“Let me, boss,” someone said. “Bring him back alongside. Aye-a little more.”
Not daring to remove his gaze from the sulking cod, at any time likely to renew the fight, Dugdale saw a powerful black arm come into his vision holding the short stick crooked like a gaff.
The arm and stick suddenly moved with lightning swiftness. The small end of the gaff slid up into the gills, there was a heave that nearly upset the boat, and the great fish-which eventually scaled at forty-one pounds odd ounces-lay shimmering greenly in the gloom.
From the fish Frank Dugdale looked up at his timely helper, and beheld the very finest specimen of an aboriginal he had ever seen. The man was naked but for a pair of khaki shorts. The width of his chest, the narrowness of his hips, his powerful legs and arms now glistening with water, were magnificent. The colour of his skin was ebony-black, the colour of his thick curly hair snow-white.
He was old-Dugdale thought him to be near sixty-but the vices of white civilization had not touched him. When he spoke his accent was Australian. In his voice there was no trace of the tribe:
“That’s a bonzer fish,” he said. “I thought by the way he fought that he was a walloper and that you’d want a hand to land him.”
“Thanks for your help. I don’t think I would have landed him without it,” the fisherman conceded. “If you care to send someone along to the station in the morning for a part of it, you may.”
“Goodo! I’ll send my son, Ned. Any idea what the time is?” he asked.
“Must be about half past eight.”
“Thanks. I’ll get going. I got a meet on.”
And, without a splash, the aboriginal dived into the river, and disappeared in the gloom, now so profound that Dugdale only guessed he swam to the station side of the river.
The remainder of the tribe having gone back to their camp-fire, Dugdale disentangled the line and slowly wound it on the small length of board.
The boat was then in the gentle back-current of the bend, being imperceptibly taken up-river. Some few minutes were occupied in removing the spoon-spinner from the line: a few more in pensively cutting chips of tobacco for his pipe. Then, with it satisfactorily alight, he manned the sculls and slowly pushed himself forward into the main stream, and let himself drift down to the homestead.
He was a hundred yards from the landing-place when the first drop of rain, splashing the water near him, coincided with the sound of a thin whine abruptly culminating in a dull report similar to that made by a small boy hitting a paling with a cane.
It was a sound the like of which Dugdale had never before heard. It made him curious, but by no means alarmed. Without hurry he approached the landing-place, got out, and moored the boat.
It was while driving in the iron peg to fasten the boat that he was astonished to hear above him the gasp of human agony; and now, alarmed, he straightened up to listen further. There came a low thud; then silence.
For a moment he was paralysed, but only for a moment. In the pitchy darkness he clambered up the steep bank. At the summit the deluge fell on him. Again he listened. In the distance, towards the bottom fence of the garden, a dry stick cracked with a sound like a pistol-shot.
Immediately Dugdale stood there listening. Lightning flickered far away, but by its reflection he saw the narrow embankment on which he stood, he saw the dry billabong between it and thegarden, and he saw dimly the white-clad figure of a woman before the garden gate.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Slowly he went down into the billabong, feeling his way in the utter darkness. The lightning came again, flickering and brilliant. His gaze, directed on the garden gate, saw no white-clad figure. But the gate gave him direction in the darkness.
Still slowly he moved towards it. So dark was it that he almost ran into a gum-tree, his hands alone saving him from a nasty collision. Rounding the bole, he again took direction, and had just left when a glare of bluish light almost blinded him, and the instant following, thunder dazed him.
But, revealed by the flash, he saw right at his feet the form of the aboriginal who a short while before had helped him to land the great fish.
Calm suddenly settled upon the world and upon his mind as well. Producing a match-box, he struck a light and bent low. The whites of the staring eyes, fixed and glassy in the light of the match, and the terrible wound at the crown of the man’s head, left no room for doubt that the man was dead.
Yet the appalling discovery was not so acutely registered on Frank Dugdale’s brain as was the vision of a white-clad figure dimly seen at the garden gate not thirty yards distant.
Chapter Five
A Wet Night
FROM THEriver to the west boundary of Barrakee Station was about eighty-three miles. The area that comprised the run was roughly oblong in shape.
For administrative purposes it was divided into two unequal portions, the longer and western division being governed by George Watts, the overseer, who resided at the outstation at Thurlow Lake. The river end of the run was managed by the sub-overseer, Frank Dugdale.
But while Thorntonoverseered Frank Dugdale, he rarely instructed George Watts, who deserved, and had, his employer’s implicit faith. Every evening at eight the squatter repaired to his office, where he telephoned in turn to each of the boundary-riders in his division, obtaining their reports and outlining the work for the succeeding day. Even on Saturdays and days preceding holidays he rang up at the same time; for these men lived alone in their huts, and in the event of no reply being received to his ring it could be assumed that some accident had happened and that the man lay injured out in the bush. In the squatter’s time it had been necessary to send out search-parties on three occasions.
When he had finished with his riders, he habitually rang up Thurlow Lake to discuss with the overseer the conditions of the stock and kindred topics, andadvise on, or sanction, any matter that might be submitted to him.
He was in high fettle because George Watts had reported steady rain when communicated with on the evening Dugdale caught the forty-one-pound cod. And, since no rain had fallen for nine months, a good rain at this time meant green feed for the coming lambs, as well as an abundance of surface water, which would prevent heavy ewes having to travel miles to the wells to drink and back again to feed.
Whilst he still talked to the overseer, the rain reached the river, pouring in a continuous roar on the office roof of corrugated iron. From the telephone he turned to the task of writing several personal letters. He was so engaged when the door opened, and the dripping sub-overseer almost bounded in.
“Good rain, Dug, eh?” Mr Thornton said cheerfully.
He could not distinctly see Dugdale’s face until the latter entered the circle of light cast by the electric bulb over the desk. When he did observe the unusual expression on his subordinate’s face, he added: “What’s gone wrong?”
Dugdale recounted the landing of the fish, with the help of the strange black fellow, his return to the mooring-place, what he heard or fancied he heard, and his discovery of the dead man.
“Are you sure the man’s dead?” pressed Thornton.
“Quite.”
“We’ll go and examine him. Better get an overcoat.”
“Not for me. I can’t get wetter than I am.”
“Well, I am not going to get wet for all the deadabos in the Commonwealth,” announced Thornton. “Wait till I get a waterproof and a torch.”
He was back in a minute, and together, with the brilliant circle of the torch lighting them, they made their way past the tennis-court and down into the billabong to where the corpse lay.
A first glance settled the question of death.
“The rain coming just now will make things difficult for the police, Dug,” remarked Mr Thornton gravely. “Already most of the tracks have been washed out. But from those that are left it is evident that there was a struggle. Even those tracks will be gone by morning.”