"Then why confer at all, under any conditions, oven if unionists admitted all this?" asked Ned.

"Simply for convenience. Some of our members object to any conference but the general opinion is that it does not involve a sacrifice of principle to discuss details provided principles are admitted. In the same way, some favoured the employment of men at any wage arranged between the individual man and hie employer, but the general opinion was that it is advisable and convenient for pastoralists in the same district to pay the same wages."

"Then the pastoralists may combine but the bushmen mayn't."

"We don't object to the bushmen forming unions. We claim the right to employ men without asking whether they are unionist or non-unionist."

"Which means," said Ned, "the right to victimise unionists."

"How is that?" asked Strong.

"We know how. Do you suppose for a moment, Mr. Strong, that ideas spring up with nothing behind them? All those who are acquainted with the history of unionism know that 'close unionism,' the refusal to work with non-unionists, arose from the persistent preference given by employers to non-unionists, which was a victimising of unionists."

"That may have been once, but things are different now," answered Strong.

"They are not different now. Wherever employers have an opportunity they have a tendency to weed out unionists. I could give you scores of instances of it being done. The black list is bad enough now. It would be a regular terrorism if there was nothing to restrain the employer. Then down would come wages, up would go hours and in would come the Chinese. If it is a principle with you, it is existence itself with us."

"I think the pastoralists would agree not to victimise, as you call it," said Strong, after thinking a minute.

"Who is to say? How are we to know?" answered Ned. "Supposing, Mr. Strong, you and I had a dispute in which we both believed ourselves right would you regard it as a fair settlement to submit the whole thing, without any exception, to an arbiter whom we both chose and both believed to be fair?"

"Certainly I should," said Strong.

"The whole dispute, no matter what it was? You'd think it fair to leave it all to the arbiter?"

"Certainly."

"Then why not leave 'freedom of contract' to arbitration?" demanded Ned. "You say you are right. We say we are right. We have offered to go to arbitration on the whole dispute, keeping nothing back. We have pledged ourselves to stand by the arbitration. Isn't that honest and fair? What could be fairer? It may be that we have taken a wrong method against victimising in close unionism. But it cannot be that we should not have some defence against victimising, and close unionism is the only defence we have as yet, that any union has had, anywhere, except in Sheffield and I don't suppose you want rattening to start here. Why not arbitrate?"

"It is a question of principle," answered Strong, looking Ned in the face.

"That means you'll fight it out," commented Ned, rising and picking up his hat. Then he put his foot on his chair and, leaning on his knee, thus expressed his inward thoughts: "You can fight if you like but when it's all over you'll remember what I say and know it's the straight wire. You've been swallowing the fairy tales about ours being a union of pressed men but you will see your mistake, believe me. You may whip us; you've got the Government and the police and the P.M.'s and the money and the military but how much nearer the end will you be when you have whipped us? You'll know by then that the chaps up North, like men everywhere else, will go down fighting and will come up smiling to fight again when you begin to take it out of them because they're down. And in the end you'll arbitrate. You'll have no way out of it. Its fair and because it's fair and because we all know it's fair we'll win that or— " Ned paused.

"I'm sorry you look at the matter so," said Strong, arranging his papers.

"How else should we look at it? If we pretend to give in as you want us to do, it'll only be as a trick to gain time, as a ruse to put you off until we're readier. We won't do that. For my part, and for the part of the men I know, the union is a thing which mustn't get a bad name. We may lie individually but the union's word must be as good as gold no matter what it says. If the union says the sheep are wet, they're wet, and if it says they're dry, they are dry—if the water's dripping off 'em," added Ned, with a twinkle in his eye. "I mean, Mr. Strong, that we're trying to be better men in our rough way and the union is what's making us better and some of us would die for it. But we'd sooner see it die than see it do what's cowardly."

"I am sorry that men like you are so deceived as to what is right," said Strong.

"Perhaps we're all deceived. Perhaps you're deceived. Perhaps the whole of life is a humbug." So Ned said, with careless fatalism. "Only, if your mates were in trouble you'd be a cur if you didn't stand by them, wouldn't you? That's the difference between you and me, Mr. Strong. You don't believe that we're all mates or that the crowd has any particular troubles and I do. And as long as one believes it, well, it doesn't matter to him whether he's deceived or not, I think. I won't detain you any longer. Its no use our talking, I can see."

Strong got up and walked towards the door.

"I think not," he said. "But I am glad to have met you, Mr. Hawkins, and I can't help feeling that you're throwing great abilities away. You'll get no thanks and do no good and you'll live to regret it. It's all very well to talk lightly of the outlook in Queensland but when you have become implicated in lawlessness and are suffering for it the whole affair will look different. Don't misunderstand me! You are a young man, capable, earnest. There is no position you might not aspire to. Be warned in time. Let me help you. I shall be only too glad. You will never repent it for I ask nothing dishonourable."

"I don't quite understand," said Ned, sternly, his brow knitting.

