My Friend The Murderer

At last, one morning up came the governor again.

“Well, Maloney,” he said, “how long are you going to honor us with your society?”

I could have put a knife into his cursed body, and would, too, if we had been alone in the bush; but I had to smile, and smooth him and flatter, for I feared that he might have me sent out.

“You’re an infernal rascal,” he said; those were his very words, to a man that had helped him all he knew how. “I don’t want any rough justice here, though; and I think I see my way to getting you out of Dunedin.”

“I’ll never forget you, governor,” said I; “and, by God! I never will.”

“I don’t want your thanks nor your gratitude,” he answered; “it’s not for your sake that I do it, but simply to keep order in the town. There’s a steamer starts from the West Quay to Melbourne to-morrow, and we’ll get you aboard it. She is advertised at five in the morning, so have yourself in readiness.”

I packed up the few things I had, and was smuggled out by a back door, just before daybreak. I hurried down, took my ticket under the name of Isaac Smith, and got safely aboard the Melbourne boat. I remember hearing her screw grinding into the water as the warps were cast loose, and looking back at the lights of Dunedin as I leaned upon the bulwarks, with the pleasant thought that I was leaving them behind me forever. It seemed to me that a new world was before me, and that all my troubles had been cast off. I went down below and had some coffee, and came up again feeling better than I had done since the morning that I woke to find that cursed Irishman that took me standing over me with a six-shooter.

Day had dawned by that time, and we were steaming along by the coast, well out of sight of Dunedin. I loafed about for a couple of hours, and when the sun got well up some of the other passengers came on deck and joined me. One of them, a little perky sort of fellow, took a good long look at me, and then came over and began talking.

“Mining, I suppose?” says he.

“Yes,” I says.

“Made your pile?” he asks.

“Pretty fair,” says I.

“I was at it myself,” he says; “I worked at the Nelson fields for three months, and spent all I made in buying a salted claim which busted up the second day. I went at it again, though, and struck it rich; but when the gold wagon was going down to the settlements, it was stuck up by those cursed rangers, and not a red cent left.”

“That was a bad job,” I says.

“Broke me – ruined me clean. Never mind, I’ve seen them all hanged for it; that makes it easier to bear. There’s only one left – the villain that gave the evidence. I’d die happy if I could come across him. There are two things I have to do if I meet him.”

“What’s that?” says I, carelessly.

“I’ve got to ask him where the money lies – they never had time to make away with it, and it’s cachéd somewhere in the mountains – and then I’ve got to stretch his neck for him, and send his soul down to join the men that he betrayed.”

It seemed to me that I knew something about that caché, and I felt like laughing; but he was watching me, and it struck me that he had a nasty, vindictive kind of mind.

“I’m going up on the bridge,” I said, for he was not a man whose acquaintance I cared much about making.

He wouldn’t hear of my leaving him, though. “We’re both miners,” he says, “and we’re pals for the voyage. Come down to the bar. I’m not too poor to shout.”

I couldn’t refuse him well, and we went down together; and that was the beginning of the trouble. What harm was I doing any one on the ship? All I asked for was a quiet life, leaving others alone and getting left alone myself. No man could ask fairer than that. And now just you listen to what came of it.

We were passing the front of the ladies’ cabin, on our way to the saloon, when out comes a servant lass – a freckled currency she-devil – with a baby in her arms. We were brushing past her, when she gave a scream like a railway whistle, and nearly dropped the kid. My nerves gave a sort of a jump when I heard that scream, but I turned and begged her pardon, letting on that I thought I might have trod on her foot. I knew the game was up, though, when I saw her white face, and her leaning against the door and pointing.

“It’s him!” she cried; “it’s him! I saw him in the court-house. Oh, don’t let him hurt the baby!”

“Who is it?” asked the steward and half a dozen others in a breath.

“It’s him – Maloney – Maloney, the murderer – oh, take him away – take him away!”

I don’t rightly remember what happened just at that moment. The furniture and me seemed to get kind of mixed, and there was cursing, and smashing, and some one shouting for his gold, and a general stamping round. When I got steadied a bit, I found somebody’s hand in my mouth. From what I gathered afterward, I concluded that it belonged to that same little man with the vicious way of talking. He got some of it out again, but that was because the others were choking me. A poor chap can get no fair play in this world when once he is down – still, I think he will remember me till the day of his death – longer, I hope.

They dragged me out on to the poop and held a damned court-martial – on me, mind you; me, that had thrown over my pals in order to serve them. What were they to do with me? Some said this, some said that; but it ended by the captain deciding to send me ashore. The ship stopped, they lowered a boat, and I was hoisted in, the whole gang of them hooting at me from over the bulwarks, I saw the man I spoke of tying up his hand, though, and I felt that things might be worse.

I changed my opinion before we got to the land. I had reckoned on the shore being deserted, and that I might make my way inland; but the ship had stopped too near the Heads, and a dozen beach-combers and such like had come down to the water’s edge and were staring at us, wondering what the boat was after. When we got to the edge of the surf the cockswain hailed them, and after singing out who I was, he and his men threw me into the water. You may well look surprised – neck and crop into ten feet of water, with sharks as thick as green parrots in the bush, and I heard them laughing as I floundered to the shore.

I soon saw it was a worse job than ever. As I came scrambling out through the weeds, I was collared by a big chap with a velveteen coat, and half a dozen others got round me and held me fast. Most of them looked simple fellows enough, and I was not afraid of them; but there was one in a cabbage-tree hat that had a very nasty expression on his face, and the big man seemed to be chummy with him.

They dragged me up the beach, and then they let go their hold of me and stood round in a circle.

“Well, mate,” says the man with the hat, “we’ve been looking out for you some time in these parts.”

“And very good of you, too,” I answers.

“None of your jaw,” says he. “Come, boys, what shall it be – hanging, drowning, or shooting? Look sharp!”

This looked a bit too like business. “No, you don’t!” I said. “I’ve got government protection, and it’ll be murder.”