An unusually large ‘clean up’ was expected for the Christmas month;
bets had been made that no yield in Australia would rival it. It was
to go down by private escort, that is, by the waggonette belonging to
the lease, which would be driven by one of the men employed in the
mine, who was a relation of the chief shareholder, and had turned up a
few months since. He had been out of luck lately, but being a
remarkably good all-round man, a noted bushman, and ‘as hard as
nails,’ preferred work as an ordinary hand on the mine to doing
nothing, and was earning his £3 or £4 a week by manual labour. Among
his accomplishments—and he had many—were the arts of riding and
driving. Everything belonging to the use and education of ‘the noble
animal’ had been familiar to him since childhood. It was therefore
arranged that he should take charge of a four-in-hand team with the
precious cargo from Pilot Mount to the nearest railway station; and,
with Newstead, who would embrace that opportunity of ‘going home,’ be
responsible for the gold until delivered to the Master of the Mint.
All necessary arrangements were made—the solid, iron-clamped boxes,
heavy to lift, mysterious and secret of appearance, were duly weighed,
counted, and placed ready to go into the body of the strong though
light-running vehicle.
In the early days of the vast goldfields, where now a city stands,
with ten thousand inhabitants, having shops and buildings, water
supply, electric power and light, the value of each consignment of
gold to the ‘port’ was accurately known. There were people who
considered this to be imprudent, inasmuch as the fact of there being
from thirty to fifty thousand pounds’ worth of gold on any given
vehicle, with only four or six men as a defence force, would operate
as a powerful temptation to a class of criminals well represented on
any rich goldfield. But nothing in the way of violent spoliation had
taken place so far. The waterless character of the country had been
against highway robbery, rendering such enterprises less difficult to
interrupt or follow up. Still, experienced police officers held the
opinion that it might not always be so. Miners and companies had grown
careless, by reason of the offences at present being confined to
trifling sums and localities in the city. It was well known that
criminals of the class of ‘Long Jack,’ ‘The Nugget,’ and ‘The Gipsy’
were on the field—daring, not to say desperate men—with a long list of
convictions behind them; ready to stick at nothing when a robbery of
the first class, such as they would term ‘a big touch,’ might be
brought off. A clever disguise, with a ticket for the mail steamer,
would land the actors far away from all chance of arrest. There were
good police and sharp detectives around Pilot Mount, but up to this
stage of the field their energies had been comparatively wasted.
Compared with the more important tragedies from time to time enacted
in New South Wales and Queensland, the ‘Golden Belt,’ as the
auriferous district had been named, was wonderfully free from the
higher developments of criminal activity. This, however, in the
opinion of the Chief Commissioner of the police department, could not
be expected to continue. As the output of gold, increasing in value
and volume, swelled the monthly reports, while as yet no adequate
scheme of defence had been organised, the more satisfied was he that a
novel and original raid on the treasure claim might at any moment be
looked for. Perhaps even now one might be maturing.
In the meantime, the start for the coast could not come off for
several days, which were devoted to preparing for the important
journey. The waggonette was carefully examined: wheels, axles, and
springs tested—in some cases strengthened, as a breakdown on the road
would be a serious affair, and repairs difficult, if not impossible,
to effect. Nearly a week was devoted to this needful precautionary
work. In the meanwhile, the English mail steamer had arrived at
Fremantle, and among the letters forwarded to Arnold Banneret, Pilot
Mount, ‘Last Chance Mine,’ was an offer from an influential Syndicate,
with more than one noble, world-renowned name upon the Committee, to
purchase the right, title, and interest of the adjoining leases,
including the Reward Claim of that name. The Prospectus was elaborate,
setting forth that the large yields of the past foreshadowed an even
more stupendous income in the future. It pointed out that the
management might be simplified, and working expenses reduced, by
association with a group of well-known dividend-paying mines, already
owned, or controlled, by the Syndicate, while the profits would be
proportionately increased, and the dividends accruing to shareholders
might be confidently stated to be such as no modern mine, with the
exception of Mount Morgan, in Queensland, had ever touched. Of course
it would be necessary to issue a largely increased number of shares,
the capital value of which would run into millions, but the guarantee
of ‘The Southern World Associated Gold Mines Companies’ would, while
assuring shareholders of unusual dividends, make the shares negotiable
at their face value all over the English-speaking world. The present
shareholders would receive 500,000 shares—present value £500,000—with
£100,000 in cash,—estimated to represent one-half of the value of the
mine. If the present monthly output remained stationary, the dividends
would be exceptional. But if, as was almost certain, they were
increased proportionately to the improved machinery and up-to-date
management proposed to be inaugurated without delay, there would not
be an investment in Australia or South Africa which would bear
comparison with it.
