CHAPTER XVI.

GOLD!

A movement of Como, who always slept at his master's feet, awoke Geordie next morning, and looking up he saw by the lightness of the sky (for the leaves of the branches that formed the roof had shrivelled in the heat of the sun, and he could see between the boughs) that day was at hand. He gave a great yawn and half rolled over to go to sleep again, when he remembered how much they had to do that day, and determined to get up. He stretched himself, and gave himself a vigorous shake and sat up. Alec still slept.

"Now then, wake up, you lazy beggar!" called out George from where he sat stretching his arms and rumpling his hair.

Alec bounded up as though he were shot. "What's the matter, what's the matter?" asked he in a startled voice.

"All sorts of things are the matter, but getting up is the one on hand just now, so turn out and come and have a dip in the stream--that'll wake you up."

The morning was cool before the sun was up, and the mists lay all about the valley. Leaving Murri in the humpie still asleep, or pretending to be so, the boys came out as they were, and, with Como barking a glad morning bark and leaping by the side of them, they ran to the stream. The water was cold, and the boys came out of it rosy and steaming, and feeling fresh and strong. It did not take them long to get into their clothes, and soon they were walking back to the humpie, where they combed their crisp wet hair and made Murri get up and make a fire.

They were in capital spirits, and whilst the "billies" were boiling for their tea they walked together to have a look at their gold. There it all lay, just as they had left it. Nuggets and lumps of pure gold, yellow and heavy and chill; great pieces of rich quartz, with bits of gold stuck all over it, and gold mixed with the sand that covered the bottom of the rocky basin. The boys leaped down from the rocks into the dried-up pool, and began picking up the heavy pieces of the precious metal, for the mere pleasure of handling it. Geordie laughed aloud.

"Isn't it wonderful? Look at this piece and that one, why it is pure solid gold! Alec, how much do we owe that old beast of a Crosby?"

"He lent us £4,000, and there's another £600 or £700 interest, I suppose, by this time. Just think of the old usurer extorting 15 per cent., and from a friend, too."

"Well, do you think there is £5,000 worth of gold here?"

"Yes, and more--much more; twice or three times that much, but we can't take it all."

"Nor want it. To get five or six thousand pounds worth is all that I pray for. Funny to think, isn't it, that those yellow stones there mean so much to us? Wandaroo, and freedom from debt; and a mile or so of fencing; and a new strain of sheep perhaps! It makes me laugh to think of it."

And laugh he did, a jolly, happy peal, that rang through the clear morning air and echoed from the rocks.

"When you have finished that morning exercise of yours, my young hyena, we'll go and get some breakfast," said Alec, whose own face was radiant with pleasure, taking his brother's arm. "We will get as much gold as we can carry, catch the horses, pack up, and be off for home this morning, before any of those worthy, but probably changeable, Wyobrees take it into their heads to visit us."

It did not take the boys very long to eat their breakfast, they were too excited to linger over it, and leaving Murri still solemnly munching away--he had not nearly done--they went back to the pool. They at once began to collect the pieces of gold, and to pile them into little heaps. Some of these lumps still had bits of quartz attached to them, and these the boys rejected, only taking those nuggets which were free from them. It was evident from the rounded and worn condition of the nuggets that they had been subjected to years, perhaps centuries, of grinding and rubbing amongst the stones at the bottom of the pool, into which they had been brought by the torrents, in flood time, from the gold-bearing rocks of the mountain. The strange shape of the rock basin, which the cascade had slowly formed, had prevented the stream from carrying them still farther down the valley.

"Why, Geordie!" suddenly exclaimed Alec, as he added a nugget weighing five or six ounces to his rapidly increasing pile. "What a fool I am. I clean forgot all about carrying the gold back with us. What have we got to pack it in?"

"Canvas bags, which your thoughtful little brother George brought on purpose!" said Geordie, with a grin.

"Well, you _are_ a young Solomon! You think of everything," said Alec, a moment or so later, when his brother came back from his humpie with the shot bags.

"They'll each hold fourteen pounds weight of gold, not troy weight pounds, but honest sixteen ounce pounds, the sort that I like, so that we can tell somewhere about the value of our booty. What is gold worth an ounce?"

"Don't know exactly; something about four pounds."

"Then each of these bags," said Geordie, after two or three minutes of calculation--he was not very quick at figures--"will be worth between seven and eight hundred pounds when it is full!" And he slapped his thigh and capered about on the top of the flat stone on which he was perched.

Putting the value of the gold into figures in this manner seemed to make its worth much more definite to the boys; it was hard to realise, without the aid of numbers, of how great value were those rather ugly-looking, heavy lumps of metal.

"It makes one feel rich merely to handle it, doesn't it?" said Alec, as he threw a smooth little nugget of gold into the open mouth of the bag he was filling.

"I should think it did just," answered Geordie, with an excited laugh; "and listen to this," he added, as he took up his bag and bumped it on the rock to make the pieces lie close together. "Doesn't that noise suggest wealth? No paltry clinking, but a good rich solid _thud_, like a piece of cold plum pudding."

"Yes, delicious! And only think that all of this is going to swell old Crosby's coffers." Alec spoke regretfully, and with a sound of avarice in his voice that was not at all natural to it. There is something terrible about great quantities of gold that seems to instil a spirit of miserliness into most men, however generous, or even prodigal, they may be. Geordie noticed this novel tone in Alec's voice, and said--

"But I don't think anything of the sort; I don't consider old Crosby's or anybody else's coffers; all I think of, and so do you, is that we shall be out of debt, and able to call Wandaroo our own again. If I thought the gold was going to change you, and turn you into a money-grub and a screw, I'd slit every bag open, and let the beastly stuff roll out in the scrub as we rode along. So pull yourself together and don't talk like that." Geordie got rather red in the face over this long speech, which he delivered with great energy, for although these two fellows always spoke out to each other, without fear of misunderstanding, what they thought, neither of them liked to sermonize.