"I'm not offering a bribe," continued Strong, meeting Ned's gaze unflinchingly. "That's not necessary. You know very well that you will hang yourself with very little more rope. I am talking as between one man and another. I meet only too few manly men to let one go to destruction without trying to save him. The world doesn't need saviours; it needs masters. You can be one of them. Think well of it: Not one in a million has the chance."

"You mean that you'll help me to get rich?"

"Rich!" sneered Strong. "What is rich? It is Power that is worth having and to have power one must control capital. In your wildest ranting of the power of the capitalist you have hardly touched the fringe of the power he has. Only there are very few who are able to use it. I offer you the opportunity to become one of the few. I never make a mistake in men. If you try you can be. There is the offer, take it or leave it."

For an instant Ned dreamed of accepting it, of throwing over everything to become a great capitalist, as Strong said so confidently he could be, and then, after long years, to pour his wealth into the treasuries of the movement, now often checked for lack of funds. Then he thought of Nellie and of Geisner, what they would say, still hesitating. Then he thought of his mates expecting him, waiting for him, and he decided.

"I was thinking," he said, straightforwardly, "whether I wouldn't like to make a pile so as to give it to the movement. But, you see, Mr. Strong, the chaps are expecting me and that settles it. I am much obliged but it would be dishonourable in me."

"You know what is in front?" asked Strong, calmly, making a last effort.

"I think so. I'm told I'm one of those to be locked up. What does that matter? That won't lose me any friends."

"A stubborn man will have his way," remarked Strong. Adding, at a venture: "Particularly when there is a woman in it."

"There is a woman in it," answered Ned, flushing a little; "a woman who won't have me."

Strong opened the door. "I've done my best for you," he said. "Don't blame me whatever happens. You, at least, had your choice of peace or war, of more than peace."

"I understand. Personally, I shan't blame you," said Ned. "I choose war, more than war," and he set his mouth doggedly.

"War, at any rate," answered Strong, holding out his hand, his face as grave as Ned's. The two men gripped hands tightly, like duellists crossing swords. Without another word they shook hands heartily and separated.

Strong closed the door and walked up and down his room, hurriedly, deep in thought, pulling his lip. He sat down at his desk, took up his pen, got up and paced the room again. He went to the window and looked out into the well that admitted light to the centre of the great fortress-building. Then walked back to his desk and wrote.

"He is a dangerous man," he murmured, as if excusing himself. "He is a most dangerous man."

A youth answered a touch of the button. Strong sent for his confidential clerk.

"Send this at once to Queensland in cipher," he instructed, in a business tone, when the man appeared; "this" being:

Prominent bush unionist named Hawkins leaves Sydney to-night by train for Central Queensland via Brisbane. Have him arrested immediately. Most important.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE REPUBLICAN KISS.

"I've never felt so before," said Ned. "For about ten minutes I wanted to go back and kill him."

"Why?"

"Because he is like a wall of iron in front of one. If he were a fat hulking brute, as some of them are, I wouldn't have minded. I could have pitied him and felt that he wasn't a fair specimen of Humanity. But this man is a fair specimen in a way. He looks like a man and he talks like a man and you feel him a man, only he's absolutely unable to understand that the crowd are the same flesh and blood as he is and you know that he'd wipe us down like ninepins if he could see he'd gain by it. He's all brains and any heart he's got is only for his own friends. He is Capitalism personified. He made me feel sick at heart at the hopelessness of fighting such men in the old ways. I felt for a little while that the only thing to do was to clear them out of the way as they'd clear us if they were in our shoes."

"You've got over it soon."

"Of course," admitted Ned, with a laugh. "He can live for ever, for me, now. It was a fool's thought. It's the system we're fighting, not the products of it, and he's only a product just like the fat beasts we abuse and the ignorant drunken bushmen he despises. I was worrying, as you call it, or I shouldn't have even thought of it."

Ned was talking to Connie. After having had dinner at a restaurant with his Trades Hall friend, to whom he related part of his morning's interview, he had found himself with two or three hours on his hands. So he had turned his steps towards the Strattons, longing for sympathy and comfort, being strangely depressed and miserable without being able to think out just how he felt.

He found Mrs. Stratton writing in her snug parlour. The rooms had the same general appearance that they had two years before. The house, seen by daylight for the first time, was embowered in trees and fringed back and front with pretty flower beds and miniature lawns. Connie herself was fair and fresh as ever and wore a loose robe of daintily flowered stuff; the years had passed lightly over her, adding to rather than detracting from the charms of her presence. She welcomed him warmly and with her inimitable tact, seeing his trouble, told him how they all were, including that Josie had married and had a beautiful baby, adding with a flush that she herself had set Josie a bad example and bringing in the example for Ned to admire. The other children were boating with George and Josie, she explained, George not having yet escaped from that horrible night-work. Harry was well and would be home after a while. He was painting a series of scenes from city life, the sketches of which she showed him. Arty was married to a very nice girl, who knew all his poetry, every line, by heart. Ford was well, only more bitter than ever. When Ned asked after Geisner, she said he had not been back since and she had only heard once, indirectly, that he was well. Thus she led him to talk and he told her partly what took place between Strong and himself. Strong's offer he could not tell to anyone.

