The Goldsmith Comes to Town the Second Time.
Tresco stood in the yellow light of the paraffin lamp, and gazed in wonderment at Gentle Annie. He was a tattered and mournful object; his boots worn out, his trousers a marvel of patchwork, hiscoat a thing discoloured and torn, his hair and beard unshorn, himself a being unrecognisable by his former friends.
Gentle Annie’s attitude betokened the greatest surprise. With her hands on her bosom, her lips parted, her cheeks pale, her eyes frightened, she stood, and timidly returned the gaze of the strange man before her.
“What do you want?” she asked, so soon as she could find her voice. “Why do you come here?”
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Benjamin reassuringly. “First, let me tell you that I’m your friend and protector. Do you forget Tresco the goldsmith?”
Gentle Annie gave vent to a little cry of astonishment.
“I am an outlaw,”—he spoke as if he were defending himself before his peers—“an outcast, a hunted dog. My own house is unsafe, so I came here for protection and a little comfort.” He dropped suddenly into quite a sentimental tone of voice. “I haven’t spoken to a soul, save my lad, for over six weeks. I’m a bit lonesome and miserable; and I badly need a well-cooked meal.”
“But if you stop here”—Gentle Annie’s ample bust rose and fell with agitation—“the police will catch you.”
“They’d think of looking for me in the moon before they came here, my dear; besides I have no intention of stopping. I only want rest and food.”
“I’ll do what I can for you, but you must go almost directly.”
“Why, certainly.” Tresco sat down, and drew a deep breath. “It’s good to look at a wholesome woman again—it seems years since I saw one.”
A smile passed over Gentle Annie’s face, and her eyes twinkled with merriment. “I see you’re not cured of your old weakness,” she said.
“No, my dear; and I hope I never shall be.” Benjamin had rallied from his depression. “On the contrary, it increases.”
They were a strange couple—the wild-looking man on one side of the table, and the fine figure of a woman who emitted a faint odour of patchouli, on the other.
“I suppose you know I’m my own mistress now.”
“It looks like it. I understood something of the kind from Jake.”
“I objected to be pulled about indiscriminately, so I left The Lucky Digger. A rough brute cut my arm with a broken glass.” She rolled up her sleeve, and showed the scar of the newly-healed wound.
Benjamin took the soft, white arm in his hand, and gave it just the suspicion of a squeeze.
“I wish I’d bin there, my dear: I’d ha’ chucked him through the window.”
“Mr. Scarlett—who has been so lucky on the diggings—kicked him out of the house on to the pavement.”
“Ah! but did he do the thing properly, scientifically?”
“I think so. And when he found the boss blaming me for the row, he turned on him like a tiger. But afterwards old Townson gave me the office, so I’ve retired into private life. Do you like my rooms?”
“A trifle small, don’t you think?” said Benjamin.
“Cozy.”
“My dear, where you are it can’t help being cozy.”
“After that I’ll get you something to eat. What do you say to grilled steak and onions?”
“Delicious! Couldn’t be better.”
Gentle Annie bustled out to the safe, at the back of the house, and returned with a dish of red and juicy meat.
“And to follow, you shall have stewed plums and cream.”
“Better than ever,” said Benjamin; his mouth watering behind his ragged beard.
“I believe I understand mankind,” said Gentle Annie, going to a cupboard, whence she took a big bottle, which she placed on the table.
“If all the women in the world understood men as you do, my dear, we should have Arcadia here, instead of Gehennum.”
“Instead of what?”
“Gehennum, my dear; a place where they drive men into the wilderness and cut them off from supplies, and they rot in damp caves, destitute of bread, beer, and even tobacco.”
“No; I really can’t supply that last. If I let you smoke, some old cat would come sniffing round to-morrow morning, and say, ‘Phew! amanhas been here.’ Good food and drink you shall have, but no tobacco.”
“But you’ll let me wash?”
“Certainly. Cleanliness is next to godliness. If you can’t have the one, I wouldn’t bar you from the other.” She led him to the door of her bedroom, and said, “Walk in.”
The room was a dainty affair of muslin blinds and bed-hangings. To Benjamin it was a holy of holies dedicated to the sweet, the lovely, the inscrutable. All the feminine gear lying around, the little pots of powder and ointment, the strange medicaments for the hair, the mirrors, the row of little shoes, the bits of jewellery lying on fat pincushions, the skirts and wrappers and feminine finery hanging behind the door, these and fifty other things appealed to the softest spot in his susceptible nature. He took up the ewer, and poured water into the basin; but he was ashamed to place his dirty coat on a thing so clean as was the solitary dimity-covered chair, so he put the ragged garment on the floor. Then he took up a pink cake of soap, and commenced his ablutions.
A strong and agreeable odour tickled his olfactory nerves—the cooking had begun. Though his ears were full of lather, he could hear the meat frying in the pan, and the spluttering of the fat.
“What punishment do they give to people who harbour malefactors?” Gentle Annie called from over her cooking.
“Who’s a malefactor?” called Tresco from the middle of a towel with which he was drying his roseate face.
“What areyouthen?”
“I’m a gentleman at large, my dear. No one has charged me with anything yet, let alone convicted me.”
“But there’s a warrant out against you, old gentleman.”
“Maybe. I haven’t seen it.”
“But what’smyposition?”
“You’re accessory after the fact, if there is a fact.”
“What am I liable for?”
“That depends on the judge, my dear. It might be two, three, or more kisses. If I was on the bench, the sentence would be as heavy as possible, and I’d insist on executing it myself.”
A laugh came from over the frying-pan.
“If you’re not careful, old party, you’ll have some of this hot fat on your head.”
Benjamin had finished his toilette, and walked into the other room.
The small, square table was spread with a white cloth, and a place was set for one.
“But, my dear, won’t you partake?” said Benjamin, eyeing the arrangement of the table.
“I’m not hungry,” the girl replied. “I’ll watch the lion feed.”
The little room was filled with the smell of cooked viands, and Tresco seated himself in readiness to eat.
The smoking steak, garnished with fried onions and potatoes, was placed before him.
