THE LAST OF EASU
I
They knew that Easu was married, but they were hardly prepared for the dirty baby crawling on the verandah floor. Easu had seen them come through the gate, and was striding across to meet them, after bawling something in his bullying way to someone inside the house: presumably his wife.
Outwardly, he was not much altered. Yet there was an undefinable change for the worse. He was one of those men whom marriage seems to humiliate, and to make ugly. As if he despised himself for being married.
Easu ignored the baby as if it were not there, striding past into the house, leading the newcomers into the parlour. It was darkened in there, to keep out the flies; but he pulled up the blind: “t’see their blanky fisogs.” And he called out to the missus to bring glasses.
The parlour was like most parlours. Enlarged photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, the Red parents, in large pine frames, on the wall. A handsome china clock under a glass case on the mantelpiece, with flanking vases to match, on fawn-and-red woollen crochet mats. An oval, rather curvy table in the middle of the room, with the family Bible, and the meat under a fly-proof wire cover. The parlour was the coolest place for the meat.
Easu shifted the red obnoxity, wire cover and all, to the top of a cupboard where some cups and saucers were displayed, and drew forth a demijohn of spirit from the back of the horsehair sofa, in front of the window.
Mrs. Easu came in with the glasses. She was a thin, pale-faced young woman with big dark eyes and her hair in huge curling pins, and a hostile bearing. She took no notice of the visitors: only let her big what-do-you-want eye pass over them with distaste beneath her bald forehead. It was her fixed belief that whoever came to the house came to get something, if they could. And they were not going to get it out of her. She made an alliance with Easu so far. But her rather protruding teeth and her vindictive mouth showed that Easu would get as many bites as kisses.
She set the glasses from her hands on to the table, and looked down at Easu under her pale lashes.
“What else d’ye want?” she asked rudely. “Nothing. If I want anything I’ll holloa.”
They seemed to be on terms of mutual rudeness. She had been quite an heiress: brought Easu a thousand pounds. But the way she said it — a tharsand parnds! — as if it was something absolutely you couldn’t get beyond, made even Easu writhe. She was common, to put it commonly. She spoke in a common way, she thought in a common way, and she acted in a common way. But she had energy, and even a vulgar suffisance. She thought herself as good as anybody, and a bit better, on the strength of the tharsand parnds!
“‘S not eddication as matters, it’s munney!” she said blatantly to Lennie. “At your age y’ought t’ave somethink in th’ bank.”
He of course hated the sight of her after that. She had looked at him with a certain superciliousness and contempt in her conceited brown eyes, because he had no money and was supposed to be clever. He never forgave her.
But what did she care! She jerked up her sharp-toothed mouth, and sailed away. She wasn’t going to be put down by any penniless snobs. The Ellises! Who were the Ellises? Yes, indeed! They thought themselves so superior. Could they draw a tharsand parnd? Pah!
She felt a particularly spiteful, almost vindictive, scorn of Jack. He was somebody, was he? Ha! What was he worth? That was the point. How much munney did he reckon he’d got? “If yer want me ter think anythink of yer, yer mun show me yer bank-book,” she said.
Easu listened and grinned, and said nothing to all this. But she had a fiery temper of her own, and they went for one another like two devils. She wasn’t going to be daunted, she wasn’t. She had her virtues too. She had no method, but she was clean. The place was forever in a muddle, but she was always cleaning it, almost vindictively, as if the shine on the door-knob reflected some of the tharsand parnd. Even the baby was turned out and viciously cleaned once a day. But in the intervals it groped where it would. As for herself, she was a sight this morning, with her hair in huge iron waving-pins, and her forehead and her teeth both sticking out. She looked a sight to shudder at. But wait. Wait till she was dressed up and turning out in the buggy, in a coat and skirt of thick brown cord silk with orange and black braiding, and a hugely feathered hat, with huge floating ostrich feathers, an orange one and a brown one. And her teeth sticking out and a huge brooch of a lump of gold set with pearls and diamonds, and a great gold chain. And the baby, in a silk cape with pink ribbons, and a frilled silk bonnet of alternate pink and white ruches, mercilessly held against her chains and brooches! Wait!
