who made no reply. For he, as well as others on board, had remarked Mrs Bedo's silent, solitary ways, and had thought her a little eccentric, though everyone had attributed what was odd and unsociable in her manner to her obvious unhappiness. Mr Bedo went on, "I don't mean that her being queer, as you may say, is anything to her discredit. Women get like that sometimes, and it passes. I've had doctors' advice, and that's what I was told. It made no difference to me, except that I've known I must look after her. And that's why I say that I was a damned fool to let her have a cabin to herself. It was your doing, Cass; she got round you, and if harm has come to her, you'll have to answer for it." He turned furiously to the Captain, who met his angry gaze with unabashed eyes, making a little jerky movement of his chin.

"Very well," said the Captain, "I'm quite ready to answer for my share in the business, which is simple enough. When I have one lady passenger, and more cabins than are wanted, I naturally give the lady her choice. Mrs Bedo asked for a cabin on the cool side of the ship, and I gave it her. It was the only amends I could make for letting that rascally Chinaman cheat me at Singapore, so that we were put on short commons with the ice. But abusing me, Mr Bedo, won't help you to find your wife. She's on this ship, or she isn't; and if she is, there's no need for you to suppose she isn't."

Silence followed, except for the noise of pulled out drawers, and the metallic sound of curtains being drawn along brass rods, which proclaimed to those outside, that Mr Bedo was searching the cabin lest his wife should lie concealed in berth or locker. After a few moments, the Captain was heard again.

"There's another thing you've got to think of. Suppose that Mrs Bedo does swim like a fish, and is up to every water dodge, as you tell me--I'm not gain-saying it, for I know what a coast-bred girl can do--how is that going to help her against the sharks? And even if she did the distance safely, there are the Blacks. Mrs Bedo is a northern girl, and must have heard something of what the Blacks are, up on this coast."

"Cannibals," put in the doctor, who, unable to restrain himself, had drawn the outer curtain and pushed in the door. He stood on the threshold, and through the rift in the curtain, the Dane's face could be seen with an expression upon it of horror and perplexity; while beyond, showed the black boy, with a look upon his countenance half terror, half satisfaction, which to Eric Hansen, turning suddenly, and thus coming within view of Kombo, was incomprehensible.

"Come," said the Captain, "it's nonsense to take it for granted that Mrs Bedo must have thrown herself overboard, because she isn't in her cabin. I'll talk to the stewardess, and have the ship searched immediately."

He went out into the saloon, followed by the doctor, leaving Elias Bedo within the cabin, and the Dane on its threshold, between the parted folds of the curtain that screened the doorway. The stewardess, who had come up from her own quarters, was standing beside Kombo, the black boy; and to her the Captain addressed himself.

Her answers to his questions were clear enough. Mrs Bedo had gone into her cabin the afternoon before, complaining of a headache, and requesting that she should not be disturbed. The stewardess had nothing to do with taking in her dinner, but she had brought the early morning tea to the cabin door. Finding it locked, she had gone away, expecting to be summoned by--and-by. Mrs Bedo, however, had not rung her bell, and had not taken her bath as usual that morning. The stewardess went on to say that she had again gone to the cabin door, but still finding it locked, supposed that Mrs Bedo had had a bad night and was sleeping late. Mrs Bedo had often had bad nights, and several times had desired that she should not be awakened till she rang.

Kombo was questioned as to when he had last seen his mistress, and hesitated a moment, but answered explicitly.

"Mine been take dinner last night to Missa Anne, but that fellow no want to eat, and I believe Missa Anne cobbon sick like-it cobra."

Kombo made a melodramatic gesture, pressing both hands upon his woolly head. In speaking of his mistress, Kombo, who had known her from a child, never said Mrs Bedo, but always Missa Anne, "Missa" being, in the Australian blacks' vocabulary, the feminine of Massa as a prefix to the Christian name.

"And where did Mrs Bedo take breakfast?" the Captain went on.

"Mine no see Missa Anne at breakfast," said Kombo. "Mine wait--give Massa breakfast, but Missa Anne no come. Mine tell Massa, Missa Anne plenty sleepy, and no like me to make her jump up."

Captain Cass left the saloon, giving orders that every part of the vessel should be searched, though, as the stewardess remarked, there wasn't much sense in that, for it was not likely that Mrs Bedo would hide herself in the hold. The general opinion inclined to suicide, and there was much excited whispering amongst the passengers, who now followed the Captain on deck, leaving the saloon almost empty. Elias Bedo remained, still examining his wife's cabin, and Eric Hansen, the Dane, watched him from the doorway.