“For what I am about to receive, my dear, I thank you.” Gently squeezing the ex-bar-maid’s hand, he kissed it.
“Now, that’ll do. You’re getting giddy in your old age—it must be the effect of the steak. Cupboard love, cupboard love!”
Tresco drew the cork of the big bottle, which he handed to Gentle Annie.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“You pour it out, my dear. It’ll make it taste so much sweeter.”
“You gay old deceiver: you’re like the rest of them.”
“No, my dear: they’re imitation; I’m the genuine article.”
Gentle Annie filled his tall glass deftly, so that the froth stood in a dome over the liquor. She was about to replace the bottle on the table, when Tresco took a tumbler from the dresser, and filled it for her.
“Keep me company,” he said. “It looks more comfortable.”
“But stout’s so fattening.”
“My dear, a lean woman is a reproach to her sex.”
“Then, what’s a fat one?”
“A credit, like I am to mine, or used to be before I got thin through semi-starvation. Here’s to your very good health; may your beauty never grow less.” Benjamin raised his glass to his lips.
“More flattery.” Gentle Annie’s comfortable laugh shook her whole body. “I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment.”
“You do better: you supply the inner man—steak, done to a turn; stout; sweet stuffs. You couldn’t have treated me better, if I’d been a bishop.”
“Why a bishop?”
“I’ve looked round, and taken stock of my fellows; and I think a bishop has a rousing good time, don’t you?”
“I can’t say; I don’t often entertain bishops.”
“Bishops and licensed victuallers; I think they get the cream of life.”
“But what about lords and dukes?”
“They have to pay through the nose for all they get, but bishops and landlords get all their good things chucked in gratuitous. Of course a bishop’s more toney, but a publican sees more of life—honours, meaning good tucker and liquor, divided.”
Tresco attacked the juicy steak: his satisfaction finding expression in murmurs of approval. He finished the stout with as much relish as if it had been the richest wine; and then Gentle Annie took from the cupboard two glass dishes, the one half-filled with luscious red plums swimming in their own juice, the other containing junket.
Tresco had almost forgotten the taste of such food. While he was eating it Gentle Annie made some tea.
“Is this the way you treat the toffs, when they come to see you?”
“Toffs? You’re the greatest toff that has come to see me, so far.”
“I shall come again.”
“Do you know there’s a reward offered for you?”
“How much?”
“Twenty pounds.”
“Is that all? I’ll give it you, my dear.”
From his dirty rags he pulled out a small linen bag, from which he emptied upon a clean plate a little pile of nuggets.
Gentle Annie was lost in wonderment. Her eyes glistened, and she turned the pieces of gold over with her finger covetously.
“These should go close on £4 to the ounce,” remarked the goldsmith, as he separated with the blade of a table-knife a portion ofthe gold equal to what he guessed to be five ounces, and the remainder he replaced in the bag.
“That’s for you,” he said, pushing the plate towards her.
Gentle Annie gleefully took the gold in her hands.
“You generous old party!” she exclaimed. “I know when I am well off.”
They now drank tea out of dainty cups, and Benjamin took a pipe and tobacco from his pocket.
“I really must have a smoke to settle my dinner,” he said.
“Of course,” said she; “it was only my fun. I smoke myself.” Taking a packet from the mantelpiece, she lighted a cigarette, which she handed to Tresco, when a low knock was heard at the door.
In a moment she had blown out the light, and led the erring goldsmith to her inner room, where he stood, apprehensive but alert. From his belt he drew a knife, and then he furtively examined the fastenings of the muslin-draped window.
He heard his hostess open the door and speak to her visitor, who replied in a deep voice, at some length. But, presently, the door closed, the steps of the visitor were heard departing, and Gentle Annie softly entered the room.
“You’re quite safe,” she said.
“Who was it?”
“Only a friend of mine. He’s gone. He won’t call again to-night.”
Amiria Plays Her Highest Card in the Game of Love.
Scarlett was bound for the gold-fields. He bestrode a tall chestnut mare, with white “socks.” In the cool of the morning, with the dew sparkling on the hedges and the birds twittering in the orchards, he rode out of Timber Town.
He crossed the ford where he had rescued Rachel from the clutches of the digger, and had turned into the gorge which led through the foot-hills when he came suddenly upon Amiria, waiting for him, with her horse standing across the road.
She was dressed in a perfectly-fitting habit of dark blue cloth, a hard felt hat, and in her hand she carried a dainty whip; but her feet were bare, and one pretty toe protruded from the stirrup.
“I’m hanged!” exclaimed Jack. “Who ever expected to see you here, at this time of the morning?”
The Maori girl laughed. “I knew you were going to-day—Rose Summerhayes told me. So I said to myself, ‘I’ll go to the diggings too; I’ll see how they get this gold.’ Perhaps I may find some myself. Is it far?”
“About fifty miles. But I can’t take you to the field.”
“Why not? I shan’t steal anything.”
Scarlett could not forbear a smile. “I don’t mean that,” he said. “I was thinking what the fellows would say.”
Amiria’s merry laugh rang through the narrow valley. “Oh, youPakehapeople, how funny you are—always troubled by what others may think about you, always bothering about the day after to-morrow. Yet I think it’s all put on: you do just the same things as the Maori. I give it up. I can’t guess it. Come on; see if your horse can trot mine.”
She flicked her big bay that she was riding, and started off at a swinging pace. And so, Scarlett riding on the soft turf on one side of the road and Amiria on the other, they raced till they came to the next ford.
“I beat!” cried the Maori girl, her brown cheeks glowing with excitement.
The horses were given a mouthful of water, and then they splashed through the shallows; their iron shoes clanking on the boulders as dry land was reached.
“You are very rich, aren’t you?” Amiria asked, as they walked their horses side by side.
“What do you mean by rich?”
“Oh, you have lots of gold, money, everything you want.”
“Not by any means.”
“You must be very greedy, then. They tell me you have thousands of pounds in the bank, a big house which you are building, and a fine girl.”
“A girl?”
