Boothby Guy
Sheilah McLeod: A Heroine of the Back Blocks

Once there, I hastened to seek out the address written on the paper Sheilah had given me. It was a nice house in a fashionable locality, and when I inquired for Captain Blake of the Amber Crown steamer, and gave my name as George Brown, I was told by the maid servant to walk in.

It appeared that old McLeod had once done a signal service for my new friend, which the latter had never forgotten. For this reason he was only too glad to have an opportunity of repaying his benefactor. Whether or not he knew who I was I cannot say; at any rate he said nothing to me on the subject. When I said good-bye to him I went straight off and boarded the Amber Crown, then lying in the harbour. The following morning I wrote to Sheilah, and during the afternoon we weighed anchor; by nightfall Australia lay beneath the horizon behind us. I was free!!!

Of the voyage across the Pacific there is nothing to tell. On arrival at Valparaiso I had an interview with Captain Blake in his private cabin.

'Mr Brown,' said he, for, as I have said, that was the name I was travelling under, 'having landed you here, I have carried out half of my contract. Now I must fulfil the other half.'

As he spoke he handed me a canvas bag containing the three hundred pounds in English gold Sheilah had told me to expect. I thanked him for his kindness to me during the voyage, signed the receipt for Mr McLeod, and then went ashore. The same night I sailed aboard an island schooner bound for Tahiti, the capital of the Friendly Group, where I entered the employ of the firm for whom I am now trading here on Vakalavi.

Now, my friends, you know my curious story, and there remain but three things to tell. The One-eyed Doctor was discovered at last by Sheilah, after a tedious hunt, dying of consumption in a Melbourne slum. She nursed him, and in a moment of gratitude, with the hand of death clutching at his throat, he gave her, in the presence of a magistrate, a full and complete confession of the murder of Jarman by Whispering Pete, stating that, beyond burying the body, I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. So my innocence was established, and I was cleared before the whole world. That is the first thing. Now for the next. Your schooner to-day brought me a letter from my wife, in which she tells me that she is coming to join me by the next boat. God bless her! Her father, who is tired of Barranda, is accompanying her. That is the second! The third is that by my father's death, so the lawyers and bankers tell me, I am a rich man. This being so, I shall send in my resignation to the firm, move across to Apia, and once there, set about building a big house on the mountain side overlooking the bay. In that lovely spot, for I shall never go back to Australia now, I shall hope to begin a new life, with Sheilah for my sweet companion. There is one point, doubtless, upon which you will agree with me, and that is, try how I will, I shall never be able to make up to her for her confidence and love during the bitterest period of my life. But I'll try, God helping me, I'll try! – you may be sure of that.

And now you know why I say that I believe in and reverence the name of woman. God bless the sex, and, above all, the girl, now my wife, who was once Sheilah McLeod!