This proposal, when all mining property was going up by leaps and
bounds, met with the fullest support from all the local, and indeed
the colonial press generally. It seemed from the eulogistic notices
which poured in from all sides, British, foreign, and provincial, as
if any man or woman, with a capital exceeding a ten-pound note, must
be wanting in ordinary intelligence, criminally indifferent to the
interests of his family, of the colony in which he dwelt, or the
Empire to which he owed fealty, if he or she did not immediately take
advantage of this wonderful opportunity to enrich himself and his
family, his friends and his countrymen.
This proposal, however, did not find favour in the eyes of the
principal shareholder. He had seen the decline and fall of so many
magnificent projects—over-capitalised, and ‘boomed’ up to highly
speculative if not fictitious values, with flattering reports and
favourable surveys, dwelling more upon the visions of the future than
the facts of the present. They had soared to an aerial height, only to
waver, and finally, after irregular gyrations, fell to rise no more,
involving all connected with the enterprise in ruinous loss, besides
damaging the reputation of solid, legitimate mining properties. He
preferred to accept the honestly earned profits of the mine, carefully
worked and safely managed; issuing monthly reports, regularly supplied
to the press, and open to all men for general information. He placed
his views so strongly before the shareholders and partners in the
‘Last Chance Proprietary Mine, Limited,’ at a special meeting summoned
to decide upon the offer of the Syndicate referred to, that it was
respectfully declined.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the city, which had grown and flourished around the once
bare, solitary Pilot Mount, had reached a stature—a transformation,
indeed, resembling one of the dream-cities of the Eastern
story-teller,—broad streets, bright with electric lamps, and gardens
watered by an aqueduct fed from a reservoir miles distant. Thronged,
too, with every kind of vehicle, every kind of beast of burden; every
kind of horse, from the Clydesdale to the thoroughbred, from the
dog-cart trotter to the polo pony; bullock teams and camel trains
jostled one another; while well-horsed coaches daily, hourly indeed,
brought mails and passengers from distant goldfields and lately
discovered ‘rushes.’ These last were often founded upon ‘Great
Expectations,’ which too often proved unsubstantial, if not illusory.
Nevertheless, progress _was_ made notwithstanding; and the monthly
output remains to testify to the stability of the Great Industry,
energy of the population, and the increasing richness of the
auriferous area. Wonderful hotels, livery stables containing
saddle-horses sufficient to remount a squadron, arose on every side,
with race-courses and polo grounds where the young bloods of the
‘field’ disported themselves—where, indeed, such prizes as the Golden
Belt Handicap, value one thousand pounds—second horse, two hundred,
were competed for. All these, and other wonders and marvels, had been
produced—had arisen literally _out of the earth_—the auriferous
earth—so miraculously productive, by methods compared with which the
ancient processes of the sower and the reaper were contemptibly
ineffective. Think of a month’s output such as this!
* * * * *
It was the evening before the great event. Every one in the camp had
been working at high pressure since daylight. All things had been
arranged—all hindrances foreseen and provided for. The horses, well
fed and well groomed, were tried, staunch, and equal to long stages at
a high rate of speed. In addition to Arnold Banneret, Newstead, and
the acting coachman, another personage had been granted a seat after
consultation with old Jack. This was the miner Dick Andrews, who had
urgent private reasons for getting to Perth, and made petition to
Mr. Banneret to that end. Having, as he told that gentleman in a
conversation a few days previously, fallen upon a stroke of luck, he
was anxious to leave West Australia, and, taking his wife and children
with him, to settle in the Argentine, where, among people who had
neither seen nor heard of him before, he might lead a new life, and
cut himself clear of old ties and associations.
‘I’ve nigh on five hundred ounces in this bag, sir,’ he said, ‘and if
you’ll have it put up with your lot you can hold it as security, like,
till you’re banking your own. It’s been weighed all right, and there’s
Mr. Stewart’s handwriting along with it in the wash-leather bag. I
don’t read, nor write either, as you know—more’s the pity—but I seen
him take it from the scales, and write on it, and seal it up all
reg’lar. Life’s uncertain (as the parson says), and our lot’s not the
sort to make old bones. I’d trust you, Commissioner, with my life.