Therefore when Jack glanced at her from a strange distance, she tossed her bald forehead with the curling-irons, and thought to herself: “You can look, Master Jack Nobody. And you can look again, next Sunday, when I’ve got my proper things on. Then you’ll see who’s got the munney!”
She seemed to think that her Sunday gorgeousness absolutely obliterated the grimness of her week of curling pins. “Six days shall thou labour in thy curling-irons.” She lived in them. They kept her hair out of the way and saved her having to do it up all the time.
And it may be that Easu never really looked at her in her teeth and pins. That was not the real Sarah Ann. The real Sarah Ann swayed with ostrich feathers; brown silk, brown and orange feathers, reddish hair, brown eyes, pale skin, and a stiff, militant, vulgar bearing that wasn’t going to let anybody put it over her. “They can’t put me down, whoever they are!” she asserted. “I consider myself equal to the best, and perhaps a little better.”
This Easu heard and saw with curious gratification. This was his Sarah Ann.
None the less, he was no fool. He saw the baffled, surprised look Jack turned upon this grisly young woman in curlers and teeth, as if he could not quite enter her in the class of human beings. And Easu was enough of an Ellis to know what that look meant. It was a silent “Good God!” And no man, when his wife enters the room, cares to hear another man’s horrified ejaculation: “Good God!” at the sight of her.
Easu wanted his wife to be common. Nevertheless, with the anomalousness of human beings, it humiliated him and put acid in his blood.
“Have a jorum!” said Easu to Tom.
“I s’d think you’re not goin’ to set down drinkin’ at this time of day,” she said, in her loud, common, interfering voice.
“What’s the time of the day to you?” asked Easu acidly, as he filled Tom’s glass.
“We can’t stop. Ma’ll be expecting us back,” said Tom.
Easu silently filled Jack’s glass, and the wife went out, banging the door. Immediately she fell upon the baby and began to vituperate the little animal for its dirt. The men couldn’t hear themselves speak.
But Easu lifted up his chin and poured the liquor down his throat. He had shaved his beard, and had only three days of yellowish stubble. He smacked his lips as he set down his glass, and looked at the two boys with a sarcastic, gloating look.
“Find a few changes, eh?” he observed.
“Just a few.”
“How’s the place look?”
“All right.”
“Make a pile up North?”
“No.”
Easu grinned slowly.
“Thought you didn’t need to, eh?” he asked maliciously.
“Didn’t worry myself,” said Tom.
“Jack Grant come in for a fortune?” Easu asked, looking at Jack.
“No,” said Jack coldly. There was something about Easu’s vulgar, taunting eyes, which he couldn’t stand.
“Oh, you ‘aven’t!” The pleased sneer was unbearable.
“How’s Ma?” asked Easu.
“All right,” said Tom, surprised.
“Don’t see much of her now,” said Easu.
“No, I saw the gate was blocked up,” said Tom. “Looks like she blocked the wrong gate up.”
“How?”
“How? Well don’t you think she’d better have blocked up the gate over to Pink-eye Percy’s place?” — Easu was smiling with thin, gloating lips.
“Why?”
“Why? Don’t y’ know?”
“What?”
“Don’t ye know about Monica?”
Jack’s blood stood still for a moment, and death entered his soul again, to stay.
“No. What?”
“Didn’t Old George say nothing to y’ in Perth?”
“No!” said Tom, becoming sullen and dangerous.
“Well, that’s funny now! And Aunt Alice said nothing?”
“No! What about?”
Easu was smiling gloatingly, in silence, as if he had something very good.
“Well that’s funny now! Think of your getting right here, and not having heard a thing! I shouldn’t have thought it possible.”
Tom was going white under his tan.
“What’s amiss, Red?” he said curtly.
“To think as you haven’t heard! Why it was the talk of the place. Ross heard all about it in Perth. Didn’t you come across him there? He’s been in the Force quite a while now.”