“Yes, Rahera Varnhagen. Isn’t she a fine girl?”
“Rachel Varnhagen!”
“Yes. I was in the old man’s store yesterday, buying things for thepa, and he told me he had given his girl to you.”
Jack opened his eyes in astonishment. He wondered who was the liar, the Jew or the Maori girl, but all he said was, “Well, I’m hanged!”
Amiria laughed. “You see, these things can’t be kept dark.”
“But it’s all a yarn. I’m not engaged to anybody. Can’t a man talk to a girl, without all Timber Town saying he is going to marry her?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you like her?”
“I think she’s very pretty, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want to marry her.”
“Then youdon’tlike her?”
“I like her only as a friend.”
“Shall I tell her that?”
Jack thought for a moment. He had suddenly become rather suspicious of women-folk.
“It might hurt her feelings,” he said.
“If you don’t speak the truth, she will think you mean to marry her.”
“Then, tell her I don’t mean to do anything of the sort.”
Amiria laughed softly to herself. “That leaves two,” she said.
“Leaves two? What do you mean?”
“There are three girls in love with you. Rahera was one—she is out of it. That leaves two.”
“This is the very dickens! Who are the other two, pray?”
“Rose Summerhayes is one.”
Jack laughed. “She is too discreet, too English, to give her love, except where she is certain it will be returned.”
“You can’t tell: you don’t know.” Amiria had reined in her horse beside Jack’s. “She is always talking about you. She talks about you in her sleep—I know: I have heard her.”
“No, no; you make a mistake. She’s a great friend of mine, but that is all. Who’s the other daring girl?”
“You know,” replied Amiria, with a pout.
“How am I to presume to think of such a thing?”
“You know quite well.”
“Upon my honour, I don’t.”
“Does a girl ride with you, if she doesn’t like you?”
“Depends upon the girl.”
“Would I trouble to meet you, if I didn’t?”
“Then it’s you? Upon my word! This is overwhelming.”
“ButIhave a right to tell you—I saved your life. I know you as other girls don’t.”
“Oh, I say, this is a bit rough on a fellow. I couldn’t help getting shipwrecked, you know.”
“But I saved you. I have the right to you first. If you don’t like me, then you can marry some other girl.”
“I don’t think you understand, Amiria. Of course I’m awfully indebted to you. As you say, I owe you my life. But if I marry you, I can’t marry anybody else afterwards.”
The Maori girl had jumped from her horse, and Scarlett was standing beside her. The horses grazed on the grassy bank of the stream.
“I know all the ways of your people,” said Amiria: “I was sent to school to learn them. Some I think good; some I think bad. Your marriage is like the yoke you put on bullocks. It locks you tight together. Before you know really whether you like each other you have this yoke put on you: you are tied up for ever. The Maori way is better. We have our marriage too—it is like the bridle on my horse, light, easy, but good. We only put it on when we know that we like each other. That’s the way I wish to be married, and afterwards I would get your priest to give us his marriage, so that I might betikain the eyes of thePakehapeople.”
As she spoke, her eyes flashed and her whole attitude was masterful, if not defiant; her cheek coloured, her mouth quivered with excitement, her gestures, as well as her speech, were full of animation. Evidently, she was giving expression to the warmest feelings of her passionate nature.
Scarlett held a smallmanukastick, plucked from a flowering bush by the wayside. With this he struck his leather legging repeatedly, as he walked to and fro in agitation. Pausing by the river’s brim, he gazed into the rippling water.
“This is something like marriage by capture,” he said, “but the tables are turned on the man. The thing may be all right for you, but I should lose caste. With all your tuition, Amiria, you don’t understandPakehaways. I could marry you, English fashion; but I haven’t the least intention of doing so.”
The Maori girl had followed him, and as he gave his decision her arm was linked through his.
The tethered horses were cropping the grass, regardless of their riders. Scarlett, wrestling with the problem that confronted him, was still gazing at the water.
But a sob recalled him to his duty. His companion’s whole frame was quivering with emotion, and, as he turned, his eyes were met by hers steadfastly regarding him through their tears.
“You had better go home,” he said. “The best place for you is thepa. The best way for you to show your regard for me is to turn back.”
She had shot her one bolt, and it had missed its mark. She turned her head aside, and hid her face in her hands. Slowly and disconsolately, she walked towards her horse, and unloosing him from the bush to which he was tied, she climbed into the saddle.
Her whip had dropped on the grass. Picking it up, Scarlett took it to her. She looked the picture of misery, and his heart began to melt. Her right hand hung limply at her side, and as he was putting the whip into it, he pressed her fingers gently. She did not draw her hand away, but left it in his clasp: gradually her tears dried, and a smile came into her face.
“Hullo!” said a strange voice behind them. “Spoonin’? Don’t mind me, mate: I’ve bin there myself.”
They turned their heads, to see four grinning men behind them on the track.
“Hold on, Carny; step behind the bushes, an’ give the couple a chanst. Boys will be boys. Can’t you see the young feller was about to enjoy a kiss?”
“Take her orf the horse, mate,” said another of the men. “Go for a walk with her—we’ll mind the horses. We won’t take no notice.”
Flushing with anger, Amiria drew herself up.
“You’d better go,” said Scarlett. “I’ll attend to these men.”
Without another word the Maori girl turned her horse’s head for home, walked him quietly past Dolphin and his gang, without taking the least notice of any of them, and then cantered away.
As she did so the four men burst into hoarse laughter and obscene remarks.
Scarlett walked menacingly towards Garstang, who had been the chief offender.
“You filthy brute,” he said, “what do you mean?”
“Filthy, eh?” retorted Garstang. “D’you ’ear that, Dolly? An’ I suppose my mates is filthy too, eh, mister?”
“Jab ’im in the mouth, Garstang.” This advice from Sweet William.
But Dolphin settled the matter. With a revolver in his hand he stepped towards the menacing Scarlett.
“Now, hook it,” he said. “If you can’t take a bit of chaff without turning nasty, don’t think you can get up to any of your funny business here. I give you three minutes in which to clear.”
