Page:Outlawandlawmak00praegoog.djvu/77

Rh best-behaved fellows in the world," Blake insisted, good-humouredly. "They can sing too, I can tell you."

"Yes—they can sing," Hallett admitted—"and they can cheer in their queer shrill sort of way—I can't always make out whether they are delighted or disappointed. It sometimes sounds to me like a death-wail, and then, by Jove, I am told it is a shout of triumph."

"You'll hear it to-morrow," Blake said carelessly, "and then you will know that it isn't a death-wail—and don't you forget it."

"I am very curious about it—I want to hear it," Elsie said in an abstracted sort of way, as if she were talking to herself.

"I don't," Hallett declared with a laugh. "Well, Blake, we shall know it all to-morrow. 'God show the right,' as the old proclamations of battle used to say."

"God show the right," repeated Blake abstractedly. "That's what they say in Ireland. Come what will, Hallett," said Blake, "you are a good fellow, and a gallant opponent." Then the little group dispersed.

Sounds echoed all through the wooden building, and Ruffey's was by no means a peaceful haven on this election eve. From the bar down below there came noise of revelry, hoarse callings for drink, snatches of song, rough laughter, and occasionally an oath. In the balcony, on which Lady Horace's sitting-room opened, all this could be distinctly heard. It was an odd place for a young lady to choose, but for the greater part of the evening Elsie Valliant sat there and listened to the din and watched the street below. There was a moon getting near its full, and the long straggling roadway, with its wooden houses, its odd-looking groups of passers-by—rough bushmen, diggers, Chinamen, blacks—presented a rather amusing spectacle. But Elsie did not seem so deeply interested in the street scene as in a low monotonous hubbub, with one voice distinguishable through the babel, which came to her from the other side of the building, and which she guessed to be that of Blake holding a meeting. There were interruptions every now and then.