“No! What was it he heard about?”
“Why, about Monica.”
“What about her?”
“D’y’ mean to say you don’t know?”
“I tell you I don’t know.”
“Well!” and Easu smiled with curious, poisonous satisfaction. “I don’t know as I want to be the one to tell you.”
There was a moment’s dead silence. The sun was setting.
“What have you got to say?” asked Tom, his face set and blank, and his mouth taking on the lipless, Australian look.
“Funny thing nobody has told you. Why it happened six or seven months since.”
This was received in dead silence.
“She went off with Percy when the baby was a month old.”
Again there was nothing but dead silence.
“Mean she married Pink-eye Percy?” asked Tom, in a muffled tone.
“I dunno about marryin’ him. They say he’s got a wife or two already: legal and otherwise. All I know is they cleared out a month after the baby was born, and went down south.”
Still dead silence from the other two. The room was full of golden light. Jack was looking at the fly-dirts and the lampblack on the ceiling. He was sitting in a horse-hair arm-chair, and the broken springs were uncomfortable, and the horsehair scratched his wrist. Otherwise he felt vacant, and in a deathly way, remote.
“You’re minding what you’re saying?” came Tom’s empty voice.
“Minding what I’m saying!” echoed Easu rejoicingly. “I didn’t want to tell you. It was you who asked me.”
“Was the baby Percy’s baby?” asked Jack.
“I should say so,” Easu replied, stumbling. “I never asked her, myself. They were all thick with Percy at that time, and I was married with a family of my own. Why I’ve not been over to Wandoo for — for — for close on two years, I should think.”
“That’s what was wrong with Ma!” Tom was saying, in a dull voice, to himself.
“I wonder Old George or Mary didn’t prepare ye,” said Easu. “They both came down before the baby came. But seemingly Old George couldn’t do nothing. Percy confessing he was married, and trying to say he wasn’t to blame. However, he’s run off with Monica all right. Ma had a letter from her from Albany, to say there was no need to worry, Percy was playin’ the gentleman.”
“She never cared for him,” Jack cried.
“I dunno about that. Seems she’s been mad about him all the time. Maybe she waited for you to come back. I dunno! I tell you, I’ve never been over to Wandoo for nigh on two years.”
Jack could not bear any more. The golden light had gone out of the room, the sun was under the ridge — that ridge ——
“Let’s get, Tom!” said Jack rising to his feet.
They stumbled out of the house, and went home in silence, through the dusk. Again the world had caved in, and they were walking through the ruins.
Ma was upstairs when they got home, but Katie had got the tea on the table, and Lennie was in. He was a tall, thin, silent, sensitive youth.
“Hullo, you two wanderin’ Jews!” he said.
“Hello, Len!”
“Come an’ ‘ave y’ teas.”
Lennie was like the head of the house. They ate their meal in silence.
II
Tom and Jack and Lennie still slept in the cubby, but Og and Magog had moved indoors. The three of them lay in the dark, without sleeping.
“Say, young Len,” said Tom at length, “what was you after, letting Monica get mixed up with that Pink-eye Percy?”
“Me? What was I after? How could I be after ‘er every minute. She snapped my ‘ead off if I looked at ‘er. What for did you an’ Jack stop away all that time, an’ never write a word to nobody? Blame me, all right! But you go ‘avin’ ‘igh jinks in the Never-Never, and nobody says a word to you. You never did nothing wrong, did you? An’ you kep’ an eye on the fam’ly, didn’t you? An’ it’s only me to blame. ‘F course! ’Twould be! But what about yourselves?”
This outburst was received in silence. Then a queer, sullen snake reared its head haughtily in Jack’s soul.
“I shouldn’t have thought she’d have cared for Percy,” said he.