As Scarlett, following the general practice of the diggers, went unarmed, he could only reply by acting upon dictation; but before he turned to go, he looked well at the men before him. Then he mounted his horse, and rode away.
He quickly forded the stream, and, without turning his head to look again at the strange gang, he plunged into the dense forest which stretched across mountain and valley. As he climbed the slopes of the range over which the track led him, the sun shone brightly and not a cloud was in the sky. The air was so still that even at the summit of the range, 2000 feet and more above the sea, not the slightest breeze stirred. The atmosphere was oppressive, and, three parts of the way down the further slope, where a clear rivulet crossed the path, Jack was fain to rest beneath the shade of a giant tree-fern, and eat and drink. There was not a creature to harm him; no venomous reptile, no ravenous beast dwelt in those vast sub-tropical forests; no poisonous miasma reeked from the moist valleys below; in the evergreen trees countless pigeons cooed,kakaparrots and green paroquets screamed, and black parson-birds sang. It was a picture of Nature in one of her most peaceful and happy moods. Forgetful of the distractions which he had left behind him, Jack’s mind had turned to the contemplation of the bright prospects which lay before him, when his reverie was broken by the sound of voices and the noise of horses’ hoofs; and round a bend of the track, slowly ascending the uncertain gradient, appeared the gold-escort.
Leading the cavalcade, rode a mounted constable dressed in a blue tunic, with silver buttons, dun-coloured, corded riding-breeches, top-boots, and a blue shako. His carbine was slung negligently, and he whistled as he rode.
Behind him came Isaac Zahn, sitting loosely on his horse; a revolver strapped in its case at his belt. He was followed by an unarmed mounted man who led the pack-horse which carried the gold; and an armed digger, who rode a white horse, brought up the rear.
The leading horse whinnied, and Jack’s mare answered.
“Good morning,” said the constable, reining up. “A beautiful day, sorr. Have ye such a thing as a match wid you?”
Jack, who was smoking, handed a box of matches to the man, who lighted his pipe. The whole cavalcade had come to a halt, andZahn, who pretended not to recognise Jack, sat on his horse, and scowled.
Scarlett’s eyes involuntarily fixed themselves on the heavily-laden pack-horse.
“I should advise you to keep your weather eye lifted, constable,” he said.
“Bedad, an’ we’ll attend to that,” replied the Irishman, with a broad smile. “The escort’s as good as in Timber Town already. Thank you, sorr.” He handed back the matches. “Good morning t’you.” And lightly touching his horse with the spur, he passed on.
Disregarding Scarlett’s nod of recognition, Zahn followed the leader, without so much as a glance at the man whom he hated as his supposed supplanter in the affections of the beautiful Jewess.
The pack-horse and its leader, a stoutly-built man, went heavily by, and the rear-guard let his horse drink at the stream, but he was a man filled with the importance of his office, and to Jack’s greeting he replied merely with a mechanical nod, as though he would say, “Don’t speak to me: I’m exceedingly intent upon conveying this gold to Timber Town.”
“Strange crowd,” mused Jack, as the last hoof disappeared round the upper bend of the track; “riding loose in the saddle, their arms slung behind them. If I’d had a gun, I could have shot the first man before he saw me. Robbing escorts can’t be such a difficult matter as is supposed. If Zahn had been civil I’d have used the opportunity to warn him of the queer gang I met at the ford. They may be simple diggers—they look like it—but the man who whips out a pistol on the least provocation is to be guarded against when you’re in charge of five or six thousand ounces of gold.”
With these thoughts Jack mounted his horse, and rode away. The winding track at length led him into a deep valley, down which flowed a broad river whose glistening waters rippled laughingly over a shallow bed of grey boulders. Along its banks grew mighty pines, therimu, thetotara, and the broad-spreading black-birch, their trunks hidden in dense undergrowth and a tangle of creepers; while here and there beside the sparkling waters grew thick clumps of bright green tree-ferns.
But the track was now flat and straight, and putting his horse into a trot Scarlett covered the ground rapidly. After some ten miles of riding, he came to a ford where the track crossed the river, and entered rougher country. As he drew rein at the verge of the water to let his horse drink, he noticed that the heavens had suddenly become dark. Looking at the strip of sky revealed by the treeless stretch above the waters, he saw a phenomenon in the upper air. Across the tranquil blue expanse advanced a mighty thunder-cloud; its unbroken face approaching at immense speed, though not a leaf of the forest stirred, nor the frond of a fern moved. It was like the oncoming of a mighty army, sweeping across the still country, and leaving devastation in its track. Then the low rumble of the thunder, like the sound of cannon in the distant hills, heralded the commencement of the storm. A flash broke from the inky black cloud, and simultaneously a deafening thunder-clap burst upon the solitary traveller. Then followed an ominous silence, broken by the rushing of the wind among the tree-tops, and the high heads of the forest giants bent before the storm. The rain came down in a deluge, and shut from sight both hill and valley; so that instead of wandering through a leafy paradise, where birds sang and the sunshine glittered on a million leaves, Scarlett groped his way as in a maze, dark and impenetrable; his horse dejected, himself drenched and cold.
In Tresco’s Cave.
Tresco stood in his dark, dank cavern, and meditated upon the loneliness of life.
He was naturally a sociable man, and loved the company of his fellows, but here he was living a hermit’s existence, shut up in the bowels of the earth, with no better associates than the clammy stalactites which constantly dripped water upon the white, calcareous floors.
The atmosphere was so cold that it chilled the marrow of the goldsmith’s bones, and to render habitable the inner recess where he lived he was forced to keep a fire perpetually burning. To do this it was necessary for him to sally into the daylight, in order that he might collect firewood, of which there was in the neighbourhood of the cave an abundant supply.
Groping his way slowly through the winding passage, every twist and turn of which he knew in the dark, Benjamin passed into the lofty cavern which he had named the Cathedral, where the stalactites and stalagmites, meeting, had formed huge columns, which seemed to support the great domed roof overhead. This was a place which Tresco was never tired of admiring. “A temple built without hands,” he said, as he held aloft his candle, and viewed the snow-white pillars which stood on either side of what he named the Nave.
