Billy Hart: Going to Jericho.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 17, 24 April 1912, Page 55

Billy Hart: Going to Jericho.

By

E. N. G. POULTON

THERE are times in a man's life when there comes a hankering for something new — something that will change his outlook of

things, and sometimes something that will obliterate the past. Billy Hart had

a large desire to change his life—bury his past, in fact, and start afresh clothed with new ideals. And before the Main Trunk railway had carried settlement into the Waimarino —before the deepchested forest had sniffed the axe, he had wrung out of his memory the ups and downs of twenty vears of his life.

It was Sunday morning. Billy Hart lay a-bunk in the fo’c’sle miserable and unhappy. The night before he hadn t gone further than the hotel at the end of the jetty. The sting of the liquor ha had overnight left him unpleasantly r • morseful —he had “the blues,” and hi brain was a-whirl. He wished he were a: the bottom of the Red Sea. Even t o brightness of the day had no reviving effect on him. The large gay rays th?., the sun threw’ into the fo’c’sle tormented hint viciously. He tried to coax a little sleep, but that was impossible. So he lay a-bunk thinking, whilst some hor rible little incidents in his life tortured him relentlessly. For some years Hart had sailored in a email packet guilty of trudging the northern coast-line so long that now her engines shook the ribs of her frame with clock-work precision. The crew nicknamed her the “Katzenjammer Castle.” which was fully descriptive of her ailment. But Hart revered the old craft with a real warmth. He had got accustomed to her eccentricities. A month ago Hart could register his age at fifty. At two score and ten, he considered, a man commenced to curl himself into a groove —a groove most men found difficult to elude. He felt himself sliding into a groove, and the fearsomeness of it made him squirm. Vntnarried and without personal obligation, he had always pampered and satisfied all his whims and moods, common ainl uncommon. The life he had led in tin- past- had softened his will, but his fa. <■ still bore the litres of a determined man. M hen “turn-to” bells rang out on Monday morning, Hart was slow’ in rolling on deck. His mates were quick in recognising the change. “Keep yer pecker up, Billy, old sport. Ain’t she playin’ the game with yer?” shouted long MacCauley, as he twisted the lever to test the steam pressure in the winch. Hart took little notice of the remark. He was in a dream. His mind was so saturated with his plans for the future as to leave room for nothing else. l ut MaeCauley was something more tiim a friend of Hart’s- Both were men of opposite temperaments, and, singularly enough, mated like a couple of doves. So keenly cut was MacCauley with Hart’s morose condition, that he absentmindedly allowed the winch to rattle away at top-speed. Clouds of steani f> "in the exhaust soon enveloped the d'.'.k-, and mtuh of it floated into the cabin of Captain Maitland, who was in the act of donning his coat. This brought the old skipper out on-deck with ’•laliaracteristie promptitude. M hat’s the trouble, there, anyhow ?’’ mquired Captain Maitland, with a look Vi surprising expectancy. “Ain’t things As MaeCauley sprang to switch oft’ the *Kam. Billy Hart came out of the fo’i-’sle jauntily, with a swag tossed O'er his baek.' The sight of him cut Maitland’s speech abruptly.

Tossing a strange jerky nod to his mates as he passed, Hart climbed the bridge-deck steps and sidled up to Captain Maitland’s cabin. Captain Maitland stood up against his cabin door with a friendly look in one eye and an uncertain glare in the other. It was a typical way the old man had of surveying things that perturbed his mind. “Mornin’, Cap’un,” said Hart as he reached the cabin door. “Here's me papers—l’ll thank yer ter tiek ’em off now’, skipper. I want ter get on the road this mornin’.” The rest of the deck hands had bunched in a position that kept the Captain and Billy Hart in view.

"What’s up, Billy, old man?” said Captain Maitland in t-he softest tone he could squeeze into his voice. “Ain’t things what they should be?” Captain Maitland hadn't long to wait for a reply. Like a flash Billy Hart answered: “Sign me pepers. I'm off —renouncin' everythink and everybody—going to Jericho!”

The skipper was electrified. Hart was his right-hand plan, and the prospect of his leaving, and under such peculiar circumstances, made the coins in the old man's pockets jingle with the trembling of his frame. And, absent-mindedly, he signed the papers. Hart grabbed them, and, leaping on to the jetty, disappeared. Below the crew caught the skipper's words as he walked into his cabin: “Poor old ecentrie Billy!” Rodgers, along with Seymour, was returning to camp.- Darkness had come on before they cleared the bush, but it was a moonljght night, and it wasn't difficult to keep to the track—a track they had many times used. “Dan”—a cunning old retriever —led the way. hunting up a kiwi one moment and a pig the next.