“No more would nobody,” replied Len. “You never know what women’s up to. Give me a steady woman, Lord, I pray. Because for the last year Monica wasn’t right in ‘er mind, that’s what I say. It wasn’t Percy’s fault. It was she made ‘im. She made ‘im as soft as grease about ‘er. Percy’s not bad, he’s not. But women can make him as soft as grease. An’ I knows what that means myself. Either there shouldn’t be no men an’ women, or they should be kept apart till they’re pitched into the same pen, to breed.”
Tom, with Honeysuckle Lucy on his conscience, said never a word.
“Is it true that Percy’s got a wife already out east?” asked Jack.
“He say he has. But he wrote to find out if she was dead. At first he said he wasn’t to blame. Then he said he was, but he couldn’t marry her. An’ Monica like a wild cat at us all. She would let nobody write an’ tell you. She went over to Reds, but Easu had just got married, an’ Sarah Ann threatened to lay her out. Then she turned on Percy. I tell you, she skeered me. The phosphorus came out of her eyes like a wildcat’s. She’s bewitched or something. Or else possessed of a devil. That’s what I think she is. Though I needn’t talk, for maybe I am myself. Oh, mates, leave me alone, I’m sick of it all. Lemme go to sleep.”
“What did she go over to Easu’s for?”
“God knows. She’d been nosing round with Easu, till Ma got mad and put a stop to it. But that’s a good while since. A good while afore Easu married the lovely Sarah Ann, with her rows o’ cartridges on her forehead. Oh Cripes, marriage! Leave m’alone, I tell you.”
“Funny she should go to Easu’s, if she was struck on Percy,” said Jack.
“Don’t make me think of it, sonny!” came Len’s voice. “She went round like a cat who’s goin’ t’ have kittens, an’ nobody knew what was amiss with her. Oh Jehosaphat! Talk about bein’ born in sin. I should think we are. But say, Jack! Do you suppose the Lord gets awful upset, whether Monica has a baby or not? I don’t believe He does. An’ I don’t believe Jesus either turns a hair. I don’t believe He turns half a hair. Yet we get into all this stew. Tell you what, makes a chap sick of bein’ a humin bein’. Wish I grew feathers, an’ was an emu.”
“Don’t you bother,” said Jack.
“Not me,” said Len. “I don’t bother! Anyhow I know all about the parsley bed, ‘n I don’t care, I’d rather know an’ have done with it. ‘S got to come some time. I’m a collarhorse, I am, like ol’ Rackett said. All right, let me be one. Let me be one, an’ pull me guts out. Might just as well do that, as be a sick outlaw like Rackett, or a softy like Percy. Leave m’alone! I’ve got the collar on, an’ the load behind, an’ I’ll pull it out if I pulls me guts out. That’s the past, present an’ future of Lennie.”
“Where is Rackett?”
“Hanged if I know. Don’t matter where he is. He wanted to educate me an’ make a gentleman of me. Else I’d be nothing but a cart-’oss, he said. Well, I am nothing but a cart-’oss. But if I enjoys pullin’ me guts out, let me. I enjoys it all right.”
Tom lay in silence in the dark, and felt scared. He hated having to face things. He hated taking a long view. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, was his profound conviction. He hated even to look round the next corner.
“Say, Jack,” came Lennie’s voice again. “You always turns up like a silver lining. I got your cheques all right. Fifty-seven pound. That’s only a pair o’ socks, that is, compared to Gran’s store. I had to have a laugh over that stockin’, you’re the angel that stood in Jacob’s doorway an’ looked like a man, you are. I’d love it if you’d come an’ live with me an’ Ruthie.”
But Jack was thinking his own thoughts. It had come over him that it was Easu who had betrayed Monica. The picture of her wandering across like a cat that is going to have kittens, to the Red’s place, and facing that fearful, common Sarah Ann, and Easu grinning and looking on, made his spirit turn to steel. Pink-eye Percy was not the father of that baby. Percy was as soft as wax. Monica would never have fallen for him. She had simply made use of him. The baby was Easu’s.
“Was the baby a girl or a boy?” he asked.
“A girl.”
“Did it look like Percy?”
