Chapter 11

Done watched the group with keen delight. The young men's respect for their bibulous parent was quite sincere, their care of him was marked with a rough but unmistakable liking. The conversation turned upon the characteristics of the lead at Jim Crow, and drifted to the inevitable subject, the development of the agitation for the emancipation of the miners and the doings and sayings of the insurgent party at Ballarat, and every now and again Peetree senior would whisper ambiguously: 'There ain't such a thing ez a drop of gin? No, of course not.'

Once Harry drew a small flask from his pocket, poured a little spirit into a pannikin, and gave it to the old man. 'Hair off his dog, you know,' he said. And two or three times Con made an effort to induce his father to take a whiff of smoke, but old Peetree shook his head disgustedly, and returned to his mutterings and the picking of imaginary tarantulas off his sleeves.

In the morning Jim noticed that the wards 'Inebrits' Retreet' had been printed on the barrel with pipeclay.

The good luck that had marked their initial effort on Diamond Gully followed the mates to Jim Crow. They struck the wash-dirt in their first claim, and Jim, in sinking through the alluvial, stuck his pick into the largest nugget he had yet seen, a lump of rugged gold, pure and clean, which Mike estimated to be worth four hundred pounds. It glowed in the sunlight with the lustre of a live ember, and, gazing upon it, Done trembled again with the vehement joy that thrills in the veins of the least avaricious digger at the sight of such a find.

'If there's a large family o' these we're made men,' said Burton, fondling the nugget.

'Unless some of Douglas's men take a fancy to them when we've unearthed them.'

'Or Solo chips in an' lifts the pile. We must keep it dark till this field sobers up a bit.'

The tub of dirt taken from the bottom of their hole--that is, the deepest part of the strata of alluvial deposit, to which the best of the gold almost in variably gravitates--was extremely rich. The dregs in the tub, after all the clay and dirt had been washed away, blazed with coarse pieces, and Done carried away at least five hundred pounds' worth in nuggets wrapped in his gray jumper. The coarse gold was picked out of the washed gravel, and then the remainder of the stuff was put through the cradle, the slides of which captured and retained the smaller gold, with a certain amount of sand, and this was washed again in the tin dish, the last grains of base material being got rid of by shaking the gold on a sheet of paper after it had been thoroughly dried, and blowing with the mouth, a process at which the diggers became so expert that very little of even the finest gold-dust was lost in the operation.

The mates finished their third day's work on Jim Crow, wet to the hips, smeared from top to toe with yellow clay, dog-weary, but quite jubilant. They were as well satisfied with their next day's work, and the next. They had succeeded in keeping the knowledge of their big find to themselves; but returning to their camp one night about a week later, Done was amazed to find the earthen floor of the tent dug up to a depth of about a foot. Burton grinned.

'Someone's bottomed a shicer to-night,' he said.

'What's the meaning of this?' asked Done.

'We've had a little visit from some damn scoundrel who thought we'd buried our gold here. Must 'a' taken us for a pair o' Johnnie-come-latelies.'

At that moment a shot rang out on the night air, and sounds of angry voices and scuffling came from the direction of the Peetrees' tent.

'By the Lord Harry, they've nabbed him!' said Mike. 'Come along!'

They found Con Peetree holding a man down with a persuasive revolver, while Harry, with a burning match sheltered in his palm, examined the captive.

'Cot him diggin' in our tent. He broke 'way, but I've winged him,' said Harry.

'He gave us a look in, too,' said Mike.

'Lose any stuff?'

'Not a colour.'

'Same here; but we can't let him go scot-free. That kink in the calf counts for nothing, and handin' him over to the beaks means too much worry. Here, give's a light, Burton.'

Mike struck a match, and, taking the thief by the ear, Harry Peetree drew a knife.

'Good God!' cried Jim, 'you don't mean to--' Jim's intervention was too late to help the prostrate man; Peetree had already slashed off the lobe of his left ear. He threw the fragment in the man's face.

'Now scoot!' he said, 'an' don't show yer ugly chiv on Jim Crow again, 'r you'll catch a fatal dose o' lead.

The crippled thief limped away without a word, pressing a palm to his streaming ear.

