Rolf Boldrewood - Nevermore

The sergeant rose slowly to his feet and gazed upon the young man, now breathless and held on either side by the myrmidons of the law. His brow was flushed and red, but there was, at present, no mark of disfigurement.

'That was one for you, Dayrell,' said the mocking voice of Kate Lawless, as she stood by her brother, with a jeering smile on her lips. 'My word, Lance Trevanion, you got home then if you never get the chance of another round. Why don't you slip the bracelets, sergeant, and have it out man to man? I'll see fair play. You've a lot of science, we all know, but I'll back Lance for a tenner. What do you say?'

The expression on the sergeant's face had never varied from the cold and fixed expression which it had worn when he made the charge against Lance, but now he relaxed visibly and wore a comparatively cheerful air.

'You are a good straight hitter, Trevanion,' he said, 'and I like a man all the better for being quick with his hands. I didn't count on your showing fight, I must say. But you never can tell what a man will do the first time he's shopped. You'll know more about it before we've done with you.'

'Good God!' said Trevanion, 'you don't surely mean to say that you believe I have had anything to do with stealing horses? I may have been deceived. I begin to suspect that I have, but how many men have bought stolen horses on the diggings without a thought of anything dishonest? What reason have I either, a man with more money than he knows what to do with?'

'You can tell all that to the Bench,' said the sergeant coldly. 'All I know is that I find you in possession of a stolen horse and the associate of horse-stealers. You must stand your trial like other men.'

Had the mountain suddenly rolled down, filled up the river, and pulverised the camp, Lance's astonishment could not have been more profound. He groaned as he felt the touch of the cold iron, and then sullenly resigned himself to the indignity.

'Now, Miss Tiger-cat,' said this modern presentment of Nemesis, ' you know pretty well where the horse you were riding came from, and where the one you were leading ate his corn a week ago. I must take them with me, but you can have your side-saddle. Whether you're brought into this racket depends on yourself, you understand me .' And with a meaning glance the sergeant turned to his men. 'One of you take the prisoners to the lock-up. Shoot either of them if they try to run. The other take these three horses and secure them at the camp stable. I'll remain here till you come back to watch these horses in the yard.'

The little procession moved on. The fettered prisoners – now linked together – the three led horses. The number was swelled by dozens of idle or curious spectators to nearly a hundred before they reached the temporary but massive wooden building which did duty as a gaol; and therein, for the first time in his life, Lance heard a prison key turned, and a prison bolt shot, upon – himself.

Words are vain things, after all. Who can essay to describe – be it ever so faintly traced – the mingled shame and surprise – the agony and the sorrow – the wrath and despair of the man unjustly imprisoned? Think of Lance Trevanion, young, gently nurtured, ignorant, save by hearsay, of crime or its punishment, suddenly captured, subjected to durance vile, in danger of yet infinitely greater shame and more lasting disgrace. Haughty and untamed – so far removed by race and tradition from the meaner crimes from which the lower human tribes have for ages suffered, it was as if one of the legendary demon-lovers of the daughters of men had been ensnared and chained. Ceaselessly did Lance Trevanion rave and fret on that never-to-be-forgotten night. The dawn found him pale and determined, with set face and drawn lips. Every vestige of youth seemed to have vanished. Years might have rolled on. A careless youth might have been succeeded by the mordant cares of middle age. So changed was every facial line – so fixed the expression which implied settled resentment of an outrage – even more, the thirst for revenge!

When he became – after hours of half-delirious raving – sufficiently calm to reflect upon and realise his position, nothing could be clearer than the explanation. Scales seemed, metaphorically, to have fallen from his eyes. How blind! How imbecile had he been, thus to walk into the trap with his eyes open! This , of course, was what the girl Tessie had meant when with such disproportionate earnestness she had warned him not to go on this ill-fated journey. She knew what Ned Lawless's past had been, what any 'business' of his was likely to be; and Kate – double-dyed hypocrite and false-tongued jade that she was – how she had lured him to his doom. Perhaps not exactly that, for, of course, his utter ignorance of their villainy would appear on the trial, if it went so far, and as to buying a stolen horse it was next to impossible to avoid that – numbers of people he knew had done so; and then, what motive could she have for enticing him to Balooka, when she must have known the tremendous risk to which she was exposing him? She, surely, had no reason to wish to injure him? Surely, surely, not after her words, her looks, her changes of voice and expression, all of which he knew so well! But throughout, and above and below all his thoughts, imaginings, and wonderings, came with recurring and regulated distinctness – What a fool I have been, what a fool, what a thrice-sodden idiot and lunatic! Now he knew what the friendly warning of Hastings meant. Now he understood Mrs. Polwarth's dislike and Jack's blunt disapproval of that intimacy.

It was easily explained. He had had to buy his experience. He had paid dearly for going to that school. And who were, proverbially, the people who would learn at no other? Fools, fools, again fools!

The day had passed without his touching the simple food which had been placed before him. At sundown the constable who came to see that his prisoner was all right for the night, pitying his evident misery, and accepting the non-absorption of food and drink as an incontestable proof of first offence, tried to persuade him to 'take it easy,' as he expressed it.

'You've never been shopped before, that's seen. Well, it's happened to many a good man, and will again. Don't go back on your tucker. You've a long ride before you. We shall start back for Ballarat to-morrow. If you get clear, you're all the better for not losing heart. If you don't, it won't matter one way or the other.'

Lance nodded his head. Speech – to talk as he did when he was that other man , the man who was a gentleman, free, proud, stainless, who never needed to lower his eyes or doff his hat to any living being – to him now speech was impossible.

The policeman looked at him, turned again, and shook his head and walked out, locking and bolting the door mechanically.

'Dashed if I can make out that case,' said the trooper to himself. 'Dayrell knows why he arrested that young fellow, I don't. Any child can see he didn't stand in with that crowd. They've had him soft, selling him a cross horse as any man might have knowed was too good for them to own on the square; but if he gives up the horse they can't touch him, I should think. He floored Dayrell though, and that'll go agin him. The sergeant can make it pretty hot for them as he don't fancy.'

Early next morning, half an hour after a pannikin of tea and a plate of meat surmounted by a large wedge of bread had been placed in his cell, Lance Trevanion was taken out and placed upon a horse. He was helped into the saddle, the feat of mounting in handcuffs being rather a difficult one to the inexperienced captive, as any gentleman may discover by tying his hands together and making the attempt. He was permitted to hold the reins by means of a knot at the end, and, with some limitation, to direct the animal's course. But a leading-rein was buckled to the snaffle, by which a mounted trooper led his horse. Ned Lawless, also handcuffed, was similarly accommodated. One trooper rode ahead, one behind. Neither of the prisoners' horses were such that if they had got loose and essayed to escape, would have had much chance by reason of superior speed. They were leg-weary screws, and were, indeed, nearly due for superannuation, the goal of which would be reached when they had carried (and risked the lives of) a few dozen more prisoners. Dayrell remained behind at Balooka. Possibly he had some reason for the delay, but if so he did not disclose it.