“Not it. It didn’t have any of Percy’s goo-goo brown eyes or anything. Ma said it was the spitten image of Harry when he was born.”
III
Jack decided what he would do. In the morning he would take the new horse and set off south, to Albany. He would see Monica and ask her. Anyhow he would see her.
He was up at dawn, saddling his horse. He told Tom of his plan, and Tom merely, remarked:
“It’s up to you, mate.”
Tom was relapsing at once into the stiff-faced, rather taciturn Australian he had been before. The settled life on the farm at once pulled him to earth, the various calamities had brought him down with a bump.
So Jack rode off almost unnoticed, with a blanket strapped behind his saddle, and a flat water-bottle, a pistol in his belt, and a hatchet and a little bag of food tied to the front saddle-strings. Something made him turn his horse past the place where he had fought Easu, and along the bush trail to the Reds’ place.
The sun had come up hot out of a pink, dusty dawn. In an hour it would be blazing like a fiend out of the bare blue heavens. Meanwhile it was still cool, there was still a faint coolness on the parched dry earth, whose very grass was turning into yellowish dust. Jack jogged along slowly, at a slow morning jog-trot. He was glad to be in the saddle again.
As he came down the track, he saw the blue smoke rising out of the chimneys of Easu’s house, and a dark movement away in one of the home paddocks. He got down for the gates, then rode on, over to the paddock fence, and sat there on his horse, watching Easu and Herbert and three blacks, sorting out some steers from a bunch of about thirty cattle. They were running the steers through a gate to a smaller enclosure.
There was a good deal of yelling and shouting and running and confusion, as the bunch of young cattle, a mixed little mob of all colours, blacks and black-and-white and red and red-and-white, tossed and swayed, the young cows breaking away and running nimbly on light feet, excited by the deep, powerful lowing of the stock bull, which had wandered up to the outer corner of the fence under a group of ragged gum-trees, and there stood bellowing at the excitement that was going on in the next paddock.
Jack kept an eye on the bull, as he sat on his uneasy horse outside the shut gate, watching. Near by, two more horses stood saddled and waiting. One of them was Easu’s big black mare with the two white forefeet. The other was a thin roan, probably Herbert’s horse.
Herbert was quite a man, now: tall and thin and broad, with a rather small red face and dull fairish hair that stood up straight from his brow. He was the only one of the brothers left with Easu. He was patient and didn’t pay any attention to that scorpion of a Sarah Ann. Sam and Ross had cleared out at the first sight of her.
It was Herbert who did most of the running. Easu, who stood with his feet apart, did most of the bossing — he was never happy unless he was bossing, and finding fault with somebody — and the blacks did most of the halloaing. Easu didn’t move much. He seemed to have gone heavier, and where he stood, with his feet apart and his bare arm waving, he seemed stuck, as if he were inert. This was unlike him. He was always stiffish, but he used to be quick. Now he seemed slow and wooden in his movements, his body had gone inert, the life had gone out of it, and he could only shout and jeer. He used to have a certain flame of life, that made him handsome, even if you hated him. A certain conceit and daring, inside all his bullying. Now the flame had gone, the conceit and daring had sunk, he was only ugly and defeated, common, and a little humiliated. He was getting fat, and it didn’t suit him at all.
He had glanced round, when Jack rode up, and it was evident that he hated the intrusion. Herbert had waved his arm. Herbert still felt a certain gratitude — and the blacks had all stopped for a moment to stare. But Easu shouted them on.
At last the sorting out was done, and the bars put up. The bull went bellowing along the far fence. Herbert came striding to the gate, his smallish red face shining, and Jack got down to greet him. The two shook hands, and Herbert said:
“Glad to see you back.”
He was the first to say he was glad to see Jack back. Even Len had not said it. The two men stood exchanging awkward sentences beside the horse.
Easu too came through the gate. He looked grudgingly at Jack and at Jack’s horse. Jack thought how ugly he was, now his face had gone fatter and his mouth with its thin, jeering line looked mean. The alert bird-look had gone, he was heavy, and consumed with grudging. His very healthiness looked heavy, a bit dead. His light blue eyes stared and pretended to smile, but the smile was a grudging sneer.