'That seemed an infernally brutal thing to do,' said Jim to his mate, when they were discussing the incident.

'Not a bit of it,' answered Burton. 'We've got to mark his sort, an' a brand like that's known every where. A bloke with an ear stripped off can't pretend to be a honest man here; he's got to be either a trooper or one of Her Majesty's commissioners.'

'But you weren't at all bitter about Solo.'

'Solo ain't a tent-robber; he generally robs the people who rob us. A tent-robber is the meanest kind of hound that runs.'

Jim was grateful for this lesson in diggers' ethics, and went peacefully to sleep on it, having by this time acquired complete confidence in Burton's hiding-place.

When the mates had more gold than they could carry in their belts with comfort, and trustworthy gold-buyers were not available, choosing a suitable hour long after midnight, Burton dug a hole near the tent, Jim keeping careful watch the while to make sure they were not observed. The gold was placed in a pan, and buried in this hole, and after that the camp-fire was built on the spot, and kept burning day and night. It never occurred to anyone to look under the fire for hidden gold.

Their first claim was nearly worked out, and the two young men were busy below digging out the last of the wash-dirt, when a voice calling down the shaft caused both picks to be suspended simultaneously, and the mates looked curiously into each other's faces in the dim candle-light.

Hello below, there!'

'Aurora!' said Mike.

Jim went up the rope suspended in the shaft hand over hand. Aurora was standing by the windlass smiling down at him. The girl was remarkably well dressed. The gown she wore was too florid, perhaps, for that sickly refinement which abhors colour, but it suited her tall figure and her hale and exuberant good looks. As he came up the shaft the picture she made standing in the sunlight, with a background of sun-splashed, vari-coloured tips, and one drowsing gum-tree fringed with the gold and purple of young growth, gave him a thrill of joy, so vivid she seemed, so fresh. She had occupied his mind little since the departure from Diamond Gully; but seeing her again so radiant, he was glad through and through, and laughed with pure delight when she met him at the shaft's mouth with a kiss. Once upon his feet, he clasped her in his arms. Her walk along the lead had attracted a good deal of attention, and the embrace was the signal for a sympathetic cheer from the miners about, and the men whirled their hats in the air.

'Arrah! Won't ye sarve the bla'gards all alike, darlin'?' cried a young fellow on the left.

Aurora bowed low, and scattered kisses over the field with both hands, winning another cheer. Jim watched her with pride. After all, she it was who stood as his goddess of gaiety in the twelve months of absolutely happy life that had marked the reaction from the brutal stupidity and sourness of that other existence. He owed her much gratitude, much tenderness. He kissed her again almost reverently.

'Did you think I was never coming, Jimmy?' she asked softly.

Jim practised the virtue of equivocation. It had never occurred to him that she would come, but he would rather have bitten a piece off his tongue than have said so just then.

'So you made up your mind to follow the moment I told you I was going?' he said.

'What else? Could I have bid you good-bye so glibly? Could you have walked off with a smile and a kiss, and never a word of coming again?'

'Darling, I can never want to lose you.'

'Whist' no words fer the future!' she said, reverting to her whimsical brogue. 'We're weak mortals, an' every one iv us is born again wid the new sun. I'd not have ye bind the strange man ye may be to-morrow wid oaths, an' I won't bind the unknown colleen I may be for the likes iv ye.'

'But to-day?'

'To-day? To-day I love you with a big, big heart!' she said, with deep feeling. 'Kiss me!'

'Knock off!' cried Burton, whose head appeared suddenly at the mouth of the shaft. 'I reckoned you'd had time to get through with that.'

'Och! we've been a long time gittin' through wid it, an' we're not through yet,' said Aurora, shaking Mike warmly by the hand. 'You may have one for yourself--there.' She placed her finger on a dimple, and Mike kissed her gallantly enough. 'Ah!' she sighed, 'you love another. The kiss betrays you.'

Something that might have been a blush, had the deep tan of his skin permitted such a thing, warmed Burton's cheek.

'And where's Mrs. Ben?' he asked.

'Somewhere about the field.'

'They are with you?' said Jim.

'To be sure; and the whole business--bakery, laundry, and light refreshments--has followed at my skirt with proper humility.'

'They pitch tents here?'