"You didn't get on with Nellie last night?" she asked, alluding to his "worrying." Having taken the baby out she had sat down on the stool by the open piano.

Ned looked up. "How do you know? Has she been here?"

"No. She hasn't been here, but I can tell. You men always carry your hearts on your sleeve, when you think you aren't. You asked her to marry you, I suppose, and she said 'No.' Isn't that it?"

"I can't tell you all about it, Mrs. Stratton," answered Ned, frankly. "That's about it. But she did quite right. She thought she shouldn't and when Nellie thinks anything she tries to do it. That's what should be."

Mrs. Stratton strummed a few notes. "I'll show you something," she said, finally, getting up. "It passes the time to show old curiosities."

She left the room, returning in a few minutes with a quaint box of dark wood, bound with chased iron work and inlaid with some semi-transparent substance in the pattern of a coat-of-arms. She opened it with a little key that hung on her watch chain. Inside were a number of compartments, covered with little lids. She lifted them all, together, exposing under the tray a deeper recess. From this she took a miniature case.

"Look at it!" she said, smiling. "I ought to charge you sixpence but I won't."

Ned pressed the spring, the lid of the case flew up, and there, in water-colour, was the head and bust of a girl. The face was a delicate oval, the mouth soft and sweet, the eyes bright with youth and health, the whole appearance telling of winning grace and cultured beauty. The fullness of the brows betrayed the artist instinct. The hair was drawn to the top of the head in a strange foreign fashion. The softly curving lines of face and figure showed womanhood begun.

"She is very beautiful," commented Ned. Then, looking at it more closely: "Do you know that somehow, although it's not like her, this reminds me of Nellie?"

"I knew you'd say that," remarked Connie, swinging round on the music stool so as to reach the keys again and striking a note or two softly. "It has got Nellie's presentment, whatever you call it. I noticed it the first time I saw Nellie. That was how we happened to speak first. Harry noticed it, too, without my having said a word to him. They might be sisters, only Nellie's naturally more self-reliant and determined and has had a hard life of it, while she"—nodding at the miniature—"had been nursed in rose-leaves up to the time it was taken."

"I don't see just where the likeness comes in," said Ned, trying to analyse the portrait.

"It's about the eyes and the mouth particularly, as well as a general similitude," explained Connie.

"As I tell Nellie, she's got a vicious way of setting her lips, so," and Mrs. Stratton, mimicking, drew the corners of her mouth down in Nellie's style. "Then she draws her brows down till altogether she looks as though the burden of the whole world was on her. But underneath she has the same gentle mouth and open eyes and artist forehead as the picture and one feels it. It's very strange, don't you know, that Geisner never seemed to notice it and yet he generally notices everything. After all, I don't know that it is so strange. It's human nature."

"Geisner?" said Ned, clumsily, having nothing particular to say. "Has he seen it?"

"Once or twice," observed Connie. "It belongs to him. He leaves it with me. That's how Harry's seen it and you. It's the only thing he values so he takes care of it by never having it about him, you know," she added, in the flippant way that hid her feelings.

"I suppose it is—that it's—it's the girl he—" stumbled Ned, beginning to understand suddenly.

"That's her," said Connie, strumming some louder notes. "She died. They had been married a few days. She was taken ill, very ill. He left her, when her life was despaired of. She would have him go, too. She got better a little but losing him killed her."

Ned gazed at the portrait, speechless. What were his troubles, his grief, his sorrows, beside those of the man who had loved and lost so! Nellie at least lived. At least he had still the hope that in the years to come he and she might mate together. His thoughts flew back to Geisner's talk on Love on the garden terrace, in the bright afternoon sunshine. Truly Geisner's had been the Love that elevated not the Lust that pulled down. The example nerved him like fresh air. The pain that had dumbed his thoughts of Nellie passed from him.

"He is a man!" cried Ned.

"That wasn't all," went on Connie, taking the case from his hands and officiously dusting it with her handkerchief. "When she was pining for him, dying of grief, because she had lost her strength in her illness, they offered him his liberty if he would deny the Cause, if he would recant, if he would say he had been fooled and misled and desired to redeem his position. They let him hear all about her and then they tempted him. They wanted to disgust the people with their leaders. But it wasn't right to do that. It was shameful. It makes me wild to think of it yet. The way it was done! To torture a man so through his love! Oh, the wretches! The miserable dogs! I'd——" Connie broke off suddenly to put the handkerchief to her indignant eyes. The thunderstorm of her anger burst in rain. She was a thorough woman. "I suppose they didn't know any better, as he always says of everybody that's mean. It's some consolation to think that they overshot the mark, though," she concluded, tearfully.

"How?"

"How! Why if they had let Geisner go and everybody else, there'd be no martyrs to keep the Cause going. Even Geisner, if his wife had lived, poor girl, and if children had grown up, could hardly be quite the same, don't you know. As it is he only lives for the Cause. He has nothing else to live for. They crushed his weakness out of him and fitted him to turn round and crush them."

"It's time he began," remarked Ned, thoughtfully.

"He has begun."

"Where?"