“What a place to preach in.” He who has no companions must needs talk to himself if he would hear the human voice. “Here, now, a mancouldexpatiate on the work of the Creator, but his sermon would have to be within the fifteen minutes’ limit, or his congregation would catch their death of cold. ‘Dearly beloved brethren, the words of my text are illustrated by the house in which we are assembled.’” His voice filled the Nave, and reverberated down the aisles. “‘Here you have the real thing, built by the Master Builder, Nature, for the use of the Cave Man, and preserved for all time. How wonderful are the works of Creation, how exquisite the details. You have heard of the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian columns, and of the beauties of Greek architecture, but compare these white, symmetrical piers, raised in one solid piece, without join or crevice. Observe yonder alabaster gallery where the organ swells its harmonious tones; observe the vestry, where the preacher dons his sacerdotal garb—they are perfect. But did I hear a lady sneeze? Alas! Nature forgot the hot-air pipes; the Cathedral, I admit, strikes a little chilly. Therefore I dismiss you, my brethren, lest you should catch pleurisy, or go into galloping consumption.’”
He finished with a laugh, and then passed into the small entrance-cave, which he denominated facetiously the Church Porch. Here he blew out his candle, which he placed on a rock, and emerged from his hiding-place.
He had burst from the restful, if cold, comfort of his cave upon the warring elements. Peal after peal of thunder rolled along the wooded slopes of the rugged range; fierce flashes of lightning pierced the gloom of the dark valley below, and from the black thunder-cloud overhead there poured a torrent of rain which made the goldsmith think of the Deluge.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, as he stood in the entrance of his damp den, “there are worse places than my cave after all. But what I want isfirewood. Lord! that flash almost blinded me. Rumble—grumble—tumble—crash—bang! Go it; never mindme. You aren’t frightening me worth tuppence. I rather like a little electricity andaqua pura.” In answer there was a dazzling flash, followed by a terrific clap of thunder which seemed to burst almost above Benjamin’s head. “All right, if you insist—I’ll go. Sorry I obtruded ... Good afternoon.”
He retreated into the cave, took up his candle, which he relighted, saying to himself, “I’ll go and explore that passage behind the Organ Loft, and see if it leads to the outer world. In case I get shut in here, like a rat in a hole, it’s just as well for me to know my burrow thoroughly.”
Groping his way up a slippery ascent where his feet continually stumbled over the uneven surface of the encrusted floor, he climbed to the Organ Loft, where, screened behind a delicate, white tracery which hung from roof to floor of the gallery and assumed the shape of an organ, pipes and panels complete, he could see his candle’s flame shoot long fingers of light into the vast Nave below.
However, he spent but little time in contemplation of the weird scene, but turning sharply to the right he followed a narrow, winding passage which led into the heart of the limestone mountain. His progress was both slow and difficult, for the encrusting carbonate had, in many places, all but filled up the passage, and, in many others, the floor was so broken as to make it almost impossible for him to press onwards. Now he would squeeze himself between the converging sides of the passage, now he would crawl on hands and knees through a hole which would barely receive his shoulders; and thus, sweating, panting, bruised, and even bleeding where his hands and arms had been grazed by rasping and projecting rocks, he at length sat down to rest in a place where the tunnel broadened into a small chamber. How far he had pushed his way into the bowels of the earth he could not tell, neither was he thoughtful of the distance. What he was looking and hoping for, was a gleam of light ahead, but whenever he blew out his candle the inky blackness was so intense as to be painful to his eyes.
“My God! Supposing a man got in here, and couldn’t get back? Suppose I got stuck between two rocks?—I’d have to stop here till I grew thin enough to squeeze out.”
Quickly he re-lit his candle.
“That’s better,” he exclaimed. “There is after all some company in a lighted candle. We’ll now go on; we’ll press forward; we’ll see whither this intricate path leadeth. ‘Vorwarts’ is the word: no turning back till the goal is reached.”
He crept through a low aperture, and with difficulty he rose to his feet; a few steps further on he stumbled; the candle fell from his hand, and dropped, and dropped, and dropped, in fact he never heard it reach the bottom.
Feeling in his pocket for his matches as he lay prone, he struck a light, and held the burning taper beyond him as far as he could reach. All that he saw was a dark and horrible abyss. He struck another match with the same result. He seized a piece of loose rock, rolled it over the edge, and waited for the sound of its lodgment at the bottom. He heard it bumping as it fell, but its falling seemed interminable, till at length the sound of its passage to the nether regions died away in sheer depth.
Tresco drew a long breath.
“Never,” he said, “never, in the course of his two score years and ten has Benjamin been so near Hades. The best thing he can do is to ‘git,’ deliberately and with circumspection. And the candle has gone: happy candle to preserve the life of such a man as B.T.”
Slowly and with the utmost caution he crept backwards from the horrible pit. But his supply of matches was scanty, and often he bumped his head against the ceiling, and often he tripped and fell,till before long there was not a part of his portly person that was free from pain. Yet still he struggled on, for he realised that his life depended on his extricating himself from the terrible labyrinth in which he was entangled. He struck match after match, till his stock was expended, and then, panting, weary, and sore, he clenched his teeth and battled onward. It seemed miles to the end of the passage. He imagined that he had got into some new tunnel, the opening of which he had passed unwittingly when he crept into the trap; and to the natural dread of his situation was added the horrible fear that he was lost in the bowels of the earth.
And then, when his strength and nerve had all but given out, came deliverance. Before him he saw a faint glimmer of light, which grew brighter and brighter as he pressed painfully forward, and ere he knew that he was safe he found himself in the gallery behind the organ loft.
But what was the brilliant light that filled the nave of the Cathedral? What was the sound he heard? It was the sound of men’s voices.
Sitting round a fire, whose red flames illumined the white walls of the grotto, were four men, who talked loudly as they dried their wet garments before the blaze.