Alec only said, "Right you are, younker; it is beastly stuff in some ways, and I won't think of it in that manner any more. What a beggar you are to spot what I am thinking of. How many bags does that make?"

"I am just filling number nine. I should almost think that----"

But what it was that George Law almost thought at that interesting moment was never known, for as he was speaking they heard a loud shout at the camp, just round the bend of the gully. Como, who was lying basking in the early sunshine, raced off to see what it was, and the boys, leaving their filled bags on the rocky wall of the pool, scrambled up the stones and leaped down to the bed of the stream. Just as they started to run to the humpie, Murri, with a face of a dirty slate colour from fright, came tearing round the cliff.

"Run, run!" he shouted; "um Wyobree fellows here one more time; plenty much _myall_, um kill us all. Climb up along o' that place," he said, pointing to the cliff over which the waterfall poured; and only waiting for him to come up to them the boys scrambled like cats up the crag, and hid themselves in the thick brushwood at the top. Como had not come back, but they could trust to his good sense to keep out of harm's way.

No sooner had they reached this place of vantage than six Wyobree men, in full paint and finery, and fully armed, came rushing round the bend of the ravine. They had seen Murri run thither, and without waiting to search the humpie, had followed in hot pursuit.

It was evident that their friendly feelings of the night before were completely changed. The desire to possess the white men's goods had been too strong for them to resist.

From where they lay crouching the boys could see the _myalls_ stop, evidently puzzled at the surprising way their quarry had so entirely vanished, but it was only for a moment; one of them very soon found some of their old traces, and followed their tracks along the now dry bed of the drained stream till they came to the emptied pool. The astonishment of the Wyobree men at the change that had taken place there was beyond measure; they looked about them in bewilderment and talked rapidly together.

Whilst they were standing consulting with each other, Murri whispered that he recognised one of the men as the fellow who had acted as spokesman for the tribe the night before.

"Then you may be sure that they are here for no good," said George to his brother.

"No; so get your revolver ready."

"But I haven't got it with me; I didn't put it on this morning."

"And neither have I mine! There it is, see, on the rocks below. I took it out of my belt when I was filling the bags, and forgot to pick it up when Murri shouted out."

"Then we are done for if they see us. We must trust to their not finding us."

But that hope was blighted even as he spoke, for in drawing back a little from the edge of the cliff George loosened a tiny pebble, which rolled over and fell on to the rocks beneath.

Alec's agonised "Hush, _hush_!" was all in vain. The tiny sound had struck the acute ears of the savages, and instantly betrayed the boys' hiding-place. One of the men had fitted a spear to his throwing stick, and before a second was passed a quivering dart whirred through the bushes just above their heads. The Wyobrees lost no time; without waiting a moment they began to climb up the cliff from the dry basin. They did not stop to choose the easiest place of ascent, but boldly began to scale up the very place over which the great waterfall used to pour.

The rock is very steep there, but they seem to find no difficulty in climbing it. In another moment they will have reached the edge of the cliff. They have left their spears down below, but their _boomerangs_ are in their belts of kangaroo sinew, and they hold their _waddies_ in their great strong jaws.

The boys are absolutely unarmed. Their fate seems sealed. They had risen to their feet when they saw that their hiding-place was detected, and now, white to the lips from the very anguish of excitement that they suffer, but quite calm, they look in each other's eyes steadily and prepare to meet their death. The _myalls_ have almost reached the top of the crag; the foremost man will be able to place his hands on the edge in another moment. Suddenly, with a voice like a trumpet, Alec yells out--

"Follow me! Run for your life; _we'll do the beggars yet_!"

As he spoke--his face was pale no longer, and his eyes were blazing--he darted off, closely followed by George, to the old course of the stream. They wildly tore through the tangled scrub, heedless of the wounds their arms and faces received, and leaped madly across the new channel of the rapid stream.

"Make haste!" shrieked Alec, his voice shrill with excitement.

"What to do?" gasped George.

Without pausing Alec plunged waist deep into the water that their embankment retained, and shouted--

"_Burst the dam!_"

Alec followed, and the two together began to push and beat and tear at the stones they had so carefully built up a day or two before.

But had they built too firmly? would the heavy rocks never give way? Already the first man is breast high above the edge of the cliff; others are close behind him. If once they get on to their feet the boys know they are dead men. The two lads work like maniacs; they know that death is but a yard or two away. Their hands are bleeding on the jagged edges of the stones; they do not feel it; their muscles are strained till their limbs are like iron, and the veins stand out like cords in their necks and on their temples, and they know nothing of it.

Push harder, lads; tear down the stones; do not die at the hands of these butcher blacks!

It is useless; the dam stands firm.

"Once more, Geordie. Together now. Shove with your whole soul." Alec's voice was hoarse, and he spoke through his wildly clenched teeth.

One more fierce struggle they made, as though their very hearts would burst. The great stones tremble; the whole dam sways. It gives, it gives! They feel the stones totter, and clasping each other grimly round the waist, as the mighty swirl of the escaping water almost tears them from their feet, the boys stagger to the edge of the channel.

The dam has given way; the pent-up waters pour along all white and foaming, and the stream, rediverted into its old channel, adds all the force of its great current to the escaping flood. With a loud roar the waters rush forward, sweeping the rocks and stones of the dam along in their resistless strength, and with a noise as of thunder, above which the despairing shrieks of the _myalls_ rise for one brief second, the hapless wretches are torn from their feeble hold of the rock and, swept into the awful rush and crash of the cascade, are flung with the rolling stones of the broken dam, and battered into silence and death upon the frightful rocks below.