It’s no great odds off that now, I reckon. And you’ll stand by me now,
won’t you? I’ve been a bad chap, but I’ve not had much of a chance. A
little thing would have turned me on the right track—and that little I
didn’t get. You never knowed me do anything crooked, sir? and the
shootin’ racket was straightforrard between man and man.’
‘I don’t know that I’m doing right, Dick, in helping you off the field
this way, but I saw your wife and the boy and girl at Southern Cross.
I’ll chance it for their sakes—I’ve heard you were always good to
them.’
The man called ‘Dick’ did not speak—perhaps the words would not
come—but as he turned his head away with an indistinct murmur, a keen
observer might have seen in those eyes, which had looked so often
upon danger, and fronted Death unfalteringly, an unfamiliar
moisture—scarcely to be distinguished from a tear.
The day closed murkily, and with a faint pretence of storm and shower,
such as, on a hundred former occasions, had resulted in the usual
disappointment to the dwellers in that sun-scorched land. Wind
probably, thought the Camp generally, or perhaps a ‘Darling River
shower’—four drops upon five acres! Meanwhile the sky grew black, the
air became heavy, the sultry heat oppressive—appearances such as in
any other land would have immediately preceded a thunderstorm, with a
fall of rain: an unspoken call to the elements to clear the air and
relieve the o’erburdened senses; but none answered. Gradually the
clouds dispersed, the sun receded below the dim, distant horizon, and,
save the occasional flicker of sheet-lightning, nothing remained as
result of the portentous threatening which so lately seemed to disturb
the illimitable waste, hardly less solitary, save for this ephemeral
gathering, than the unbounded sea.
The evening meal had been long concluded. The different groups sat
smoking, or conversing in low tones. The skies were again clear, and
the heavenly host lit up the dark-blue firmament, throwing a kindly
mantle over the homelier features of the desolate levels upon which
the Pilot Mount looked down.
Mr. Newstead was calmly smoking, and playing with his pet fox-terrier,
a well-bred animal, boasting a pedigree from distinguished English
prize-winners. ‘Yes, Minniekins,’ said he, ‘I’m going home, and you’re
going too, first cabin. Isn’t it a lark? don’t think I ever saw a dog
of your age show so much class. You’ll scoop all the prizes in our
County Show next year—if you don’t get sea-sick and ruin your
constitution, as some passengers do. Won’t we have a jolly time when
we see Old England, eh, Minniekins? You’ve never seen grass yet,
y’know, nor rain either. That sounds droll, doesn’t it? You’re only
two years old, and it rains once in five years here, don’t y’know?
Droll country—no rain, no grass, no grain; grows nothing but gold.
That’s good enough, though. Won’t we talk to them when we get
to the little village, eh? Now what are _you_ thinking of,
Minniekins—smelling a nigger, or a dingo? No camels in sight. What is
it? I can see you’re nervous—what an excitable little woman it is! You
mustn’t bite the butcher again, or we’ll be brought before the beak
for keeping a ferocious dog, don’t y’know?’
The terrier raised herself quietly, and stood looking out into the
starlit night. She was a remarkably intelligent animal, much attached
to her master, who had given a fancy price for her, and often stated
that a plainer dog in England, of her class, had cost him £50. She
stretched her neck, as if looking for something, and gave vent to a
low, querulous whine. Still uneasy, she continued to exhibit the same
anxious air of disapproval, though, as yet, not committing herself to
the arrival of an enemy, possibly only a suspicious stranger. Once
before, when camped out near a lonely ‘soak’ with Denzil Southwater,
he had been warned by her long before the approach of a thievish
aboriginal, and had therefore time for preparation, which enabled them
to rout the ‘Injun’ with loss. Since then the character of Minniekins
had stood deservedly high in the camp, where she took rank as a
general favourite, to be petted, and bragged about by every man on the
pay-sheet of the ‘Last Chance Proprietary, Limited.’