Tresco crept to the trellis-work of the gallery, and peered down upon the scene. In the shifting light which the unsteady flames threw across the great cave below he could hardly distinguish one man from another, except where facing the ruddy light the features of this intruder or of that reflected the fierce glow.
“I had to chiv the fat bloke, an’ he squealed like a pig when I jabbed ’im.” The speaker was sitting cross-legged with his back towards Tresco, and was wiping the blade of a big butcher’s knife.
“My man died coughing,” said another. “’E coughed as ’e sat like a trussed fowl, an’ when I ‘squeezed’ ’im, ’e just give one larst little cough an’ pegged out quite pleasant, like droppin’ orf to sleep.”
“It’s been a bloody mess,” remarked a third speaker. “There’s Garstang there, a mass of blood all over his shirt, and there’s the two men that was shot; any’ow you like to look at it, it’s an unworkmanlike job. All four of ’em should ha’ been ‘squeezed’—bullets make reports and blood’s messy.”
“Garn! Whatyer givin’ us, Dolly?” said the youngest member of the gang. “Didn’t you shoot your own man—an’ on the track, too? I don’t see what you’ve got to growl at. We’ve got the gold—what more do you want?”
“I shot the unfortunate man, your Honour, firstly because he was a constable, and secondly because he was givin’ trouble, your Honour. But I prefer to do these things professionally.” Dolphin’s mock seriousness tickled his hearers, and they laughed. “But, joking apart,” he said, “after all the experience we’ve had, to go and turn that mountain-side into a butcher’s shambles is nothin’ short of disgraceful. They all ought to’ve been ‘squeezed,’ an’ have died as quiet as mice, without a drop of blood on ’em.”
“All food for worms; all lying in the howling wilderness, where they’ll stop till kingdom come. What’s the use of worrying? Hand over that bag of gold, Garstang, an’ let’s have a look. I’ve got an awful weakness for nuggets.”
A blanket was spread on the floor of the cavern, and upon this were heaped bank-notes and sovereigns and silver that glittered in the fire-light.
The four men gathered round, and the leader of the gang divided the money into four lots.
“Here’s some of the gold.” The shrill-voiced young man handed a small but heavy bag to Dolphin. “There’s stacks more.”
“One thing at a time, William,” said the leader. “First, we’ll divide the money, then the gold, which won’t be so easy, as we’vegot no scales. Here, take your cash, and count it. I make it £157 7s. apiece.” From a heap of bundles which lay a few yards off he drew forward a tent-fly, and then he carried into the light of the fire a number of small but heavy bags, one by one, and placed them on the canvas.
“My lot’s only £147 7s.,” said a deep and husky voice.
“You must ha’ made a mistake, Garstang,” said Dolphin. “Count it again.”
While the hulking, wry-faced robber bent to the task, the leader began to empty the contents of the bags upon the tent-fly.
Peering through the tracery of the Organ Gallery, Tresco looked down upon the scene with wonder and something akin to envy. There, on the white piece of folded canvas, he could see dull yellow heaps, which, even in the uncertain light of the fire, he recognised as gold.
At first, half-stunned by the presence of the strangers, he was at a loss to determine their character, but from their conversation and the display of such ill-gotten riches, he quickly grasped the fact that they were greater criminals than himself. He saw their firearms lying about; he heard their disjointed talk, interlarded with hilarious oaths; he saw them stooping over the heaps of gold, and to his astonished senses it was plain that a robbery on a gigantic scale had been committed.
On one side of the fire the wet and steaming garments of the murderers were hung on convenient stalagmites to dry; upon the other side of the red blaze the four men, dressed in strange motley, gleaned from their “swags,” wrangled over the division of the plunder.
“There’s only a hundred-an’-forty-seven quid in my lot, I tell yer!” Garstang’s rasping voice could be plainly heard above the others. “Count it yerself.”
“Count it, Dolly, an’ shut his crooked mouth.”
“I’ll take his word for it,” said the leader. “We can make it good to you, Garstang, when we get to town and sell some gold. Now listen, all of you. I’m going to divide the biggest haul we’ve ever made, or are likely to make.”
“Listen, blokes,” interrupted Sweet William, with an oath. “Give the boss your attention,ifyou please.”
Tresco glued his eye tighter to the aperture through which he peered. There lay the dull, yellow gold—if only he could but scare the robbers away, the prize would be his own. He rose on one knee to get a better view, but as he did so his toe dislodged a loose piece of stone, which tumbled noisily down the gallery steps, the sound of its falling re-echoing through the spacious cavern.
In a moment the robbers were thrown into a state of perturbation. Seizing their arms, they glanced wildly around, and stood on their defence.
But all was hushed and still.
“Go forward, Garstang, and search the cave,” ordered the leader in a voice of authority.
With a firebrand in one hand and a revolver in the other, the big, burly man crept forward; his mates alert to fire over him at any object he might discover. His search was haphazard, and his feet were naturally uncertain among the debris which had accumulated on the floor of the cavern.
Skirting the grotto’s edge, he examined the inky shadows that lay behind pillar and projection, till he came to the stairs which led to the Organ Gallery.
Tresco, filled with an unspeakable dread, contemplated a retreat down the passage he had lately explored, where he might be driven by the murderers over the abyssmal depth which he had failed to fathom, when suddenly the man with the torch tripped, fell, andthe flame of his firebrand disappeared in a shower of sparks. With an oath the prostrate man gathered up his bruised limbs, and by the aid of the flickering fire-light he groped his way back to his fellows, but not before he had placed his ear to the damp floor and had listened for the sound of intruders.
“There’s nobody,” he said, when he reached his mates. “The row was only a blanky spike that fell from the roof an’ broke itself. The ground’s covered with ’em.”
“Come on, then,” said Sweet William; “let’s finish our business.”
They gathered again round the treasure.
“You see, I have arranged it in two heaps,” said Dolphin—“nuggets in one, gold-dust in the other. I propose to measure out the dust first.”
Each man had provided himself with one of the leather bags which had originally held the gold, and their leader filled a pint pannikin with gold-dust. “That’s one,” he said, lifting it heavily. “That’s for you, old crooked chops.” And he emptied the measure into Garstang’s bag.