"Everywhere. In you, in me, in Nellie, in men like Ford and George and Harry, in places you never dream of, in ways nobody knows but himself. He is moulding the world as a potter moulds clay. It frightens me, sometimes. I open a new book and there are Geisner's very ideas. I see a picture, an illustrated paper, and there is Geisner's hand passed to another. I was at a new opera the other night and I could hardly believe my ears; it seemed as though Geisner was playing. From some out of the way corner of the earth comes news of a great strike; then, on top of it, from another corner, the bubbling of a gathering rising; and I can feel that Geisner is guiding countless millions to some unseen goal, safe in his work because none know him. He is a man! He seeks no reward, despises fame, instils no evil, claims no leadership. Only he burns his thoughts into men's hearts, the god-like thoughts that in his misery have come to him, and every true man who hears him from that moment has no way but Geisner's way. A word from him and the whole world would rock with Revolution. Only he does not say it. He thinks of the to-morrow. We all suffer, and he has passed through such suffering that he is branded with it, body and soul. But he has faced it and conquered it and he understands that we all must face it and conquer it before those who follow after us can be freed from it. 'We must first show that Socialism is possible,' he said to me two years ago. And I think he hoped, Ned, that some day you would show it."

"You talk like Geisner," said Ned, watching her animated face. He had come to her for comfort and upon his sad heart her words were like balm. Afterwards, they strengthened the life purpose that came to him.

"Of course. So do you when you think of him. So does everybody. His wonderful power all lies in his impressing his ideas on everybody he meets. Strong is a baby beside him when you consider the difference in their means."

"I wish Strong was on our side, just the same."

"Why? The Strongs find the flint on which the Geisners strike the steel. Do you think for a single moment that the average rich man has courage enough or brains enough to drive the people to despair as this Strong will do?"

"Yes, monopoly will either kill or cure."

"It will cure. This Strong is annihilating the squatters as fast as he's trying to annihilate the unions. I hear them talking sometimes, or their wives, which is the same thing. They fairly hate him. He's doing more than any man to kill the old employer and to turn the owners of capital into mere idle butterflies, or, if you like it better, into swine wallowing in luxury, living on dividends. Not that they hate that," went on Connie, contemptuously. "They're an idle, vicious set, taken all round, at the best. But he's ruining a lot of the old landocrats and naturally they don't like it. Of course, very few of them like his style or his wife's."

"Too quiet? Nellie was telling me something of him once."

"Yes. He's very quiet at home. So is his wife. He reads considerably. She is musical. They have their own set, quite a pleasant one. And fashionable society can rave and splutter but is kept carefully outside their door. They don't razzle-dazzle, at any rate."

"Don't what?" asked Ned, puzzled.

"Don't razzle-dazzle!" repeated Connie, laughing. "Don't dance on champagne, like many of the society gems?"

"The men, you mean."

"The men! My dear Ned, you ought to know a little more about high life and then you'd appreciate the Strongs. I've seen a dozen fashionable women, young and old, perfectly intoxicated at a single fashionable ball. As for the men, most of them haven't any higher idea of happiness than a drunken debauch. While as for fashionable morality the less you say about it the better. And the worst of the lot are among the canting ones. The Strongs and their set at least are decent people. Wealth and poverty both seem to degrade most of us."

"Ah, well, it can't last so very much longer," remarked Ned.

"It could if it weren't for the way both sides are being driven," answered Connie. "These fat wine-soaked capitalists would give in whenever the workmen showed a bold front if cast-iron capitalists like Strong didn't force them into the fight and keep them fighting. And you know yourself that while workmen get a little what they want they never dream of objecting to greater injustices. And if it weren't for the new ideas workmen would go on soaking themselves with drink and vice and become as unable to make a change as the depraved wealthy are to resist a change. Everything helps to make up the movement."

"I know I'm inconsistent," she went on. "I talk angrily myself often but it's not right to feel hard against anybody. These other people can't help it, any more than a thief can help it or a poor girl on the streets. They're not happy as they might be, either. And if they were, I think it's better to suffer for the Cause than to have an easy time by opposing it. I'd sooner be Geisner than Strong."

"What a comparison!" cried Ned.

"Of one thing I'm sure," continued Connie, "that it is noble to go to prison in resisting injustice, that suffering itself becomes a glory if one bears it bravely for others. For I have heard Geisner say, often, that when penalties cease to intimidate and when men generally rise superior to unjust laws those special injustices are as good as overthrown. We must all do our best to prevent anything being done which is unmanly in itself. If we try to do that prison is no disgrace and death itself isn't very terrible."

"I know you mean this for me," said Ned, smiling. "I didn't mind much, you know, before. I was ready for the medicine. But, somehow, since I've been here, I've got to feel quite eager to be locked up. I shall be disappointed if it doesn't come off." He laughed cheerfully.

"Well, you might as well take it that way," laughed Connie. "I can't bear people who take everything seriously."

"There was one thing I wanted you to do," said Ned, after a while. "Nellie promised me years ago to tell me if ever she was hard up. I've got a few pounds ahead and what my horses are worth. If anything happens can I have it sent down to you so that you can give it to her if she needs it?"