“Where ‘d you get y’ ‘oss?”
“From Jimmie Short, in Perth.”
“Bit long in the barrel. Making a trip, are y’?”
And Easu looked with his pale-blue eyes straight and sneering into Jack’s eyes, and smiled with his grudging, mean mouth. Jack noticed that Easu had begun to belly, inside his slack black trousers. He was no longer the spruce, straight fellow. Easu saw the glance, and was again humiliated. He himself hated his growing belly. He looked a second time, into Jack’s eyes, furtively, before he said:
“Find out if it was right what I was tellin’ y’?”
Jack was ready for the insult, and did not answer. He turned to Herbert asking about Joe Low, who had been a pal of Herbert’s. Joe Low also was married, and had gone down Busselton way. Jack asked for his directions, saying perhaps he might be able to call on him.
“What, are y’ goin’ south?” put in Easu.
Jack looked at him. It was impossible not to see the slack look of defeat in Easu’s face. Something had defeated him, leaving him all sneering and acid and heavy. Again Jack did not answer.
“What did you say?” Easu persisted, advancing a little insolently.
“What about?”
“I asked if y’ was goin’ south.”
“That’s my business, where I’m going.”
“Of course it is,” said Easu with a sneer and a grin. “You don’t think anyone wants to get ahead of you, do you?” He stood with a faint, sneering smile on his face, malevolent with impotence. “You’ll do Percy a lot o’ hurt, I’ll bet. I wouldn’t like to be Percy, when you turn up.” And he looked with a grin at Herbert. Herbert grinned faintly in echo.
“I should think, whatever Percy is, he wouldn’t want to be you,” said Jack, going white at the gills with anger, but speaking with calm superiority, because he knew that enraged Easu most.
“What’s that?” cried Easu, the grin flying out of his face at once, and leaving it stiff and dangerous.
“I should think Percy wouldn’t want to be you, let him be what he may in himself,” said Jack, in the cold, clear, English voice which he knew infuriated Easu unbearably.
Easu searched Jack’s face intently with his pale-blue eyes.
“How’s that?” he asked curtly.
Jack stared at the red, heavy face with the smallish eyes, and thought to himself: “You pig! You intolerable white fat pig!” But aloud he said nothing.
Easu smiled a defeated grin, and strode away heavily to his horse. He unhitched, swung heavily into the saddle, and moved away, then at a little distance reined in to hear what Jack and Herbert were talking about. He couldn’t go.
Herbert was giving Jack directions, how to find Joe Low down Busselton way. Then he sent various items of news to his old pal. But he asked Jack no questions, and was careful to avoid any kind of enquiry concerning Jack’s business.
Easu sat on his black horse a little way off, listening. He had a rope and an axe tied to his saddle. Presumably he was going into the bush. Herbert was asking questions about the North-West, about the cattle stations and the new mines. He talked as if he would like to talk all day. And Jack answered freely, laughing easily and making a joke of everything. They spoke of Perth, and Jack told how Tom and he had been at the Governor’s ball a few nights ago, and what a change it was from the North-West, and how Tom enjoyed himself. Herbert listened, impressed.
“Gosh! That’s something to rag old Tom about!” he said.
“When you’ve done gassing there!” called Easu.
Jack turned and looked at him.
“You don’t have to wait,” he said easily, as if to a servant.
There was really something about Easu now that suggested a servant. He went suddenly yellow with anger.
“What’s that?” he said, moving his horse a few paces forward.
And Jack, also white at the gills, but affecting the same ease, repeated distinctly and easily, as if to a man-servant:
“We’re talking, you don’t have to wait.”
There was no answer to this insult. Easu remained stock motionless on his horse for a few moments. Was he going to have to swallow it?
Jack turned laughing to Herbert, saying:
“I’ve got several things to tell you about old Tom.”