“Two.” He emptied a pannikinful of gold into Carnac’s bag.
“Three.” Sweet William received a like measure.
“Four.” Dolphin helped himself.
“That makes four pints of gold,” he said. “What d’you say, mates, will she go round another turn?”
“No,” said Carnac, “try a half-pint all round.”
Dolphin fetched a smaller pannikin from the swags, and the division of the gold continued.
To share the nuggets equally was a difficult matter, and a good deal of wrangling took place in consequence. This, however, was quieted by the simple expedient of tossing a coin for disputed pieces of gold. The biggest nuggets being thus disposed of, the smaller ones were measured in the half-pint pot, till at length the envious eyes of the goldsmith saw the last measureful disappear into its owner’s bag.
This exceedingly delicate matter being settled, the bushrangers sat round the fire, drank tea which they brewed in a black “billy,” lit their pipes, and—as is invariably the case with a gang of thieves—enacted again the awful drama in which they had lately played their horrible parts.
Shivering on the damp floor of the dripping gallery, Tresco strained his ears to hear every diabolical detail of the conversation.
“Garstang, old man, Dolly’s right; you’d better see to that shirt of yours. It looks as if you’d killed a pig in it.”
“The chap I chiv’d was as fat as a pig, anyway,” said the crooked-mouthed murderer, as he attempted to rub out the guilty stains with a dirty piece of rag. “The blood spurted all over me as soon as I pulled out the knife.”
“Take it off, man; it looks as bad as a slaughterman’s,” said the leader of the gang. “Throw it in the fire.”
“I consider I did my man beautifully,” said Carnac. “I told him to say his prayers, and while he knelt I just shot him behind the ear. Now, I call that a very pretty method of dying—no struggling, no fuss, no argument, simply a quick departure in an odour of sanctity.” And the gentlemanly murderer laughed quietly and contentedly.
“The blanky banker went ratty when he saw my gun,” said Sweet William. “I had to fair yank ’im through the supple-jacks an’ lawyers. It was something horrid—it made my arm ache. At larst I says, ‘Look ’ere, are you goin’ to walk, or am I to shoot you?’ An’ he kept on sayin’, ‘All the gold is on the horse; don’t take it all, please,’ till I felt sick. ‘Up you git,’ I says, an’ I dragged ’im throughthe bush, and then bli’me if ’e didn’t sit down an’ cough an’ cry. Such dam’ foolishness made me lose patience. I just ‘squeezed’ ’im where he sat.”
“My bloke was the devil to die,” said Garstang. “First I shot him one way, then I shot him another; an’ at larst I had to chiv ’im with the knife, though it was the larst thing I wanted to do.”
“They should all have been ‘squeezed,’” said Dolphin, “and nothing’s easier if you’ve got the knack—noiseless, bloodless, traceless, the only scientific way of doin’ the work.”
“All of which you’ve said before, Dolly.” Sweet William rose and groped his way to the mouth of the cave.
“It’s the blamed horses that bother me,” said Carnac. “We left their carcases too near the track. We should have taken them a mile or more along, and have shoved them over a precipice, down which they might have fallen by accident in the storm. As it is, they’ll be putrid in a fortnight, and make the track impassable.”
“By which time,” said Dolphin, “we shall be out of reach.”
“What about the Bank?” Garstang asked the question almost insolently. “I thought you ’ad such wonderful plans of yer own.”
“The thing’s easy enough,” retorted Dolphin, “but the question is whether it’s worth while. We’ve made a haul to be proud of; never did men have a better streak o’ luck. We’ve taken hundreds of ounces from a strong escort, which we stopped at the right place, just in the right way, so that they couldn’t so much as fire a shot. It would be a crying shame to spoil such a job by bein’ trapped over a paltry wooden Bank.”
“Trapped be sugared!” said Garstang.
“The inference ’ll be”—Sweet William had returned from the cave’s mouth, and took up the conversation where he left it—“everybody with any sense’ll say the escort an’ the banker made orf with the gold—nothin’ but blood’ounds could ever find their bodies.”
“It’s bin a wonderful time,” said Dolphin, “but we can’t expect such luck to foller us around like a poodle-dog.”
“I’m for havin’ a slap at the Bank, anyway,” growled Garstang.
“Imagine the effect upon the public mind—the robbery of an escort and a bank, both in one week!” This was how the gentlemanly Carnac regarded the question. “It’d be a record. We’d make a name that wouldn’t easily be forgotten.I’mfor trying.”
“Well, it’s stopped raining, blokes,” said Sweet William, “but outside it’s dark enough to please an owl. If we want to get into Timber Town without bein’ seen, now’s the time to start.” So saying, he picked up his “swag,” which he hitched upon his back.
The other men rose, one by one, and shouldered their packs, in which each man carried his gold.
With much lumbering, stumbling, and swearing, the murderers slowly departed, groping their way to the mouth of the cave by the light of the fire, which they left burning.
Tresco waited till the last sound of their voices had died away, then he stretched his cramped, benumbed limbs, heaved a deep sigh of relief, and rose to his feet.
“My God, what monsters!” He spoke under his breath, for fear that even the walls should hear him. “If they had found me they’d have thought as little of cutting my throat as of killing a mosquito. If ever I thanked God in my life—well, well—every nerve of me is trembling. That’s the reaction. I must warm myself, and have a bite of food.”
After carefully scattering the murderers’ fire, he groped his way to his inner cell, and there he made his best endeavours to restore his equanimity with warmth, food, and drink.
The Perturbations of the Bank Manager.
The windows of the Kangaroo Bank were ablaze with light, although the town clock had struck eleven. It was the dolorous hour when the landlord of The Lucky Digger, obliged by relentless law, reluctantly turned into the street the topers and diggers who filled his bar.
Bare-headed, the nails of his right hand picking nervously at the fingers of his left, the manager of the Bank emerged from a side-door. He glanced up the dark street towards the great mountains which loomed darkly in the Cimmerian gloom.