Minniekins growled in a low, menacing manner. Then suddenly dashing
forward, she barked furiously, and rushed at a man who was advancing
rapidly on the camp. A smothered oath, and a savage kick which sent
the poor little thing yards away, with a broken leg, told of a frontal
attack by the enemy. At the same moment, as it appeared, the man, and
a dozen others, mysteriously emerging from the shadows at different
points, made a rush for the room in which the gold-boxes had been
stacked, firing their revolvers as they came on. The unarmed inmates
of the camp—two shift bosses and Mr. Newstead, with three or four
wages men—were taken completely by surprise.
Denzil Southwater was in his tent writing a home letter. For a moment
it seemed, as the compact body of strangers moved up perilously near
to the treasure-room, that the fort would be carried by assault.
But two of the garrison were neither unarmed nor unprepared: these
were the man called ‘Dick,’ and old Jack. The latter was dressed for a
walk to the township, a ceremonious visit which included a revolver in
his hip-pocket loaded in every chamber. ‘Nothin’ like bein’ “heeled,”
as we used ter say in the States,’ he would answer to any remark made
on this as a superfluous precaution. ‘It’s come in handy mor’n once or
twice either, since then; yer never know what’ll turn up on a
goldfield.’ His habit was justified on this occasion. The tall robber
had fired point blank at Mr. Newstead, who, struck on the point of the
shoulder, fell as if badly wounded, when Dick Andrews sprang forward,
firing two shots with lightning quickness.
The tall man dropped on his face, and lay still, while a shorter
ruffian, apparently bent on reaching the camp, staggered wildly, then
fell backwards, discharging his revolver in the act. A younger man had
been badly hit by old Jack, while another had been captured by Denzil
Southwater, who, dashing at him, unarmed, knocked up his revolver, and
catching him a half-arm blow on the ‘point,’ held him, dazed, with a
broken jaw, till the mine hands came up, and tied his hands behind
him. The other men, seeing that the game was up, took to their heels,
and lost themselves in the crowd which was pouring with increasing
volume up the slopes of the Pilot Mount. The tableau was
imposing—Minniekins on three legs, still barking furiously; the tall
man, easily identified as ‘Long Jack,’ a criminal of many aliases,
lying on his face, stone dead! while Mr. Southwater’s prisoner, bound
and blasphemous, stood in the centre of an excited crowd apparently
anxious to lynch him then and there. However, Inspector Furnival,
arriving with a strong body of police soon after, carried him off in
the name of the Law, much to the disappointment of the public, who
openly expressed their regret that Judge Lynch was not afforded an
opportunity of proving the superiority of prompt trial and decisive
action to the tardy verdict of an Assize Court. In the camp the
casualties were: Arnold Banneret, bullet graze on temple; Newstead,
wound in left shoulder; Minniekins, broken fore-leg; while the man
called ‘Dick,’ shot through the lungs, was in a serious, if not
dangerous condition.
What a change from the gay hopes of the morning, when all had risen
with the prospect of welcome travel—a respite from the monotonous toil
of goldfield life; and, in the case of the escort party, returning to
the luxuries of city life—to the society of friends and relatives,
with the prestige of successful adventurers!
How narrowly, thought Arnold Banneret, had he himself escaped the fate
of the robber, slain in his last fight against society; a shade nearer
to the vital centre, and he would have lain ready for his coffin, even
as the outcast criminal who, indeed, had paid the last penalty of a
life of crime, in which even murder had been familiar. What a
termination to the joyous imaginations with which he and his wife had
regarded the speculation which promised so fairly! Fancy the headlines
of the local papers:—
‘The Last Chance Mine.’
Attempt to carry off the Escort Gold!
Five-and-twenty thousand ounces!
Desperate encounter. Two men killed:
Mr. Banneret and ‘Long Jack.’
Several of the Escort wounded.
Immense excitement on the Field.
* * *
Special Evening Edition of
The _Clarion_.
Our Contemporary misinformed:
Mr. Banneret not killed.
He and Dick Andrews, the well-known Miner,
dangerously wounded—the latter, while
defending the Escort heroically, shot through
the body. ‘The Gipsy’ captured by the Honourable
Denzil Southwater, a Shareholder, who was unarmed.
Lord Newstead suffering from a broken arm.
Full particulars in our morning issue.
