CHAPTER XVII. THE MURDERER'S DREAM.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1991, 11 April 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XVII. THE MURDERER'S DREAM.

It bad been a day of great excitement at Marranga, and over the township the round moon shone on a generally- shared and great disappointment — Dan Lyons had not been arrested. Every man who had turned out to •earoh for the lost child had tried to hunt up the murdersr, bat the sun had set and the moon riMD vainly so far as the arrest of that fated man. At the cottage, oat in the garden, someywhere standing, and seated on the edge of the •randan, were several of the parties you hay« become interested in, I hope, during the relation of this story. Mr. Pollard was there, and Leonard Prosser with him. Little Daniel was standing leaning against the wall of the bonse at a little distance, and in a spot from which he could watah his mother's movements to and fro between kitchen and sick chamber. Tady was talking to the boy and looking in Daniel's face with a sad pity, and the boy had confided to the honest Irishman more of his thoughts and feelings on the late events than he would have told to even his mother. To his mother, do I say ? Dan would not have trusted her with one idea now ; he had lost all confidence in her, and lost it for ever. It is a sad state of affairs between a mother and child when the latter gets old enough to reason and suspect the actions of the author of his being, but it had come to that with Ellen Griffiths and her son Daniel. The boy was getting on for thirteen years old, and he had not reached that age without having heard many sneers striking at Ellen, passing bis disreputable old grandmother's lips. Now that he knew his mother had actually visited that vile murderer and secured his escape, Daniel began to recall these sneers and hints, and to shrink within himself at what thsir meaning may have been. Dan did not tell Tady Connor anything of his suspicions against his mother, but he said enough to mak« the Irishman so sorry for the lad as to be anxious to sever him entirely from Marranga. Evzkt now and then as they were speaking the boy would look toward the door of the room where his dead companion lay. Constable Loader stood there silent and grimlooking, for his disappointment was keen, and he hadyet to impart his want of suocess to Charlie Ellis, who he knew would not give him good words for it. It wasn't his fault, oertauily— he had done all a man could do ; bat in all probability the impossible would be npeottd from him. Loader had said a word or two of this to little Daniel, and the boy was determined that if he could trace Dan Lyons through his mother, he would tell Loader first of it, for Loader had been kind to him, and it seemed |ost to him, who had the trouble of search all day, that he should be in the success, if success there was, and Dan was thinking of this even while Tady was telling him how he and Mr. Leonard were going away as soon as the claim was worked out, and what a lovely land Ireland was. 11 Dan," said a woman's voice near the boy, and he started as he turned quickly to her, for he knew it was his mother. " Come here, I want to speak to you, my son." Ellen Griffith was standing in the shadow of the verandah as she spoke, and she had a dark shawl folded around her.

" Dan," she said, " if any one asks you foi me, tell them I've gone up to do a message for Miss Fanny." "To the farm, mother ? Why it's milea away." " I'm only going up to grandmother's, Dan, only I don't want any one to know I'm on Mount Roban. I don't think any one will miss me ; but if they do, say I'm gone on a message. I won't be long, and Nurse Brown is with Mrs. St. Herrick." She was gone, and the boy stood where she had left him. Gone to grandmother's 1 and then it flashed across the boy's memory like a gleam of lightning, that there were hidingplaces on Mount Roban I Old Nan did not know that her cave was no mystery to little Daniel ; but I should like to know what place to climb, or what rock or tree or cave could ever remain a mystery long to Australian Bush boyhood. One dty, two years ago, Daniel had traoked a wombat into that cave, and explored the corners where the bones and the skull and rubbish were, and he had once frightened the hag herself half out of her senses with a deep groan, just as she was pretending to call up the devil with her pretended soroery. Dan Lyons was hidden on Mount Roban 1 That was the idea that flashed upon him so vividly. He stood still for a minute to think, and then he went to the side of the glumlooking constable, and whispered to him — " Mr. Loader, don't tell any one just now ; but I think I know where Dan Lyons is." " What ( " almost yelled the constable in his