Connie thought for a moment, "You'd better not," she answered. "We'll see that Nellie's all right. I think she'd starve rather than touch what you'll need afterwards."

"Perhaps so," said Ned. "You know best about that. I must go now," rising.

"Can't you wait for dinner?" asked Connie. "Harry will be here then and you'd have time to catch the train."

"I've a little business to do before," said Ned. "I promised one of our fellows to see his brother, who lives near the station."

"Oh! You must have something to eat first," insisted Connie. "You'll miss your dinner probably. That won't do." So he waited.

They had finished the hurriedly prepared meal, which she ate with him so that he might feel at home, when Stratton came in.

"He's always just in time," explained Connie, when the greetings were over. "He gives me the cold shivers whenever we're going to catch a train. Say 'good-bye' to Ned now, and don't delay him! I'll tell you all he said, all but the secrets. He's going to Queensland to-night and hasn't a minute to spare."

"I'm sorry you can't stay overnight," said Harry, heartily. "I'd like to have a long talk but I suppose my fine society lady here hasn't wasted time."

"I've talked enough for two, you may depend upon it," announced Connie, as they went to the front door together, chatting.

"Well, good-bye, if you must go," said Harry, holding Ned by both hands. "And remember, whatever happens, you've got good friends here, not fair-weather friends either."

"He must go, Harry," cried Connie. "I've kept him just to see you. You'll make him miss the next boat. Come, Ned! Good-bye!"

Ned turned to her, holding out his hand.

"Bend down!" she said, suddenly, her lips smiling, her eyes filling. "You're so tall."

He bent to her mechanically, not understanding. She took his head between her hands and kissed him on both cheeks.

"The republican kiss!" she cried, trying to laugh, offering her own cheek to him as he stood flushed and confused. Something choked him as he stooped to her again, touching the fair face with his lips, reverentially.

"Good-bye!" she exclaimed, her mouth working, grasping his hands. "Our hearts are with you all up there, but, oh, don't let your good heart destroy you for no use!" Then she burst into tears and, turning to her husband, flung herself into the loving arms that opened for her. "It's beginning again, Harry. It's beginning again. Will it never end, I wonder? And it's always the best it takes from us, Harry, the bravest and the best." And she sobbed in his arms, quietly, resignedly, as she had sobbed, Ned recollected, when Geisner thundered forth that triumphant Marseillaise.

Her vivid imagination showed her friends and husband and sons going to prison and to death as friends and father and brother had gone to prison and to death in the days gone by. She knew the Cause so well—had it not suckled her and reared her?—with all the depth of the nature that her lightness of manner only veiled as the frothy spray of the flooded Barron veils the swell of the cataract beneath, with all the capacity for understanding that made her easily the equal of brilliant men. It was a Moloch, a Juggernaut, a Kronos that devoured its own children, a madness driving men to fill with their hopes and lives the chasm that lies between what is and what should be. It had lulled a little around her of late years, the fight that can only end one way because generation after generation carries it on, civilisation after civilisation, age after age. Now its bugle notes were swelling again and those she cared for would be called, sooner or later, one by one. Husband and children and friends, all must go as this bushman was going, going with his noble thoughts and pure instincts and generous manhood and eager brain. At least, it seemed to her that they must. And so she bewailed them, as women will even when their hearts are brave and when their devotion is untarnished and undimmed. She yearned for the dawning of the Day of Peace, of the Reign of Love, but her courage did not falter. Still amid her tears she clung to the idea that those whom the Cause calls must obey.

"Ned'll be late, Harry," she whispered. "He must go." So Ned went, having grasped Harry's hand again, silently, a great lump in his throat and a dimness in his eyes but, nevertheless, strangely comforted.

He was just stepping on board the ferry steamer when Harry raced down, a little roll of paper in his hand. "Connie forgot to give you this," was all he had time to say. "It's the only one she has."

Ned opened the little roll to find it a pot-shot photograph of Nellie, taken in profile as she stood, with her hands clasped, gazing intently before her, her face sad and stern and beautiful, her figure full of womanly strength and grace. He lovered it, overjoyed, until the boat reached the Circular Quay. He kept taking it out and stealing sly peeps at it as the bus rolled up George-street, Redfern way.



CHAPTER IX.

NED GOES TO HIS FATE.

At the station some of the Sydney unionists wore waiting to see Ned off. As they loaded him with friendly counsel and encouraged him with fraternal promises of assistance and compared the threats made in Sydney during the maritime strike with the expected action of the Government in Queensland, a newspaper boy came up to them, crowded at the carriage door.

"Hello, sonny! Whose rose is that?" asked one of the group, for the little lad carried a rose, red and blowing.

"It's Mr. Hawkinses rose," answered the boy.

"For me!" exclaimed Ned, holding out his hand. "Who is it from?"

"I'm not to say," answered the urchin, slipping away.

The other men laughed. "There must be a young lady interested in you, Hawkins," said one jocularly; "our Sydney girls always have good eyes for the right sort of a man." "I wondered why you stayed over last night, Hawkins," remarked another. "Trust a Queenslander to make himself at home everywhere," contributed a third. Ned did not answer. He did not hear them. He knew who sent it.