The effect of this and similar announcements may be imagined. Public
feeling was stirred to its inmost depths. The police force, as usual,
was denounced for incapacity and indolence, and the Government of the
day arraigned for want of foresight, unreadiness, and general
ignorance of its duties. As to the administration of law and order on
this, the richest, the most extensive goldfield in Australia—the only
parallel case commensurate with its abnormal inefficiency was that of
the British War Office. But the West Australian Cabinet might yet earn
the notoriety of having sacrificed a colony if this sort of thing was
allowed to go on unchecked—and so on, and so on. The opposition
journal of course discounted ‘the habitual exaggeration of a
contemporary, the editor of which could not allude to an attempt at
the looting of a rich treasure-cargo—an attempt which had signally
failed, moreover—without dragging in absurd parallels equally out of
date and out of reason. Omniscient as he claimed to be, he had not
become acquainted with the fact, now for the first time divulged to
their reporter, a gentleman of wide experience in Australian and
American mines, that “Dick Andrews,” a working miner, and shareholder
in the Reward Claim, who shot dead the well-known desperado “Long
Jack” and wounded “The Nugget”—formerly of Port Arthur—was no other
than the notorious Richard Lawless, the brother of Ned and Kate,
concerned in the killing of Inspector Francis Dayrell, in pursuance of
a vendetta cherished for years by the Lawless family. They eventually
accomplished his death. Lured into an ambush, thus fell one of the
most daring and energetic officers of the Police Force of Victoria.
They had evaded the warrants issued for their apprehension,
disappearing in the “Never-Never” regions of Queensland, chiefly
populated, if all tales be true, by refugees of their class and
character. From this “land of lost souls” Kate Lawless returned to die
by her own hand on the grave of her child at Running Creek on Monaro;
while her brother Richard, a marvellous bushman and all-round worker,
as are many of his compatriots, has been employed under the very noses
of the police as “Dick Andrews,” remarkable only for his steady,
hardworking habits and inoffensive general demeanour. Tall, spare, and
sinewy, wearing the ordinary beard of the dweller in the Waste, he was
in no way distinguishable from the thousands of Australians whom the
magnet of the “Golden Belt” has drawn with resistless force to our
colony. There is no intention, we hear, of putting the law in force
against him; for he will be arraigned before a Higher Court, a more
august Judge, than Australia can furnish. His wounds are mortal. His
hours are numbered. And before to-morrow’s sun leaves Pilot Mount in
darkness, the soul of the erring, but not wholly lost homicide, whom
men knew as Dick Lawless, will have quitted its earthly tenement for
the final audit.’
The editorial dictum was prophetic. Mr. Banneret and Denzil
Southwater, watching by the dying man’s couch, listened to his last
words while the labouring breath grew faint—then failed for ever. One
bullet had pierced his left lung; another had lodged in the spine.
Both injuries were mortal. It was a question of hours—of few of them
indeed.
‘I stopped “Long Jack,” Commissioner!’ he said, while a slow smile of
satisfaction lit up the calm features, ‘afore he got in another pot at
you. He’d not have missed twice. I’m goin’ out, and except for the
wife and kids I don’t know as it’s much odds; there’s enough to keep
them when she gets back to Tumut, where her people live. Land’s easy
got there; a bit of corn-flat with a few cows ’ll keep her easy and
comfortable. The boy and girl ’ll get schoolin’ till they’re out in
the world, and their mother won’t tell ’em too much about me—their
poor father, as died in his right place—a-standin’ off them as tried
to collar the gold he’d worked hard for. You write it out,
Mr. Southwater—all as I’ve said, and just put Richard Lawless his mark
at the foot. The Commissioner might witness it—if he’ll be so good—and
you too, sir.’
They complied with the sufferer’s request. Great drops of blood welled
up from the shattered lung, as between gasps he laboriously formed
the cross which validated his will, made for the benefit of the woman
who had followed him from the green, fertile valley, where the
sparkling river comes leaping down from the snow-crowned alp. With her
he had been ever mild and patient—a tireless worker when work was to
be had—often away for months at a time, but reserved as to his
occupation. Brokenly, and with hesitation, he said: ‘Commissioner!
I’ll die easier like if you’ll shake hands afore I go. It’s a
suspension o’ labour in a manner of speakin’.’ And with a quiet smile
on his lips at an old goldfields jest, the soul of ‘Dick Andrews,’
otherwise Richard Lawless, fled away from its earthly tenement,
leaving the hand of Arnold Banneret, ex-Commissioner of Barrawong, New
South Wales, still enclosed in a dead man’s rigid grasp.
