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CHAPTER XXVIII

LORD TRENT’S DEATH-SCHEME

“Red sand, red sky! The stage is far too great
 For this small trick, and I
Pose like a hero, strut and challenge Fate!
 The sunset colours die,

“The great stars kindle, and the loose sand cools
 Beneath my tramping feet. . . .
At least I am not like the other fools
 Who travel in the heat.

“I thought that I had been alone before,
 On watch at sea, or when
I held our restless herd at Carrigmore
 Beside the sleeping men;

“But this dwarfs anything I knew—(see, all
 The stars are fading out,)
And Life and Death and Honour seem too small
 To make a fuss about.”

Tony braced himself against the side of the carriage (the Cloncurry train, always rough, was making up for time lost at Hughenden, and its gait was that of a bolting camel) and directed his blackest stare out of the window. The frown did not mean anger, only concentration. The practical part of his Death-Scheme, as he cheerfully called it, was coming close. He had taken leave of his acquaintances in Sydney in a shower of congratulations on his extraordinary luck, and he was making his way north-west in search of a mythical and dear friend called George Weston, who was probably at Tanami. No, he wasn’t in any hurry, hadn’t he always taken his time and he must see old George. They thought him quite mad, of course, and rather envied

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