But he glanced up quickly. Easu was kicking his horse, and it was dancing before it would take a direction. Herbert gave a loud, inarticulate cry. Jack turned quickly to his own horse, to put his foot in the stirrup. Just as quickly he refrained, swung round, drew his pistol, and cocked it. Easu, once more a horseman, was kicking his restive horse forward, holding the small axe in his right hand, the reins in his left. His face was livid, and looked like the face of one returning from the dead. He came bearing down on Jack and Herbert, like Death returning from the dead, the axe held back at arm’s length, ready for the swing, half urging, half holding his horse, so that it danced strangely nearer. Jack stood with the pistol ready, his back to his own horse, that was tossing its head nervously.
“Look out!” cried Herbert, suddenly jumping at the bit of Jack’s horse, in terror, and making it start back, with a thudding of hoofs.
But Jack did not move. He stood with his pistol ready, his eyes on Easu. Easu’s horse was snaffling and jerking, twisting, trying to get round, and Easu was forcing it slowly forward. He had on his death-face. He held the axe at arm’s length, backward, and with his pale-blue, fixed death-eyes he watched Jack, who stood there on the ground. So he advanced, waiting for the moment to swing the axe, fixing part of his will on the curvetting horse, which he forced on.
Jack, in a sort of trance, fixed Easu’s death-face in the middle of the forehead. But he was watching with every pore of his body.
Suddenly he saw him begin to heave in the stirrups, and on that instant he fired at the mystic place in Easu’s forehead, under his old hat, at the same time springing back. And in that self-same instant he saw two things: part of Easu’s forehead seemed to shift mystically open, and the axe, followed by Easu’s whole body, crashed at him as he sprang back. He went down in the universal crash, and for a moment his consciousness was dark and eternal. Then he wriggled to his feet, and ran, as Herbert was running, to the black horse, which was dancing in an agony of terror, Easu’s right foot having caught in the stirrup, the body rolling horribly on the ground.
He caught the horse, which was shying off from Herbert, and raised his right hand to take the bridle. To his further horror and astonishment, he saw his hand all blood, and his fore-finger gone. But he clutched the bridle of the horse with his maimed hand, then changed to his left hand, and stood looking in chagrin and horror at the bloody stump of his finger, which was just beginning, in a distant sort of way, to hurt.
“My God, he’s dead!” came the high, hysterical yell from Herbert, on the other side of the horse, and Jack let go the bridle again, to look.
It was too obvious. The big, ugly, inert bulk of Easu lay crumpled on the ground, part of the forehead shot away. Jack looked twice, then looked away again. A black had caught his horse, and tied it to the fence. Another black was running up. A dog came panting excitedly up, sniffing and licking the blood. Herbert, beside himself, stood helpless, repeating: “He’s dead! He’s dead! My God, he’s dead! He is.”
Then he gave a yell, and swooped at the dog, as it began to lick the blood.
Jack, after once more looking round, walked away. He saw his pistol lying on the ground, so he picked it up and put it in his belt, although it was bloody, and had a cut where the axe had struck it. Then he walked across to his horse, and unhitched the bridle from the fence. But before he mounted, he took his handkerchief and tied it round his bleeding hand, which was beginning to hurt with a big aching hurt. He knew it, and yet he hardly heeded it. It was hardly noticeable.
He got into the saddle, and rode calmly away, going on his journey southward just the same. The world about him seemed faint and unimportant. Inside himself was the reality and the assurance. Easu was dead. It was a good thing.
He had one definite feeling. He felt as if there had been something damming life up, as a great clot of weeds will dam a stream and make the water spread marshily and dead over the surrounding land. He felt he had lifted this clod out of the stream, and the water was flowing on clear again.
He felt he had done a good thing. Somewhere inside himself he felt he had done a supremely good thing. Life could flow on to something beyond. Why question further?
He rode on, down the track. The sun was very hot, and his body was re-echoing with the pain from his hand. But he went on calmly, monotonously, his horse travelling in a sort of sleep, easy in its single-step. He didn’t think where he was going, or why; he was just going.