‘Poor Dick! poor chap!’ said Banneret; ‘there goes a man’s life made
for better things. I suppose he _did_ save mine—barring accident. That
long ruffian wouldn’t have missed twice. With the exception of the
vendetta business with Dayrell—and there are two versions of that
story—I never heard of his doing anything mean or dishonest—that is
“crooked”’—he added reflectively—having regard to the prevailing tone
of Monaro morality.
* * * * *
The fervour of the editors of all the journals, printed within a
thousand miles or so, having exhausted itself and the public interest,
matters returned to their normal state and condition. The escort
waggonette, artistically tooled by Gore Chesterfield, cleared out for
Perth at sunrise one fine morning, ‘laden’ (as the local mining organ
put it) ‘with gold, ammunition, firearms, and decayed gentlefolk.’ On
the box-seat, between Mr. Banneret and the charioteer, sat an
aristocratic society dame of ducal connections, who, originally
voyaging to Fremantle with maternal solicitude, had remained to take a
hand in the mining adventure of the period. Having been down the
deepest mine of the ‘field,’ and across the desert on a camel as far
as the famous ‘Leonora’ and ‘Mount Idalia,’ in both of which ‘shows’
she had invested sensationally, she was not to be daunted by the
off-chance of a bullet wound on the present journey. The perils of
this passage through the wilderness were, however, minimised by the
attendance of a doubled police escort and half a hundred volunteer
guards, who (shares in the popular investment of the day, the
‘Rotherwood’ mine, being at a premium and rising fast) resolved to
combine the performance of a patriotic duty with the excitement of a
‘jamberoo’ in Perth, and ‘a whiff of the briny’ long looked forward
to, and, before this happy conjunction of profit and pleasure, almost
despaired of. When it is considered that most of the men who composed
this advanced guard were young, or youthful-seeming—that the prospects
of the majority were like the climate, sunny in the extreme—that
fortune had lately showered favours upon nearly all,—it may be
imagined what a joyous cavalcade, dashing at reckless speed through
plain and thicket—waking the long-silent, solitary champaign with
song and shout—the ‘Last Chance’ escort must have appeared to the
ordinary wayfarer.
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
The treasure was duly deposited in the banks of the period; certain
favourites of fortune, among them the lady of the box-seat, took
passage by the outgoing mail-steamer. Lord Newstead was bound for
‘England, home, and beauty,’ whence his return was problematical;
Arnold Banneret for Sydney; while Messrs. Chesterfield and Southwater
would return to the vicinity of Pilot Mount, not having as yet
acquired the ‘pile’ which was to crown the pyramid of a life’s
endeavour. Arnold Banneret made a final adieu to the ‘Reward Claim,’
having by wire received a declaration from his wife that, ‘no matter
how many ounces to the ton the “Last Chance” produced, never again
would she consent to his putting foot on that goldfield; even if his
presence was indispensable to prevent Pilot Mount from being turned
into a volcano in full working order, her resolve remained
unalterable. What she had suffered when she heard the news (false as
it turned out to be) of his death, could never be endured twice. So
now, he knew.’ When Mrs. Banneret concluded an argument with these
words the ‘incident was closed.’ Her sympathetic partner ‘for better
for worse’ resigned himself to a future existence hampered only by the
necessity of finding use for a capital of a hundred thousand pounds or
two, ‘with all the woes it brings.’
He promised himself the satisfaction, however, of revisiting Tumut,
and personally assuring the future of Mrs. Richard Lawless and her
children, which, as he had always loved and admired the place and
people, he regarded as a sacred duty, and a delightful holiday not to
be neglected. Thus, filled with anticipations of home-returning joys,
as he trod once more the deck of the P. & O. liner _Baghdad_, marked
once more the Oriental garb, and heard the familiar-sounding voices of
the Lascar crew, his heart swelled within him, as in ‘the dear, dead
days beyond recall.’
* * * * *
The return voyage in the _Baghdad_ was pure unmixed delight. Very
rarely is it otherwise in the ‘floating clubs’ of the P. & O. ‘The
liner she’s a lady,’ in every sense of the word. In the eyes of the
outward-bound passengers for England Arnold Banneret and Lord Newstead
were heroes and ‘conquistadores,’ rivalling the comrades of Pizarro
returning from Peru laden with the treasure of the Incas. Lord
Newstead secured the larger share of admiration—young and handsome,
heir to an historic name, wounded in the fight, what modern gallant
could hope to rival him in the good graces of the lady passengers? His
right arm still supported by a sling, and his disabled condition,
called forth many proffers of active sympathy.