When about two miles from the clearing. Rodgers and Seymour got the shock of their lives. Andy Seymour—the bigger man of the two—was still visibly trembling. His face, usually high-col-oured. was now’ ash grey. Both had seen something—something resembling the outline of a man, but ridiculously clad. They were men of iron nerve, and liked to display- it occasionally; but the strangeness of the figure that had scared them completely knocked them off their equilibrium.

Rodgers was a surveyor, and Seymour, when he wasn't filling pigeon with shot, carried the “furniture” for Rodgers. For six months they had been engaged in the AVainiarino pegging out sections un-

der contract with the Xew Zealand Government. That day- they had practically finished their work, and both were talkatively happy in anticipation of getting back to city life. It all happened suddenly. Coming along the track, Rodgers stopped abreast a heavy pine to knock the ash out of his pipe and refill. Seymour, with a bundle of instruments thrown over his baek, was a few yards behind humming an American ditty’. Presently’, “Dan,” who had been lost sight of for ten minutes, eame suddenly’ into view, bounding through the thick undergrowth yelping excitedly. “Say, Andy, there's something special going on here. Let's follow the old terrier. and see what he has on hand.” "Reckon we'll get along to camp ami see what Mae has in the pot," replied Seymour lazily. “Guess Daniel has run up against an old ‘tuskie’ and been assaulted, ami want's the aid of thejifte. Let the old beggar settle his own troubles: it’s his ‘funeral!’” Seymour had just unburdened himself of his swag when an apparition whizzed across the track a few yards from the

"Garn! It's another of yer pinkun’s'; get a little of this out of the wav —it’ll stop yer romancin’,” said MuCauley as he spread a heavy meal before Rodgers and Seymour. Seymour had given a glowing account of their adventure, but it was difficult to get MaeCauley to swallow anything of the 'remarkable man’ or of his manoeuvres. Matt anley would believe none of it. He had heard Seymour’s yarns before. He knew the amount of imaginary detail Seymour was want to put into everything. But. however, when Rodgers, who-e composition hadn’t even a small mixture of roman -e. started to wax excited about the - are. an illuminating interest expand'd MacCauley's eyes. “Queer, veiy qu> 1 r.” -aid Ma : anley unthinkingly tapping the howl of his pipe on the top containing the remainder of the evening meal. "It want’s lookin' into: wo should square it at the interests of natural history.’ lie suggested after deep meditation. That night the camp slept well, except ing Seymour. He was in 1 perfect nightmare half the night. I’nlovely ob-

Jeots sat on his bunk making horrible grimaces—mostly at him. Strange an noyiiig persons and things danced at intervals around the hut outside knocking unnecessary uioansome dirges out of the frying-pan hung at the doorway. And in the morning Seymour was limp. Tlie horrible experience had sucked the vitality ont of him. Rodgers rose early. Whilst MacjCauley arranged breakfast he got to ivork with a couple of turkey feathers, and threw a lot of energy into the oiling of his Lee-Enfield. Rodgers was most always pre-occupied. To-day lie was (more so. MacCuulej could barely get half-dozen words out of him. But his (brain was hatching a little scheme and, as boss of the camp, it was to be carried out when the details fitted to his liking.

After breakfast the full strength of the camp crossed the clearing and entered the bush. Seymour had recovered, but said little. His boastfulness of jierve had vanished. MaeCauley was gay and light of heart, lie kept up a hinging fusillade of palter which, if it fliild nothing else, prevented Sejmoirr irotn thinking too deeply of the wild Bright he had suffered. “Dan” was more than ordinarily fit. The only thing that troubled him (Usually was his appetite. To-day. however, it had been satisfied, for, before starting, lie had punished the balance of a rabbit and pigeon pudding which Macjt’auley had ruined with the ash out of jhis pipe. He kept ahead of the party prepared for big game. “It's just about here it all happened,” Baid .Seymour indicating to MaeCauley some broken scrub and a big red pine. , “Vgli! Where Andy lost his nerve’ Ixst's examine the spot for curios!” ibin-iped MaeCauley with raw sarcasm. 'Jlodgers had barely said anything. His mind was riveted on his miss on and his eye was keeping a good survey of tilings about him. He had picked up the semblance of a track, and with Solid determination ‘began trudging [through the thickly-timbered bush with its almost impenetrable undergrowth.