'Ben and Mary are now seeking a good business site.'

'Adjacent to a hollow tree?'

'The same bein' a convanyint haunt fer Mary Kyley's familiar evil shpirits.'

Done laughed, giving Aurora a one-armed, parenthetical hug. 'They wouldn't part with you, then?'

'They would not, nor I with them. Dan's been as good as a mother to me. But how is the luck, boys?'

'Great,' answered Mike. 'We dropped on a patch here.'

'Come and see us cradle the last tubful, and I'll give you the prettiest bit in the hopper,' said Jim.

'Not a colour! The heart nugget you gave me long ago has worn tender places all over me.' She tugged at the thin ribbon about her neck. 'I'll carry no more.'

Done did not press the point, although he knew that she took gifts of quaintly-shaped nuggets from the other men with the indifference of a queen accepting tribute.

Mrs. Ben Kyley greeted the mates with noisy joviality when they met, and Ben took his pipe from his mouth, and said he was 'right down blarsted glad,' which amounted to quite a demonstration, coming from him. Within two days the tents were up, and Mrs. Kyley's business was resumed, and was carried on as at Diamond Gully, and with much the same success. But here for some time Ben's services as 'chucker-out' were more in requisition, spirits being more unruly on Jim Crow. One night he even had to fight a five-round battle with a riotous young Cousin Jack, in which engagement Done seconded him by special request. Ben triumphed, but came out of the contest with a black eye and an inflamed nose of a preposterous size, at which Mary was virtuously indignant.

'You, a professional, fighting for diversion like any fool of a gentleman!' she said scornfully.

'Man mus' keep his hand in,' replied Ben.

'If you can't attend to your duties without making such a mess of yourself, you'd better have a month's notice. What was the good of me taking on a pugilist if I'm to have fighting about the place continually?'

'Come, come, Mrs. Ben,' said Jim; 'if you treat him like this when he wins, what would you do if he lost?'

'Divorce him and take up with the Cornishman!' replied the raffish washerwoman, exploding into Gargantuan laughter.

Done had often thought of Ryder since the night of the troopers' raid on Mrs. Kyley's grog-store, but had seen nothing of him in the meantime. Mike recalled him to his mind again as they were lying out in the moonlight on a Sunday night about two weeks later.

'Remember the chap that tried to throttle Stony that night in the Black Forest?' he said. 'Saw him on the lead to-day.'

'You did? Ryder was hunting Stony on Diamond Gully.'

'He's gettin' pretty warm, then. Stony's here too. That's his tent above the bend to the left. He's a hatter, an' works a lone hand in the shallow ground.'

'Then trouble's brewing for Mr. Stony.'

'You seemed to feel for him. Better drop him the word, hadn't you?'

'No. My sympathies are with the other man, and as he means something short of manslaughter, Stony can take his chances.'

It was not long after this that Jim encountered Stony in Mary Kyley's tent. He was drinking alone, and drinking with the feverish haste of a man who deliberately seeks intoxication. He was more tremulous than when Done first met him, and his face had the colour, and looked as if it might have the consistency, of putty. The man was an instinctive hater: he lived alone, worked alone, and desired no companionship. Previous to the gold discoveries he had served for years in the capacity of shepherd on one of the big Australian sheep-runs, and had lived cut off from communion with his kind in the great lone land, absorbing into his blood the spirit of solitude that broods in the Bush and in time robs man of his gregarious impulses.

Jim had been in the shanty about an hour, and was standing with his back to the counter; Stony was sitting in the corner, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes fixed upon the floor, unconscious of his surroundings, when the flap of the tent was lifted, and Ryder stepped in, running a keen, searching eye over the company. Jim saw him start as his gaze encountered Stony. He paused for a moment, and then slipped back into darkness, dropping the tent-door after him. Done understood his intention. 'He will wait,' he said to himself, and determined to watch events. Ryder had awakened in him an extraordinary interest.

Stony sat in a state of abstraction for close upon half an hour, and when he arose and left the place Jim followed him. The night was dark, and Stony had disappeared, but the young man walked quietly in the direction of the hatter's camp. He could see nothing of either man, and had decided that he was mistaken regarding Ryder's intention, when a low but blood-chilling sound--the noise made by a man fighting against strangulation--broke upon his ear. He had been seeking for this, but the shock unnerved him for a moment.