Mr. Banneret, on account of his age and patriarchal rank, was not so
much an object of interest and admiration; nevertheless, the ‘scar on
his brown cheek revealed’ if not ‘a token true of Bosworth Field,’ a
genuine record of a ‘close call,’ as an American ‘shift boss,’
travelling east from ‘Great Holder,’ entitled the incident.
Their gold, now safe under hatches, was variously estimated at from
fifty to a hundred thousand ounces, according to the experience or
imagination of the narrator. The winds and waves were kind; the Great
Bight was so smooth that ‘you’d hardly know it,’ as a fair voyager of
experience in the South Pacific characterised it. And shortly after
the dawnlight—clearer grown, and faintly roseate-hued—opened to view
the sandstone portals of the harbour lake of the South, the
_Baghdad’s_ passengers, in cabs, carriages, trams, and omnibuses,
distributed themselves throughout the Sydney clubs and hotels, with an
economy of time and trouble unattainable in any but the mother State.
* * * * *
Home again! Everything had gone well in his absence. For the twentieth
time Arnold Banneret vowed that never again would he leave the
domestic Eden for the outer world, how fair soever might be the lure
held out by inconstant fortune. The girls were growing up; his boys,
like every other man’s boys, needed the occasional parental
warning—the guiding hand. His wife’s cheek paled as she traced the
still visible track of the robber’s bullet. ‘What was sufficient
repayment, what compensation adequate, for such risks? And if——’ but
she would not suffer him to proceed with the conjectures of what
_might_ have happened. The ‘if’ had remained undeveloped, so there was
no use speculating on grisly possibilities.
Sydney was more beauteous than ever, with glorious gardens, and the
daily ocean breeze. Say that the noonday heat was at times oppressive,
what was it in comparison with the terrible sun-rays of the West—a
tent only between the dweller therein and the cloudless, relentless
sky? The glorious semi-tropical foliage of the sea-girt city, the
lawns so freshly verdurous, the stately pines, the flowering shrubs,
the rose thickets, the carefully tended, if somewhat narrow roads,
which, winding around the harbour cliffs, open out such enchanting
views of sea and shore, earth and sky—specially arranged for the
delectation of strangers and pilgrims! The swift-winged yachts and
pleasure-boats still floated like sea-gulls above the translucent
wave. All these delights and refreshments smote the senses of the
home-returning wayfarer almost as freshly as if tasted for the first
time.
Then the delicious awakening in the fair, sweet dawn of the early
summer, with the certainty that there was now no need for doubt or
anxiety touching the family fortunes. A competence, nay, more than a
sufficiency for all their needs, was assured. Their luck had turned.
No more was it necessary to go stolidly on with the daily work which
gained the daily bread. There was not, could not be again, the
necessity for calculation as to what liability required to be arranged
for—what pressing account to be paid in full, or if not, compromised
by payment on account. Such things had been in the past—in that
shadowy region now so dim and distant-seeming. No, thank God! and a
wave of gratitude passed through his every sense and faculty as he
realised that those days and their accompanying sacrifices had passed
away for ever. Were they happier now? In his musings by the seashore,
at eve or moonrise, he sometimes asked himself the question. The reply
was not always in the affirmative. They had been happy—truly,
consciously happy, then. If there were difficulties, they had overcome
them. If there had been debts and doubts, anxiety never far distant,
succour unexpected had come in time of need. The responsibilities of
official position had been great—at times almost overpowering, but
their very magnitude had stimulated his energies—he had never
faltered; strong in the resolve to deal justly, impartially, with the
high questions committed to his judgment, he had fought through
opposition, misrepresentation, and discouragement, to emerge at last,
with the approval of his conscience and the confidence of the
heterogeneous workers whom he had ruled for a quarter of a century.
And now, having passed through the _Sturm und Drang_ of early manhood,
he had reached a period of life when youth had flown—when strength and
activity could no longer be looked for—when whatever changes took
place must necessarily be, in some respects, for the worse. What would
the future be? In what direction would the rising generation of the
family, nay, of Australia, be impelled?