“Dear me, dear me,” murmured he to himself, “he is very late. What can have kept him?” He glanced down the street, and saw the small crowd wending its way from the hostelry. “It was really a most dreadful storm, the most dreadful thunderstorm I ever remember.” His eye marked where the light from the expansive windows of the Bank illumined the wet asphalt pavement. “Landslips frequently occur on newly made tracks, especially after heavy rain. It’s a great risk, a grave risk, this transporting of gold from one place to another.”
“’Evenin’, boss. Just a little cheque for twenty quid. I’ll take it in notes.”
The men from The Lucky Digger had paused before the brilliantly lighted building.
“Give him a chance.... Let him explain.... Carn’t you see there’s a run on the Bank.”
“Looks bad.... Clerks in the street.... All lighted up at this time o’ night.... No money left.”
“Say, boss, have they bin an’ collared the big safe? Do you want assistance?”
The Manager turned to take refuge in the Bank, but his tormentors were relentless.
“Hold on, mate—you’re in trouble. Confide in us. If the books won’t balance, what matter? Don’t let that disturb your peace of mind. Come and have a drink.... Take a hand at poker.... First tent over the bridge, right-hand side.”
“It’s no go, boys. He’s narked because he knows we want an overdraft. Let ’im go and count his cash.”
The Manager pulled himself free from the roisterers and escaped into the Bank by the side door, and the diggers continued noisily on their way.
The lights of the Bank suddenly went out, and the Manager, after carefully locking the door behind him, crossed over the street to the livery stables, where a light burned during the greater part of the night. In a little box of a room, where harness hung on all the walls, there reclined on a bare and dusty couch a red-faced man, whose hair looked as if it had been closely cropped with a pair of horse-clippers. When he caught sight of the banker, he sat up and exclaimed, “Good God, Mr. Tomkinson! Ain’t you in bed?”
“It’s this gold-escort, Manning—it was due at six o’clock.”
“Look here.” The stable-keeper rose from his seat, placed his hand lovingly on a trace which hung limply on the wall. “Don’t I run the coach to Beaver Town?—and I guess a coach is a more ticklish thing to run than a gold-escort. Lord bless your soul, isn’t every coach supposed to arrive before dark? But they don’t. ‘The road was slippy with frost—I had to come along easy,’ the driver’llsay. Or it’ll be, ‘I got stuck up by a fresh in the Brown River.’ That’s it. I know. But they always arrive, sometime or other. I’ll bet you a fiver—one of your own, if you like—that the rivers are in flood, and your people can’t get across. Same with the Beaver Town coach. She was due at six o’clock, and here’ve I been drowsing like a more-pork on this couch, when I might have been in bed. An’ to bed I go. If she comes in to-night, the driver can darn well stable the ’orses himself. Good night.”
This was a view of the question that had not occurred to Mr. Tomkinson, but he felt he must confer with the Sergeant of Police.
The lock-up was situated in a by-street not far from the centre of the town. The Sergeant was sitting at a desk, and reading the entries in a big book. His peaked shako lay in front of him, and he smoked a cigar as he pored over his book.
He said nothing, he barely moved, when the banker entered; but his frank face, in which a pair of blue eyes stood well apart, lighted up with interest and attention as Mr. Tomkinson told his tale. When the narrative was ended, he said quietly, “Yes, they may be weather-bound. Did you have a clear understanding that the gold was to be brought in to-day?”
“It was perfectly understood.”
“How much gold did you say there was?”
“From fifteen to twenty thousand pounds’ worth—it depends on how much the agent has bought.”
“A lot of money, sir; quite a nice little fortune. It must be seen to. I’ll tell you what I will do. Two mounted constables shall go out at daylight, and I guarantee that if the escort is to be found,theywill find it.”
“Thank you,” said Tomkinson. “I think it ought to be done. You will send them out first thing in the morning? Thank you. Good night.”
As the banker turned to go, the Sergeant rose.
“Wait a moment,” he said. “I’ll come with you.”
They walked contemplatively side by side till they reached the main street, where a horseman stood, hammering at Manning’s stable-gate.
“Nobody in?” said the Sergeant. “You had better walk inside, and put the horse up yourself.”
“I happen to know that the owner has gone to bed,” said Tomkinson.
The horseman passed through the gateway, and was about to lead his sweating mount into the stables, when the Sergeant stopped him.
“Which way have you come to-day?” he asked.
“From Bush Robin Creek,” replied the traveller.
“You have ridden right through since morning?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“Did you overtake some men with a pack-horse?”
“No. I passed Mr. Scarlett, after the thunderstorm came on. That was on the other side of the ranges.”
“How did you find the rivers? Fordable?”
“They were all right, except that on this side of the range they had begun to rise.”
“Perhaps the men we are expecting,” said the nervous banker, “took shelter in the bush when the storm came on. You may have passed without seeing them.”
“Who are the parties you are expecting?” asked the traveller.
“Mr. Zahn, the agent of the Kangaroo Bank, was on the road to-day with a considerable quantity of gold,” replied the Sergeant.
“You mean the gold-escort,” said the traveller. “It left about three hours before I did.”
“Do you know Mr. Zahn?” asked the Sergeant.
“I do. I’ve sold gold to him.”
“I’ll take your name, if you please,” said the Sergeant, producing his pocket-book.
“Rooker, Thomas Samuel Rooker,” said the traveller.
“Where are you to be found?”
“At The Lucky Digger.”
“Thank you,” said the Sergeant, as he closed his book with a snap and put it in his pocket. “Good night.”
“Good night,” said the traveller, as he led his horse into the stable. “If I can be of any use, send for me in the morning.”
“It’s pretty certain that this man never saw them,” said the Sergeant, “therefore they were not on the road when he passed them. They must have been, as you say, in the bush. There is plenty of hope yet, sir, but I should advise you to get up pretty early to-morrow morning, if you want to see my mounted men start. Good night.”
With a gloomy response, Mr. Tomkinson turned his steps towards the Bank, there to toss on a sleepless bed till morning.