Then the guard's whistle blew; another moment and the train started, slowly at first, gradually faster, amid a pattering of good-byes.

"Give him a cheer, lads!" cried one of his friends. "Hip-hip-hurrah!"

"And one for his red rose!" shouted another. "Hip-hip-hurrah!"

"And another for the Queensland bush men! Hip-hip-hurrah!"

Ned leaned over the door as the train drew away, laughing genially at the cheering and waving his hand to his friends. His eyes, meanwhile, eagerly searched the platform for a tall, black-clad figure.

He saw her as he was about to abandon hope; she was half concealed by a pillar, watching him intently. As his eyes drank her in, with a last fond look that absorbed every line of her face and figure, every shade of her, even to the flush that told she had heard the cheer for "his red rose," she waved her handkerchief to him. With eager hands he tore the fastening of a fantastically-shaped little nugget that hung on his watch-chain and flung it towards her. He saw her stoop to pick it up. Then the train swept on past a switch-house and he saw her no more, save in the picture gallery of his memory stored with priceless paintings of the face he loved; and in the little photo that he conned till his fellow-passengers nudged each other.

* * * * *

At Newcastle he left the train to stretch himself and get a cup of tea. As he stepped from the carriage a man came along who peered inquisitively at the travellers. He was a medium-sized man, with a trimmed beard, wearing a peaked cap pulled over his forehead. This inquisitive man looked at Ned closely, then followed him past the throng to the end of the platform. There, finding the bushman alone, he stepped up and, clapping his hand on Ned's shoulder, said quietly in his ear:

"In the Queen's name!"

Ned swung round on his heel, his heart palpitating, his nerves shaken, but his face as serene as ever. It had come, then. After all, what did it matter? He would have preferred to have reached his comrades but at least they would know he had tried. And no man should have reason to say that he had not taken whatever happened like a man. At the time he did not think it strange that he was not allowed to reach the border. The squatters could do what they liked he thought. If they wanted to hang men what was to stop them? So he swung round on his heel, convinced of the worst, calm outwardly, feverish inwardly, to enquire in a voice that did not shake:

"What little game are you up to, mister?"

The inquisitive man looked at him keenly.

"Is your name Hawkins?" he asked.

"Suppose it is! What does that matter to you?" demanded Ned, mechanically guarding his speech for future contingencies.

"It's all right, my friend," replied the other, with a chuckle. "I'm no policeman. If you're Hawkins, I've a message for you. Show me your credentials and I'll give it."

"Who're you, anyway?" asked Ned. "How do I know who you are?"

The inquisitive man stopped a uniformed porter who was passing. "Here, Tom," he said, "this gentleman wants to know if I'm a union man. Am I?"

"Go along with your larks!" retorted the man in uniform. "Why don't you ask me if you're alive?" and he passed on with a laugh as though he had heard an excellent joke.

"Hang it!" said the inquisitive man. "That's what it is to be too well known. Let's see the engine-driver. He'll answer for me."

"The other's good enough," answered Ned, making up his mind, as was his habit, from the little things. "Here's my credentials!" He pulled out his pocket-book and taking out a paper unfolded it for the inquisitive man to read.

"That's good enough, too," was the stranger's comment. "You answer the description but it's best to be sure. Now"—lowering his voice and moving still further from the peopled part of the platform—"here's the message. 'Dangerous to try going through Brisbane. Police expecting him that way. Must go overland from Downs.' Do you understand it?"

"I understand," said Ned, arranging his plans quickly. "It means they're after me and I'm to dodge them. I suppose I can leave my portmanteau with you?"

"I'm here to help you," answered the man.

"Well, I'll take my blankets and leave everything else. I'm a Darling Downs boy and can easily get a horse there. And when I'm across a horse in the bush they'll find it tough work to stop me going through."

"You'd better take some money," remarked the man, after Ned had handed out his portmanteau. "You may have to buy horses."

"Not when I'm once among the camps," said Ned. "I can get relays there every few miles. I've got plenty to do me till then. How do you fellows here feel about things?"

"Our fellows are as sound as a bell. If everybody does as much as the miners will you'll have plenty of help. We don't believe everything the papers say. You seem a cool one and if the others will only keep cool you'll give the squatters a big wrestle yet."

So they talked on till the train was about to start again.

"Take my advice," said the man, drawing back further out of hearing and putting the portmanteau down between them, "and get a cipher for messages. We had to arrange one with Sydney during the end of the maritime strike and that's what they've used to-night to get the tip to you. If it wasn't for that the other side would know what was said just as well as we do. Now, good-bye! Take care of yourself! And good luck to you!"

"Good-bye, and thanks!" said Ned, shaking hands as he jumped into his carriage. "You've done us a good turn. We won't forget the South up in Queensland. You didn't tell me your name," he added, as the train moved.

The man answered something that was lost in the jarring. Ned saw him wave his hand and walk away with the portmanteau. The train sped on, past sheds and side-tracked carriages, past steaming engines and switch-houses and great banked stacks of coal, out over the bridge into the open country beyond, speeding ever Queenslandwards.

