The free labourers, on the other hand, from having assisted in the navigation of the steamer in her slow voyage from Echuca, had made themselves acquainted with every nook and cranny and pound of cargo on the boat. They knew that there was no magazine, nor any powder, and, divining the captain's ruse, made for the opposite bank with all convenient speed. Those who could swim, lost no time; and those who could not, escaped into the bush, undisturbed by the privateering crowd that had been so valorous a few minutes before.
When the boat returned and not before, the captain descended with deliberation, remarking, 'Now, lads, we've got a clear track before us. There ain't no powder, there ain't no wounded man, and I reckon them long-shore skunks will find themselves in an all-fired mess when the police come. There's a big body of 'em only ten miles from here, at Moorara Station. We'll just make camp and have a snack—some of us want it pretty bad. We'll build fires to warm those that's wet—wood's plenty. Leave 'em burning and make down river so's to warn the police under Colonel Elliot. The Union army won't cross before morning, for fear of the old tub blowing up and making a scatteration among 'em.'
The programme was carried out. The night was of Egyptian darkness. Supper was hastily disposed of. The fires were freshly made up, and shortly afterwards the whole contingent took the down-river road and by daylight were miles away from the scene of the encounter.
The unusually large body of police which had been ordered up by the Government, to join with another force on the Darling, had made rendezvous at Moorara, having heard from a scout that mischief, rather above the ordinary limit, was being enacted near Poliah. When, next morning, the captain and crew of the Dundonald, with the greater portion of the free labourers, arrived, a strong sensation was aroused. This was an unparalleled outrage, and, if unchecked, meant the commencement of Civil War, plain and undisguised.
What horrors might follow! A guerilla band, with its attendant crimes—murder, pillage, outrage! Such a band of reckless desperadoes, armed and mounted, like a regiment of irregular horse, was sufficient to terrorise the country; gathering on the march, till every criminal in the land that could steal a horse and a gun would be added to their ranks in a surprisingly short time.
Once launched on such a campaign of crime, the country would be ravaged before a military force could be organised. The proverbial snowball may be arrested at the first movement, but after gathering velocity, it descends the mountain-side with the force and fury of the avalanche.
The colonel in command of the Volunteers was a soldier to whom border raids in wild lands, with a wilder foe, was not unfamiliar. 'Boot and saddle' was sounded. Without a moment's unnecessary delay, the troop was in full marching order along the 'river road,' a well-marked trail, heading for Poliah.
The night was still dark, but comparatively cool. No inconvenience was felt as the men trotted briskly along and joked as to the sort of battle in which they would engage.
'Bless yer, they won't fight, not if there was another thousand of 'em,' said a grizzled sergeant, 'and every man with the newest arm invented. I've seen mobs afore. Men as ain't drilled and disciplined never stands a charge.'
'They've got rifles and revolvers, I know,' said a younger man, 'and they can shoot pretty straight, some of 'em. Suppose they keep open order, and pepper us at long range? What's to keep 'em from droppin' us that way, from cover, and then makin' a rush?'
'There's nothin' to keep 'em, only they won't do it,' replied the sergeant oracularly. 'They know the law's agin' 'em, which means a lot in Australia—so far. Besides that, they've never faced a charge, or don't know what it's like to stiffen up in line. You'll see how they'll cut it when they hear the colonel give the word, not to mention the bugle-call. Why, what the devil——?'
Then the sergeant, ending his sentence abruptly, almost halted, as a column of flame rose through the night air, sending up tongues of flame and red banners through the darkness which precedes the dawn.
'D—d if they haven't burned the bloomin' steamer!' quoth he. 'What next, I'd like to know? This country's going to the devil. I always thought it was a mistake sending our old regiment away.'
'Halt!' suddenly rang out in the clear, strong tones of the colonel—the voice of a man who had seen service and bore the tokens of it in a tulwar slash and a couple of bullet wounds. 'These fellows have set fire to the steamer, and of course she will burn to the water's edge. They will hardly make a fight of it though. In case they do, sergeant, take twenty men and skirt round so as to intercept their left wing. I'll do myself the honour to lead the charge on their main body, always supposing they wait for us to come up.'
The character of the resistance offered proved the sergeant's estimate to be absolutely correct. A few dropping shots were heard before the police came up, but when the rioters saw the steady advance of a hundred mounted men—an imposing cavalry force for Australia—saw Colonel Elliot, who rode at their head with his sword drawn, heard the clanking of the steel scabbards and the colonel's stern command, 'Charge!' they wavered and broke rank in all directions.
'Arrest every man on the river-bank with firearms in his hands,' roared the colonel. The sergeant, with a dozen of his smartest troopers, had each their man in custody a few seconds after the order was given—Bill Hardwick among the rest, who was fated to illustrate the cost of being found among evil-doers. One man alone made a desperate resistance, but after a crack from the butt-end of a carbine, he accepted his defeat sullenly. By the time his capture was complete, so was the rout of the rebel array. Hardly a man was to be seen, while the retreating body of highly irregular horse sounded like a break-out from a stock-yard.
Matters had reached the stage when the stokers at the Gas Works were 'called out,' and the city of Melbourne threatened with total darkness after 6 P.M.
Then a volunteer corps of Mounted Rifles was summoned from the country. The city was saved from a disgraceful panic—perhaps from worse things. The Unionist mob quailed at the sight of the well-mounted, armed, and disciplined body of cavalry, whose leader showed no disposition to mince matters, and whose hardy troopers had apparently no democratic doubts which the word 'Charge!' could not dispel.
At the deserted Gas Works, aristocratic stokers kept the indispensable flame alight until the repentant, out-colonelled artisans returned to their work.
This was the crisis of the struggle—the turning-point of the fight; as far as the element of force was concerned, the battle was over. It showed, that with proper firmness, which should have been exhibited at the outset, the result is ever the same. The forces of the State, with law and justice behind them, must overawe any undisciplined body of men attempting to terrorise the body politic in defence of fancied rights or the redress of imaginary wrongs.
The rioting in the cities of Melbourne and Sydney was promptly abated when the citizen cavalry, 'armed and accoutred proper,' clanked along Collins Street in Melbourne, while Winston Darling led the sons of his old friends and schoolfellows, who drove the high-piled wool waggons in procession down George Street in Sydney to the Darling Harbour Warehouses.
Much was threatened as to the latter demonstration, by blatant demagogues, who described it as 'a challenge; an insult to labour.' It was a challenge, doubtless—a reminder that Old New South Wales, with the founders of the Pastoral Industry—that great export now reaching the value of three hundred millions sterling—was not to be tyrannised over by a misguided mob, swayed by self-seeking, irresponsible agitators.
No doubt can exist in the minds of impartial observers that if the Ministries of the different colonies over which this wave of industrial warfare passed, in the years following 1891, had acted with promptness and decision at the outset, the heavy losses and destructive damage which followed might have been averted.
But the labour vote was strong—was believed, indeed, to be more powerful than it proved to be when tested. And the legislatures elected by universal suffrage were, in consequence, slow to declare war against the enemies of law and order.
They temporised, they hesitated to take strong measures. They tacitly condoned acts