surprise. " Hush ! I'm not sure you know, but I want you to come and see. Can you without telling any one?" " What makes you think this, Daniel ? You must tell me more than that ; I can't be going off on another wild goose chase just when we are expecting Ellis baok." " I am sorry you can't ro, for I'm sure he's there 1 " the boy said decidedly. " I can't tell you how I know, but I do know, and I will ask Tady Connor to go with me." " Stop a minute, Dan," the policeman returned, as he laid hia hand on the boy's arm, " let me ask you a question or two. If the villain is where you think oould one man arrest him ? " " Dan Lyons is only one man and we, you and I, would be two," the boy contemptuously replied. "I am only twelve years old, but if I met Dan Lyons alone I am sure that God would help me to kill him." " Me boy," Tady said softly, " do you think the little girl that's lyin' cowld inside would like to hear you saying that you would make a murderer of yerself." "No, she wouldn't, and I didn't mean that, but I'd die myself to see Dan Lyons punished for killing her." " I will go with you, in the name of God, wherever you go, Daniel, and if these fingers of mine can help to twist a knot round the villain's throat they'll be strong, I know." It was Loader who spoke, ana Tady Connor looked wonderingly at him. " Where does the boy want you to go ? " Tady asked. " To take Lyons ; he thinks he knows where he is. Come on then, my boy, we will have a look at this cave of your'a." " Daniel 1 " cried Tady, in a hoarse, low voice, " don't go ! don't go, as dragging a man to the gallows is no work for a tender-hearted boy like you." " I'm not tender-hearted. I hate Dan Lyons. Didn't the ? " and he pointed toward the room where Resignation lay so still, " she used to call me her friend, and I would go up Mount Roban the darkest winter night that ever fell to see the handcuffs on her murderer's wrists. If you do not come I will go myself." " There is a fate in it," murmered the Irishman. "We can't let the child go himself; let us both go with him at all events." - It might have been nearly eleven o'olock when little Daniel, leading his companions by a circuitous way, so as to avoid any chance of meeting his mother, olimbed up the wooded sides of Mount Roban. The moon was on their backs as they climbed, and when they crossed a patch of grass on whioh no trees grew, their shadows fell short and strangely distorted on the hill before them. " Do you see that rock a little to the left ? " the boy asked, as they paused on one of these grassy spots, over whioh hung the great branches of a yellow box, "the cave is just behind it, and if you look among the trees farther on you will see the light in granny's window. Now you can wait here until I oome baok and tell you if he is there." "If he sees you, my poor boy, there mightn't be time for you to cry out," Tady said anxiously. " Let us all go together." " No, we would make too much noise. There is no fear for me, I wont let him see me until you are there." "The boy is right, let him go," was Loader's decision. " These young nativeborn chaps are like native oats in the bush — there is no fear of him coming to harm." Daniel knew every rod of the way he had yet to go, most of his young life having been spent about Nan Griffith's hut. He had treed 'possums on hundreds of old trees up Mount Roban, knew the warm haunts of the snakes by the sunny rocks, and had friends with many a pretty lizard as it crawled from warm, mossy nooks on the fallen logs. And not always alone— even as his heart beat wildly with his eager excitement and hope of being the one to bring Dan Lyons to his doom, the boy's eyes filled as he remembered Resignation as his dear lost companion in many an expedition in search of wild flowers on the skirts of old Mount Roban. Light of foot, the boy quickly reached a rock, from which he had but to atop and crawl through the bußhes that screened the opening from the cave which Nan Griffiths had pointed out to the hunted man. He paused there, and drew baok, for he heard some sounds that were not of the leaves or the breeze, of the sleeping birds, or the gentle 'possum. There was a sharp rustle of branches that were parted by two fierce hands, and the boy was face to face with Dan Lyons, only a thin screen of leaves between them. In the pale moonlight the man's awful face gleamed with an unearthly whiteness, yet the shadows under the overhanging eyebrows seemed dark as an even starless midnight. The thin lips wero closed tightly, and there was something so terrible in the eyes that looked out and down the mountain to the valley beneath that little Daniel shuddered and shrank from it. Dan Lyons had no hat on. The marks of the tonsure were still visible on his head, but long thin