Nosey could now pride himself on having been “game to do his man,” but he could not feel much glory in his work just yet.  He had done it without sufficient forethought, and his mind was soon full of trouble.

Murder was worse than sheep stealing, and the consequences of his new venture in crime began to crowd on his mind with frightful rapidity.  He had not even thought of any plan for hiding away the corpse.  He had no grave ready, and could not dig one anywhere in the neighbourhood.  The whole of the country round his hut was rocky—­ little hills of bare bluestone boulders, and grassy hollows covered with only a few inches of soil—­rocks everywhere, above ground and below.  He could burn the body, but it would take a long time to do it well; somebody might come while he was at the work, and even the ashes might betray his secret.  There were shallow lakes and swamps, but he could not put the corpse into any of them with safety:  search would be made wherever there was water, on the supposition that Baldy had been drowned after drinking too freely of the gin he had brought from Nyalong, and if the body was found, the appearance of the skull would show that death had been caused, not by drowning, but by the blows of that cursed axe.  Nosey began to lay all the blame on the axe, and said, “If it had not stood up so handy near the door, I wouldn’t have killed the man.”

It was the axe that tempted him.  Excuses of that sort are of a very ancient date.

Luckily Nosey owned two horses, one of which was old and quiet.  He told Julia to fasten the door, and to open it on no account whatever, while he went for the horse, which was feeding in the Rises hobbled, and with a bell tied round his neck.  When he returned he saddled the animal, and Julia held the bridle while he went into the hut for the body.  He observed Baldy’s pipe on the floor near the fire-place, and he replaced it in the pocket in which it had been usually kept, as it might not be safe to leave anything in the hut belonging to the murdered man.  There was a little blood on the floor, but he would scrape that off by daylight, and he would then also look at the axe and put away the two bottles of gin somewhere; he could do all that next morning before Baldy was missed.  But the corpse must be taken away at once, for he felt that every minute of delay might endanger his neck.  He dragged the body outside, and with Julia’s help lifted it up and placed it across the saddle.  Then he tried to steady his load with his right hand, and to guide the horse by the bridle with his left, but he soon found that a dead man was a bad rider; Baldy kept slipping towards the near side or the off side with every stride of the horse, and soon fell to the ground.

Nosey was in a furious hurry, he was anxious to get away; he cursed Baldy for giving him so much trouble; he could have killed him over again for being so awkward and stubborn, and he begun to feel that the old shepherd was more dangerous dead than alive.  At last he mounted his horse, and called to Julia to come and help him.