“What sort of a bloomin’ game is this you’ve worked me into?” MaeCauley asked of Sevmour.

“We're on the trail all right Ala«— Leave it to Rodgers.” “Say, Rod. let’s have a little idea of what’s goin’ on. Are we rabbiting or trying to snare a lion?” yelled MacCauley. whose ardour was beginning to wane.

Rodgers disregarded the remark. The absence of pigs in the vicinity told him that some habitation was near at hand. Besides, through a long line of pines—a couple of hundred yards away—he had observed a thin streak of smoke going up among the timbers whipped by an occasional tongue of flame.

“Get hold of "Dan,” Mae.; you’ve the steadiest hand in the gang and knock the bloomin’ bark out of him,” said Rodgers with a weight on his voice.

With as mu|eh stealth as possible Rodgers, rifle in hand, followed by his tail-man headed for the smoke.

From the outset, Rodgers and Seymour had expected a lively and exciting time. As for Rodgers, he wouldn’t have given the matter a serious thought had he not considered that the running to book of the “villain” of last night’s “tragedy” would give him as many thrills as a penny dreadful gave the small boy with a miiid yearning for sensation. To put it plainly. Rodgers expected to hunt out a madman —a runaway from the Navy terrified into barbarism. And, as a fact, he wanted his villain strong an t fearsome. Seymour knew well Rodger’s daring, and he expected trouble. At last they reached the fire. Alongside the smouldering embers there was n much-used billy-can three parts full-of water. ‘Rodgers put his hand into the billy, but withdrew it smartly.

‘VShe hasn’t long ’been off the flame, lads. Ah! what’s this I see?” He made for a big rimu hollowed out at the base half-a-dozen yards from the fire. Rodgers peered into the aperture and discovered a bunk. Gingerly he stepped inside. Lying on the bunk was a grimy piece of paper which .bore signs of having been much carried in a pocket.

'Well, I’m hanged, lads. I thought I had his measure. L ome and listen to his wheeze.”

Rodgers read these lines from the piece of paper with a smile lurking on his lips: —

"Civilisation’s a curse. It spoils a man’s life. My happiness has gone — blasted. My body wilt be found on the banks of the creek. —Bitty Hart.’’ At the reading of the signature MacCauley sprang forward, deathly pale, and clutched the pieec of paper nervously. “Good God —it’s Billy Hart! Poor old Billy!” (Straightway MaeCauley made for the creek —a few yards away. There he found the remains of the “remarkable man”—his old friend Billy Hart, with a bullet wound in the forehead and a gun across his chest. When Rodgers and Seymour arrived they found -MaeCauley kneeling lie-dde the prostrate (body with eyes full of tears.

spot where Rodgers was standing,, with "Dan” in hot pursuit.” So quickly did the figure pass—it came so unexpectedly —that Rodgers and Seymour were struck bewilderingly speechless. It took them both some minutes for their nerves to steady.

Rodgers was the first to speak. "I tell you, old man, he’s a mystery—an inscrutable mystery right enough,” hi said, with a beautiful imitation of coolness.

“Gad—what do you—what do ypu—make of it? Have we —have we—darted back to the dark ages?” said Seymour with jerky pauses. "But did you spot his hair. Andy? It’jS as long as old Kit's inane! Anyhow it can leap some, whatever it is.” "Dan” had jlist returned to the tract panting and snorting like a locomotive. He had been eluded in the chase. A' piercing glare from Rodgers made him whine uncomfortably. With difficulty Seymour picked up h’s swag. He was still painfully nervy. "I reckon we’ll skedaddle: we’ll be running into a bloomin' moa shortly, and be kicked into next year, if we linger about here!” he shouted to Rodgers with recovered nerve. As they walked along the track Seymour continually espied imaginary objects. The big shadows which the fnoon tossed promiscuously among the giant timbers got on his nerves, ami for the rest of the journey he stuck pretty close to Rogers. On reaching camp they found MaeCauley sprawling on bis bunk, asleep. An old pot on the fire was spluttering viciously at the red embers, and the old sandy eat was doing a wee" ’ “low’ some eels suspended from the hut.