XIII

PEERING through the darkness, Done discovered the shadowy figures of two men. The figures were rigid upon the ground. There was no further sound. The young man approached closely and stood by Ryder, dropping his hand upon his shoulder. There was just light enough for him to see a revolver snatched from the belt, or a movement of such suggestiveness, but he fastened on that right arm with a grip to which it succumbed instantly.

'It is I, Jim Done!' he said.

'Save me! Save me!' cried Stony in accents of supreme terror.

'Why do you interfere?' asked Ryder with a ring of anger. 'What interest can you have in this hound?'

'None,' replied Jim. 'I followed from the shanty, guessing something would happen. I'm shamefully curious.'

'You are a fool! It might have cost you your life.'

'You certainly do not show any particular respect for human life.' Jim released the other's arm.

'For Christ's sake don't leave me!' moaned Stony. 'He means murder!'

'I have told you I value this man's life. I tell you again I have no intention of killing him, but I hate him so that the ravenous desire to crush the soul out of him is hard to resist. There is a story he must tell me; when that is told he may go. If he refuses to tell there is no power on God's earth to keep me from my vengeance. But he shall tell--the craven shall tell! There'll be no further mischief done, I promise you. Leave us.'

'For the love of Heaven!' pleaded Stony. 'He'll kill! He'll kill!'

'I have your word,' said Jim.

'My word of honour,' answered Ryder.

'If it's broken, I swear to help you to your hanging.'

'I tell you, I want this man alive.'

'Good-night!'

'Help!' screamed Stony; but the other's hand was at his throat again.

'Listen, you foul cur!' Ryder said. 'I mean to spare you, but you must tell--tell all!'

Jim Done turned and walked away, leaving the enemies alone. Next morning he saw Stony moving about his tent, and experienced a feeling of relief. He had been unable to divest himself of a sense of responsibility for the safety of the miserable hatter.

By this time quite a strong friendship had grown up between the three Peetrees and Done and Burton. Joshua Peetree, whom the twins called Josh, with a friendly absence of formalities, was found in his sober moments to share the moral qualities of his sons, and had the same quiet, deliberative manner of speech, as if every sentence, even those of the most insignificant character, were subjected to two or three successive processes of investigation internally before delivery. Indeed, the men spoke so little en famille that they might have lost ordinary power of easy articulation. Speech was hardly necessary between the three; they understood each other by something very like telepathic divination. At least, so it appeared to Done, who was puzzled again and again to see the ideas of one brother anticipated by the other, and his wishes met without any communication, audible or visible, to the third person. Men who have lived together in the Bush for the better part of their lives, cut off from other society and outside interest, often develop this quaint instinct of mutual apprehension. The Peetrees were not unsociable, but with them conversation was not essential to human intercourse. They were content to sit on a log, or spread themselves on the dry grass in company with friendly diggers, smoking composedly through a whole evening, without contributing more than an approving 'My word!' or 'My colonial!' to the night's debate. Mike was in full sympathy with their neighbours. Like him, they were deeply imbued with the spirit of revolt stirring in the land, and they were as eager to participate in the struggle that was to overthrow the rule of the nominees of Downing Street and strangle the hydra of official tyranny; but Done, although his sentiments were just as strongly on the side of the miners, was too profoundly concerned with the actions and interests of the moment to content himself with the society of the Peetrees and the discussion of possibilities. He liked them; they were amusing elements in the varied life around him, but he wanted to see and to hear. His blood ran too hotly for camp-fire argument. When the time for fighting came, well and good: none would be more eager than he; but meanwhile love and laughter, play and strife, invited a man, and Jim responded with the impetuosity of an impish boy just escaped from parental control.

The mates continued to do well at Jim Crow, and Jim Done found himself growing tolerably rich without any marked gratification. He could not see what more gold could confer upon him. He was now a nightly visitor at Mrs. Ben Kyley's tent, but gambled with rather more spirit of late, and, finding himself a much less easy victim to Mary's rum, drank more than formerly. A certain stage of intoxication--an intoxication of the blood rather than the senses--threw a roseate glamour over the gaieties of the shanty, and robbed him of that remaining reticence of manner and speech that would have kept him an observer rather than a participant.