looks straggled on his temples, and were blown aoross his sunken cheek by the damp nightbreeze. He looked up to the stars and the moon, down to the township, aorosß to the cemetery, and to Murder Gully, and he muttered a curse as his eyes rested on the last. "He has kept his word so far, damn him ! " he groaned out between his olenohed teeth, " and now it ib not the brat's faoe I see but his ! " With these words he let the branohes rustle into their places and disappeared, leaving the boy to orawl back as he had come to tell his companions of his sucoesa. "I could almost have touohed him," he said, with such triumph, " but it will be fsr safer to get him in the cave, and I oan show the way 1 " " Tell us something about the inside of that cave," the cautious polioeman said, and Daniel did his best to desoribe the inclined path inside, and the sudden turn behind the screen of bushes. "What are our plans?" Loader asked,

turning to Tady Connor. " Can I oount on you, Connor? " " You can so," the little Irishman replied, " but don't let the lad in it at all." " I'll be in it, in spite of you," was Daniel's firm declaration ; " you oan't go without me, and I'll hold the wretch while Mr. Loader puts the irons on bis wrists." " There's a fate in it 1 " Tady groaned, repeating himself, " so go on, and I will be at your heels." When the murderer re entered the cave, after looking through the screen of bushes down on the fair sweet world beneath him, he dosed himself with poison again, and flung his gaunt form upon the rough bed Nan had supplied him with. The bed, suoh as ir. was, lay on the floor of the oave — if the wretched man stretched out a hand on either side of him it lay upon the cool sand ; with either he oould have gathered the pale green ferns that flung their delioate fronds almost to his pale face. But he did not feel the sand, or pluck the ferns— he slept and dreamed. The murderer's last dream 1 Oh, merciful heavens, that such a thing can be 1 That a being on whose soul lies the curse of him that sheddeth blood should dream of happy faces, and the innocent laughter of children 1 That he should feel the br«ath of the sweet sea on his faoe, and the touch of loving lips on his oheekl That he should feel caressing woman's arms around him, and the perfume of the roses on her bosom in his nostrils, and awake— oh 1 pity of it — awake, to feel the felon's irons on his wrists 1 Dan Lyons dreamed that he was a boy again on the green mountains of hie Irish home. He heard the whisper of the waters of the river near which he was born, and the rustle of the sedges upon its banks. It seemed to him that he heard his mother oall him by the name " Dan 1 " and that somehow or other the notes of a lark away up in the blue sky were mingled with and drowned his mother's voice. Anon he was in a great ship on a wide sea, and he saw the white crests of the blue waves breaking and rolling down the waters like sheets of white fire under the silvery moon. There was music and dancing and kind words ; there were girls' bright eyes and girls' sweet smiles. It seemed to the miserable man that he was sailing on a never-ending sea of happiness, and that there was no such thing as sorrow in the wide world around him. And then he tossed his arms in his sleep and grated his set teeth, as he mumbled awful, broken words. Great gnarled trees seemed to be stretohing their crooked limbs all round him, leaving no hope for his escape. Trees without a single leaf on them, and so pallid and dead that they seemed like serpents, slowly and hopelessly entwining him. He struck at them with his hands and cursed them with his lips, and he awoke shrieking out to find faces bending over him that were not the faces of his dream, and when he struggled to rise he found he oould no longer touch the sand, for there was steel on his wrists 1 Even then the poor boy Daniel flung himself on the man, and held or tried to hold down his struggling limbs. " Tie him 1 tie him down or he will get away 1 Tie him t tie him I " Daniel's face was scarlet with a great passion ; the fury of an awful excitement burned in his eyes, and as Tady dragged him from the helpless man he shrieked all the louder, " Tie him down 1 tie the murderer down I " Tie the murderer down I That "awful ory was heard by two women up above in Nan Griffiths' hut. One of the women was Daniel's mother, and as she reocgnised her eon's voice, and knew that Dan Lyons was taken, she fell forward on her faoe at her mother's feet. " It was as neat a job as ever I saw done 1 " Constable Loader exclaimed ; " and now Dan Lyons will you go quietly with us, or must we drag you down the hill like a bundle of firewood?" "Let me empty that bottle," was the hoarse reply, " and then you can take me to hell if you like."