Ned, leaning over the window, watched the sheen of the electric lights on the wharves, watched the shimmering of the river, watched the glower that hung over the city as if over a great bush fire, watched the glorious cloudless star-strewn sky and the splendid moon that lit the opening country as it had lit the water front of Sydney last night, as it would light for him the backtracks of the mazy bush when he forced his horses on, from camp to camp, six score miles and more a day. It was a traveller's moon, he thought with joy; let him once get into the saddle with relays ahead and let the rain hold off for four or five days more, then they could arrest him if they liked; at least he would have got back to his mates.

Newcastle faded away. He took his precious photo out again and held it in his hand after studying its outlines for the hundredth time; unobserved he pressed the red rose to his lips.

His heart filled with joy as he listened to the rumbling of the wheels, to the puffing of the engine, to the rubble-double-double of the train. Every mile it covered was a mile northward; every hour was a good day's journeying; every post it flew by was a post the less to pass of the hundred-thousand that lay between him and his goal. He would get back somehow. Where "the chaps" were he would be, whatever happened. And when he got back he could tell them, at least, that the South would pour its willing levies to help them fight in Queensland the common enemy of all. It never struck him that he was getting further and further from Nellie. In his innermost soul he knew that he was travelling to her.

What good fellows they were down South here, he thought, with a gush of feeling. Wherever he went there were friends, cheering him, watching over him, caring for him, their purses open to him, because he was a Queensland bushman and because his union was in sore trouble and because they would not see brother unionists fall into a trap and perish there unaided. From the Barrier to Newcastle the brave miners, veterans of the Labour war, were standing by. In Adelaide and Sydney alike the town unions were voting aid and sympathy. The southern bushmen, threatened themselves, were sending to Queensland the hard cash that turns doubtful battles. If Melbourne was cool yet, it was only because she did not understand; she would swing in before it was over, he knew it. The consciousness of a continent throbbing in sympathy, despite the frowns and lies and evil speakings of governments and press and capitalistic organisations and of those whom these influence, dawned upon him. All the world over it was the same, two great ideas were crystallising, two great parties were forming, the lists were being cleared by combats such as this for the ultimate death-struggle between two great principles which could not always exist side by side. The robbed were beginning to understand the robbery; the workers were beginning to turn upon the drones; the dominance of the squatter, the mine-owner, the ship-owner, the land-owner, the shareholder, was being challenged; this was not the end, but surely it was the beginning of the end.

"Curse them!" muttered Ned, grinding his teeth, as he gazed out upon the moonlit country-side. "What's the good of that?" he thought. "As Geisner says, they don't know any better. A man ought to pity them, for they're no worse than the rest of us. They're no better and no worse than we'd be in their places. They can't help it any more than we can."

A great love for all mankind stole over him, a yearning to be at fellowship with all. What fools men are to waste Life in making each other miserable, he thought! Why should not men like Strong and Geisner join hands? Why should not the republican kiss pass from one to another till loving kindness reigned all the world round? Men were rough and hasty and rash of tongue and apt to think ill too readily. But they were good at heart, the men he knew, and surely the men he did not know were the same. Perhaps some day——He built divine castles in the air as he twisted Nellie's rose between his fingers. Suddenly a great wonder seized him—he realised that he felt happy.

Happy! When he should be most miserable. Nellie would not be his wife and his union was in danger and prison gates yawned in front and already he was being hunted like an outlaw. Yet he was happy. He had never been so happy before. He was so happy that, he desired no change for himself. He would not have changed of his free will one step of his allotted path. He hated nobody. He loved everybody. He understood Life somewhat as he had never understood before. A great calm was upon him, a lulling between the tempest that had passed and the tempests that were coming, a forecast of the serenity to which Humanity is reaching by Pain.

"What does it matter, after all?" he murmured to himself. "There is nothing worth worrying over so long as one does one's best. Things are coming along all right. We may be only stumbling towards the light but we're getting there just the same. So long as we know that what does the rest matter?"

"What am I?" he thought, looking up at the stars, which shone the brighter because the moon was now hidden behind the train. "I am what I am, as the, old Jew God was, as we all are. We think we can change everything and we can change nothing. Our very thoughts and motives and ideals are only bits of the Eternal Force that holds the stars balanced in the skies and keeps the earth for a moment solid to our feet. I cannot move it. I cannot affect it. I cannot shake it. It alone is."

"No more," he thought on, "can Eternal Force outside of me move me, affect me, shake me. The force in me is as eternal, as indestructible, as infinite, as the whole universal force. What it is I am too. The unknown Law that gives trend to Force is manifest in me as much as it is in the whole universe beside, yet no more than it is in the smallest atom that floats in the air, in the smallest living thing that swims in a drop of water. I am a part of that which is infinite and eternal and which working through Man has made him conscious and given him a sense of things and filled him with grand ideals sublime as the universe itself. None of us can escape the Law even if we would because we are part of the Law and because every act and every thought and every desire follows along in us to that which has gone before and to the influences around, just as the flight of a bullet is according to the weight of the bullet, and its shape, and the pressure, and the direction it was fired, and the wind."