Police supervision was fitful and weak at Jim Crow, and there were wild nights at Mary Kyley's. Aurora appeared in a new character--that of popular musician. Seated with her heels tucked under her on the end of the shanty bar, she rattled off lively dance-music on an old violin; or, mounted on an inverted tub, she sang songs of rebellion and devilment to a crowd of diggers warm with rum and rampant with animal spirits. Mary Kyley, whose gay heart responded readily to the conviviality of her guests, danced at these times, contesting in breathless jigs and reels, displaying amazing agility and a sort of barbaric frenzy, while the men yelled encouragement and applause, the pannikins circulated, and the smoke gathered in a cloud along the ridge-pole. Sitting above the crowd in a gay gown, with a splash of artificial red roses in her mass of black hair, flushed with animation, her eyes beaded with fire, Aurora was a striking queen of the revels, and Done exulted over her, and called her Joy. It was the new name he had given her, Aurora sounding too formidable for a lover's lips.

One such night Aurora played them 'The Wearing of the Green,' breaking in upon a moment of exuberant merriment with the quaint melancholy of the music. She wrung from the strings a pathetic appeal, and played the crowd into a sudden reverent silence. They were rebel hearts there to a man, and many exiles from Erin were in the company. The simple tune went right home to them all. The men sat still, gazing into their pannikins, and big bearded diggers had a chastened pensiveness that might have been comic had there been any there to laugh at them. Just as suddenly the girl swung into a rollicking dance-step, abandoning her tender mood with a burst of happy laughter; but Tim Carrol, a young new chum; fresh from 'the most distressful country,' sprang to the counter beside her, and, clasping Aurora and her fiddle in a generous hug, kissed the girl on the cheek.

'Shtop!' he cried. 'Niver another word will ye play till the hold iv that's gone from us!'

Done, who was standing near, saw the action, saw Aurora laughing in the man's arms, and experienced a revulsion of feeling that turned him giddy, and blurred the lights and the figures about him. He sprang at Carrol savagely. It seemed to him that what followed occurred in darkness. A few blows, a scuffle, and then he was torn away. The next moment he found himself in Kyley's hands, and Aurora before him, her eyes flashing anger, her white teeth bared, her hands clenched--exactly the termagant she had appeared on the night she confronted Quigley in her wrath; but to-night her fury was directed against him.

'How dare you interfere?' she said. 'How dare you meddle with my affairs?' She struck herself upon the breast. She blazed with passion.

'He kissed you!' said Jim. 'I couldn't stand that!'

'And what of me? If I do not object, what then?'

'Aurora!'

'Am I my own mistress? Are my inclinations to count for something?'

Jim had recovered himself. He felt cold, sobered. He shook the hands off him, 'Your inclinations count for everything!' he said with composure. 'I acted on impulse. I beg your pardon, Aurora. I'll apologize to Carrol if he wishes it. I've had too much rum, Tim; I acted like a fool.'

'Tush, man, 'twas nothin'! You didn't hit me,' said the Irishman cheerfully. 'Don't shpake iv it. I disarved what I didn't get fer kissin' your sweet, heart, any-how.'

Aurora's anger fell from her suddenly, and she moved away. She played no more that night, and was markedly subdued in her manner, turning an anxious eye upon Done every now and again, and Jim, to carry off the situation, was much too free with the liquor and uncommonly friendly with everybody.

'You took my temper like a gentleman, Jimmy dear,' said Aurora, coming behind him when he sat alone. She was bidding for reconciliation.

'I ought to have known better, Joy,' he answered. I was an idiot!'

'No, dear, you were jealous, and that is an easy thing for a woman to forgive.'

'I don't think I was even jealous.'

'Then you should have been!' she said, with a flash of anger.

'Then, if I should have been, I was jealous--furiously, murderously jealous!'

'Sure, how could you blame the poor boy,' she murmured, winding an arm about his neck, 'wid the love of the dear ould sod hot in the heart iv him? 'Twasn't a lover's kiss he gave me, darlin', but a patriot's.'

'This is a lover's, Joy!' He kissed her softly.