Page:Outlawandlawmak00praegoog.djvu/310

298 the mountains rose, and always till the naked rock began, that dense black wilderness of scrub.

Pouches were unstrapped, and the half castes, who had been the beasts of burden, undid their rolls of provisions, while flasks were dipped in the ice-cold water of the pool. There was an hour to spare when the light repast was over. The Kodak came into requisition again. Minnie Pryde and Mr. Craig wandered off to collect crystals. Lady Waveryng, anxious to secure a root of a curious fern which she saw growing on a rock beside the waterfall, claimed Frank Hallett's services, and Trant turned to Elsie.

"Will you do me a favour?" he said with repressed emotion; " it's the last favour I shall ever ask you."

"What is it?" she asked, snatching at a straw of excitement. A dull dead depression seemed to have settled upon her, a nausea of everything. The watching of Frank Hallett's square well-knit figure as he piloted Lady Waveryng had got on her nerves. She was grateful to Lady Waveryng for keeping him. To have talked to him would have driven her mad with irritation. All the time she was in imagination seeing Blake. Oh, why was he not here?

"You know that I love you," Trant spoke with a deadly quietude; "I quite see that my love is hopeless. You are going to marry Frank Hallett in a month's time. For myself, I am leaving Australia, you are driving me away, you have to a certain extent spoiled my life, you owe me something, even if it's only indulgence of a sentimental whim."

"Well, tell me; if I can I will grant you the favour."

"You mightn't think me a man of sentiment. But I assure you that I have fancies that are not unpoetic. Do you remember speaking about the legend of the Baròlin rock, and that you were determined at any cost to reach it? You are at the Fall, but your keenness to see the petrified chief seems to have left you."

"Sam Shehan says there's no such rock," she answered.

"There is. I have seen it, it's exactly as you told me Yoolaman Tommy described it, a rock like a man's head with a beard and long hair of grey moss."