THE DEATH COMPACT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2400, 26 November 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE DEATH COMPACT.

Mv chum, Tom iiarland. ami myself were thrown very much together during onr two years on an Australian cattle station, Wc hud few jiapcrs to read, and as we lay under the shelter of some friendly wattle tree “ tailing” cattle (1. r., herding them!, wo would often discuss subjects temporal or otherwise. Tom was a great believer in spiritualism, not as practiced by the charlatans wlm infe-t San Francisco and other cities hut. in its purest and highest form. Me believed most, (irmly that the souls or spirits of dead men could, under i.-rtnin c mditions, revisit the earth, and make their presence known to those they loved while on earth. Tom cited several cases where Im was positive that he had received cmmnnnicalimis from the spirit world, and was so pronounced in Ids opinions and convincing in his arguments that he half converted me. One day, as we were riding slowly homeward, having yarded onr cattle, he turned round in Ida saddle and said : “ Will ! I tell you what we’ll do, if you like. Let. us both swear positively right here that whichever of ns dies first, shall, the night after his death, at twelvoo’clock make known his presence to the survivor by three raps on the window; if we are away from each other at the time of death, by three raps on the forehead of the survivor. I pooh-poohed the idea as an absurd one, bat, Tom was so dead in earnest that I agreed at. last to the death compact. It was an odd, weird sight, there in the tropical twilight, with the monarch gum trees and iron barks above us and the Maqnarrie river lazily threading its way to one side of us, to see two young fellows dismount, and kneeling on a fallen log, solemnly swear to meet, in the way we had agreed to, after death. {Wo had arranged a code of signals by which to converse). How little then, as I gaily smoked my pipe of Barrett’s twist while we rode on home, did I imagine how aoon poor Tom Earlaud would bo called upon to fulfill his part of the contract. Two months passed and mustering time came. Fat steers were high in the Sydney market, and a band of some five hand rod had to be got together and sent off. Mustering time on an Australian cattle station is a busy one. As many cattle as possihie have to be gathered together on some selected spot—usually a small plain—the beasts wanted “cut out” and then taken to the home yards, the stockmen, from stations far and near, assisting and taking home their strayed cattle. Our range was a large one, and the cattle were so wild that it was found advisable to do a lot of “ moonlighting,” that is, holding a hand of quiet cattle near the centre of a plain, and riding under the shadow nf the brush, force the wild cattle, who are too timid to venture far from the sheltering timber, into the herd. At the time about which I write, there had been a long drought, and the parched plains were seamed with cracks some eight inches wide, and goodness knows how deep. This made the ridingcxtmnely dangerous, and many was the “cropper” we got. In fact, so used had wo become to coming a “ mucker ” that we treated it more as a joke than anything else. A few nights before the wind-up of the muster, Tom and I spied a large mob of wild cattle browsing some seventy or eighty yards from the brush. To intercept them before they gained the covert required a tremendous burst of speed, but wo determined to give them a trial, so, spurring our somewhat jaded horses, we made a rush along the edge of the timber. I was a length or so in the lead at the start, and had just managed to cut off the cattle when I looked round for Tom. He was nowhere to be seen. Leaving the cattle to go where they pleased, I hurried back as fast as possible to look after my friend. •Just around a turn in the brush I saw a riderless horse, and a little further on, there lay poor Tom. His face looked deadly pale in the moonlight, as lie turned those imploring blue eyes to mine and said slowly, but clearly : “ I’m gouc, Will. Remember the compact I” and then lapsed into insensibility. I took out my handkerchief, ami stuck it on a myall tree to guide me to the spot where Tom lay, and after taking the blankets from my saddle and putting them under his head, started at full gallop for our camp, some two miles distant. There I procured a spring waggon, and with the superintendent of the station and a stockman, started back to where I had left poor Tom. I can tell you we made pretty good time in the deceptive moonlight across those treacherous plains, where cracks and dead myall stumps were as plentiful as flies in summer. We found him still insensible, and after bathing his face with water we examined him as well as we eould to see if any hemes were broken. His arms and legs were all right, but his head was all twisted to one side, and when we lifted him into the waggon it still remained in that position. The stockman was at once sunt off for the nearest doctor thirty miles away, and I started hack to the home station, ten miles off, with my still unconscious friend. It was a sorrowful and tedious journey, for I could only go out of a walk where the ground was smooth, for fear of jolting.' At last I made home, and the superintendent and myself lifted Tom out of the wagon in a blanket, and placed him on his own bed in tlie house. It was then four o’clock, and already tho sun and moon were struggling for supremacy. I was sitting-by Tom’s bed chafing one of his cold hands, when suddenly ho heaved a heavy sigh, opened his eyes and stared blankly around. His eyes camrht mine ; the vacant expression loft, and for a moment the light, of reason lit. up his blue eyes, ns be whispered : “ Tho com-pact. Re-member.” His eyes then slowly closed, a slight tremor passed over ids frame, and tho spirit, nf as truesmiled a lad as ever crossed a saddle passed away. Unit day I was fit for nothing. My nerves were completely upset, and my mind full nf sorrow for tho loss of ray chum, and a half-fearful, half curious anxiety about the “ death-compact.” The doctor arrived, only to find his patient a corpse. He said deat.li was caused by dislocilion of tho neck, and accounted for his living so long from the fact that the spinal marrow had not been fractured. He declared that had ho been on hand soon enough ho could have probably saved Turn’s life by resetting the joint, and alter giving certificate of death from the above causes, left. At sunset that evening wo laid poor Tom to sleep under a lingo gum-tree, wrapped in his blankets, for we had no timber for a coffin. How slowly the hours passed with me, wailing until tho agreed-upon hour of twelve arrived, and how 1 started at the slightest sound ! Eleven o’clock came at last, half-past, and tke tension of my nerves was almost more than I could bear. At last the hour appointed came, and my whole frame shook with excitement as I eagerly listened to the three raps. An hour passed and still no sign came. I could stand tho strain no longer, and felt the hot room for the cool air outside, and as I walked to and fro in the moonlight I concluded that poor Tom’s spirit had indeed gone “to that bourn from which no traveller returneth.” It, is now twenty years since Tom Borland's dearh, and still no raps come.