"It is as easy," he dreamed on, "for the stars to rebel and start playing nine-pins with one another, as it is for any man to swerve one hair's breadth from that which is natural for him to do, he being what he is and influences at any given time being what they are. None of us can help anything. We are all poor devils, within whom the human desire to love one another struggles with the brute desire to survive one another. And the brute desire is being beaten down by the very Pain we cry out against and the human desire is being fostered in us all by the very hatreds that seem to oppose it. And some day we shall all love one another and till then, I suppose, we must suffer for the Cause a little so that men may see by our suffering that, however unworthy we are, the Cause can give us courage to endure."

"I must think that out when I have time," he concluded, as the train slowed down at a stopping-place where his last fellow-passenger got out. "I'll probably have plenty of time soon," he added, mentally, chuckling good-humouredly at his grim joke. "It's a pity, though, one doesn't feel good always. When a fellow gets into the thick of it, he gets hot and says things that he shouldn't and does things, too, I reckon."

He had not heeded the other passengers but now that he found himself alone in the carriage he got down his blankets and made his bed. He took off his boots and coat as he had done in the park, stretched himself out on the seat, and slept at once the sleep of contentment. For the first time in his life the jarring of the train did not make his head ache nor its perpetual rubble-double irritate and unnerve him. He slept like a child as the train bore him onward, passing into sleep like a child, full of tenderness and love, slept dreamlessly and heavily, undisturbed, with the photo against his heart and the rose in his fingers and about his hands the hand-clasp of friends and on his cheeks the republican kiss as though his long-dead mother had pressed her lips there.

* * * * *

In Queensland the chain was prepared already whereto he was to be fastened like a dog, wherewith he was to be driven in gang like a bullock because his comrades trusted him. Yet he smiled in his sleep as the train sped on and as the moon stole round and shone in on him.

Over the wide continent the moon shone, the ever-renewing moon that had seen Life dawn in the distant Past and had seen Humanity falter up and had witnessed strange things and would witness stranger. It shone on towns restless in their slumbering; and on the countryside that dreamed of what was in the womb of Time; and on the gathering camps of the North; and on the Old Order bracing itself to stamp out the new thoughts; and on the New Order uplifting men and women to suffer and be strong. Did it laugh to think that in Australia men had forgotten how social injustice broods social wrongs and bow social wrongs breed social conflicts, here as in all other lands? Did it weep to think that in Australia men are being crushed and women made weary and little children born to sorrow and shame because the lesson of the ages is not yet learned, because Humanity has not yet suffered enough, because we dare not yet to trust each other and be free? Or did it joy to know that there is no peace and no contentment so long as the fetters of tyranny and injustice gall our limbs, that whether we will or not the lash of ill-conditions drives us ever to struggle up to better things? Or did it simply not know and not care, but move ever to its unknown destiny as All does, shedding its glorious light, attracting and repelling, ceaseless obeying the Law that needs no policeman to maintain it?

The moon shone down, knowing nothing, and the moon sank down and the sun rose and still Ned slept. But over him and over the world, in moonlight and in darkness and in sunlight, sleeping or waking, in town and country, by land and sea, wherever men suffer and hope, wherever women weep, wherever little children wonder in dumb anguish, a great Thought stretched its sheltering folds, brooding godlike, pregnant, inspiring, a Thought mightier than the Universe, a Thought so sublime that we can trust like children in the Purpose of the forces that give it birth.

To you and to me this Thought speaks and pleads, wherever we are, whoever we are, weakening our will when we do wrong, strengthening our weakness when we would do right. And while we hear it and listen to it we are indeed as gods are, knowing good from evil.

It is ours, this Thought, because sinful men as we all are have shed their blood for it in their sinfulness, have lived for it in their earnest weakness, have felt their hearts grow tender despite themselves and have done unwittingly deeds that have met them in the path, deeds that shine as brightly to our mental eyes as do the seen and unseen stars that strew the firmament of heaven.

The brute-mother who would not be comforted because her young was taken gave birth in the end to the Christs who have surrendered all because the world sorrows. And we, in our yearnings and our aspirations, in our longings and our strugglings and our miseries, may engender even in these later days a Christ whom the world will not crucify, a Hero Leader whose genius will humanise the grown strength of this supreme and sublime Thought.

Let us not be deceived! It is in ourselves that the weakness is. It is in ourselves that the real fight must take place between the Old and the New. It is because we ourselves value our miserable lives, because we ourselves cling to the old fears and kneel still before the old idols, that the Thought still remains a thought only, that it does not create the New Order which will make of this weary world a Paradise indeed.

Neither ballots nor bullets will avail us unless we strive of ourselves to be men, to be worthier to be the dwelling houses of this Thought of which even the dream is filling the world with madness divine. To curb our own tongues, to soften our own hearts, to be sober ourselves, to be virtuous ourselves, to trust each other—at least to try—this we must do before we can justly expect of others that they should do it. Without hypocrisy, knowing how we all fall far short of the ideal, we must ourselves first cease to be utterly slaves of our own weaknesses.



THE END