Part 26

“By Jove!” said Turner, “this is getting unbearable. I vote we get down and shelter for a spell under the lee of the bank.”

For all answer, Stanesby raised his whip and pointed ahead.

“There ‘s the hut,” he said. “Better get on.”

It was hardly distinguishable from the surrounding plain, the little hut built of rough logs, and roofed with sheets of bark stripped from the trees which grew in the river-bed. Down in the creek there was a waterhole, a waterhole surrounded by tall reeds and other aquatic vegetation which gave it a look of permanence, of freshness and greenness in this burnt-up land. But that was down in the creek, round the hut was the plain, barren here as elsewhere; no effort had been made to cultivate it or improve it, and the desert came up to the very doors. The only sign of human life was the refuse from the small household--an empty tin or two, fragments of broken bottles, and scraps of rag and paper, only that and the hut itself, and a small yard for horses and cattle, that was all--not a tree, not a green thing. The bed of the creek was their garden, but it was not visible from the house; its inmates could only see the desolate plain, nothing but that for miles and miles, far as the eye could see. So monotonous, so dreary an outlook, it was hardly possible to believe there was anything else in the world, anything but this lonely little hut, with, for all its paradise, the waterhole in the creek below.

Turner said nothing. It was exactly what he expected; he lived in a similar place, a place without a creek close handy, where the only water came from a well, and undiluted, was decidedly unpleasant to the taste. No, in his eyes Stanesby had nothing to grumble at.

The owner of this palatial residence coo-eed shrilly.

“Jimmy; I say, Jimmy!”

A long, lank black boy, clad in a Crimean shirt and a pair of old riding breeches, a world too big for him, rose lazily up from beside the house, where he had been basking in the sun, and came towards them.

Stanesby dismounted and flung him his reins, Turner following suit.

“All gone sleep,” said Jimmy, nodding his head in the direction of the hut, a grin showing up the white of his regular teeth against his black face.

“Come on in, Turner.”

The door was open and the two men walked straight into the small hut.

It was very dark at first coming in out of the brilliant sunshine, but as Turner’s eyes grew accustomed to the light, he saw that the interior was just exactly what he should have expected it to be. The floor was hard earth, the walls were unlined, the meagre household goods were scattered about in a way that did not say much for his friend’s hutkeeper, a shelf with a few old books and papers on it, was the only sign of culture, and a rough curtain of sacking dividing the place in two, was the only thing that was not common to every hut in all that part of Western Australia.

“Howling swell, you are, old chap! Go in for two rooms I see.”

The curtain was thrust aside, and to Turners astonishment, a girl’s face peered round it. A beautiful girl’s face too, the like of which he had not seen for many a year, if indeed, he had ever seen one like it before; a face with oval, liquid dark eyes in whose depths a light lay hidden, with full red pouting lips, and a broad low brow half hidden by heavy masses of dark, untidy hair, which fell in picturesque confusion over it. A beautiful face in shape and form, and rich dark colouring, and Turner started back too astonished to speak. Such a face! Never in all his life had he seen such a face, and the look turned on his companion was easy enough to read.

“Come here, Kitty,” said Stanesby in an unconcerned voice. “I want some dinner for this gentleman.”

Then she stepped out, and the illusion vanished. For she was only a half-caste, beautiful as a dream, or he who had not seen a woman for many a long day--he never counted the black gins women--thought so, but only a despised half-caste, outcast both from father’s and mother’s race.

Not that she looked unhappy. On the contrary, she came forward and smiled on him a slow, lazy smile, the smile of one who is utterly contented with her lot in life.

“Whew! So that ‘s our hutkeeper, is it?”

“Dinner, Kitty.”

The girl took a tin dish from the shelf and went outside. She walked well and gracefully, and Turner followed her with his eyes.

“By Jove!” he said, “talk about good looks. Why, Dick, you--”

“Hang it all, man,” said Stanesby. “I know well enough what you ‘re thinking. The girl is good-looking, I suppose, for a half-caste. The boss’s sister, old Miss Howard, found her among the tribe, a wild little wretch, and took her in and did her best to civilise her; but it wasn’t easy work, and the old lady died before it was done.”

“And you ‘re completing the job?”

Stanesby shrugged his shoulders.

“I saw her, of course, when I went in to the head-station, which wasn’t very often, and I suppose I told her she was a good-looking girl. She mayn’t understand much, but she understood that right enough, trust a woman for that. Good Lord! I never gave her a second thought, till I found her at my door one night. The little beggar had had a row with ‘em up at the house and came right off to me. It wasn’t any use protesting. She might have done worse, and here she ‘s been ever since. But she’s got the temper of a fiend, I can tell you, and it ain’t all skittles and beer.”

The girl entered the room and Stanesby began turning over his mail letters, making his companion feel that the subject had better be dropped between them. He had explained the girl’s presence, he wanted no comments from his old friend.

He filled his pipe and sat down on the only three-legged stool the hut contained, watching his friend seated on a box opposite and the girl passing in and out getting ready the rough meal. She was graceful, she was beautiful, as some wild thing is beautiful, there was no doubt whatever of that. Her dress was of Turkey red; old Miss Howard had had a fancy for dressing all her dark protegées in bright colours, and they had followed in her footsteps up at the station, and Turner mentally appraising the girl before him, quite approved her taste. The dress was old and somewhat faded, but its severe simplicity and its dull tints just set off the girl’s dusky beauty. Shoes and stockings she had none, but what matter? any touch of civilisation would have spoiled the picture.