When the thieves reached home, after a hasty breakfast, they continued
the discussion as to how the purse was to be opened and the nugget
secured. Unfortunately for them the monkey had struggled out of the
pillow-case, as soon as it reached the house, and the robbers' children
at once seized upon it, and claimed it as their pet. When they were told
it would have to be killed, the youngest child, a little girl so lovely
that even a bad father could not help loving her, burst into tears, and,
putting her arms round the robber's neck, prayed and entreated him to
spare its life, and let her play with it. Now, wicked as this man was,
this child had a mysterious influence over him, and though he was
resolved to kill Gum, and that immediately, he determined that she
should not see it done, nor even know that he had done it. Besides this,
it would never do to let the people in the valley know that they had
killed the monkey, for Donald would surely go in search of it; so after
consulting together for some time, the robbers decided on a plan for
killing Gum without anybody being any the wiser. They knew that if they
shot it, or drowned it, or slew it with a knife, the children would be
angry, and the story would certainly be told to their playmates and
passed on in time to Donald's family. So a very diabolical scheme was
hatched. The only way they could think of for killing Gum without any
one seeing, or without either of them being actually present at the
death, was to _blow it up with gunpowder_. This method had another
advantage, which neither of the men liked to confess weighed with them,
but in reality it was this more than anything else that made them think
of the gunpowder. At the bottom of their hearts these men were cowards,
and after the strange threat which Donald had uttered as they were
leaving his house, they were secretly afraid 'to lay a hand' upon Gum. A
monkey was a very mysterious creature. They had never had anything to do
with one before. Gum's face had a curious human look, and to murder it
in cold blood was almost like murdering a man. So the gunpowder idea
seemed the very solution that was needed, and they set about their
preparations at once. While one of the men remained at the kitchen fire
with the family to allay suspicion, the other, after pocketing a little
can of miners' blasting-powder, a couple of feet of fuse, and a piece of
string, strolled out to the wood behind the cabin on the pretence of
giving the monkey a walk. As soon as a low thicket screened the pair
from view, the robber tied the monkey to the trunk of a tree. Then he
lashed the can of gunpowder tightly to the monkey's tail, passed one end
of the fuse into it through a small hole, struck a match, and lighted
the other end. As soon as he saw the fuse was fairly lit, and the red
fire slowly creeping upwards, he ran back as fast as he could to the
house. Meantime the other man had got a concertina from the shelf, and
was playing with all his might to drown the sound of the explosion. When
the executioner arrived, out of breath though he was, he joined noisily
in the dance which the children had set up the moment the concertina
began to play, and presently such a stamping and shouting was going on
in the cottage that the sound of an earthquake would have been quenched.
Suddenly an awful interruption occurred. Through the open door the
monkey bounded in, and taking up its place in the midst of the circle
joined in the dance. From its neck dangled a piece of string, burnt at
the point; but what made the children shriek with laughter was a small
tin can tied to its tail, which clattered about with every turn of the
body, and strange to say, had a sort of little tail of its own which
appeared to be on fire, for little puffs of smoke were coming from it,
and a red colour glowed at the tip. The moment the robbers caught sight
of this apparition there was a yell of fear which paralysed the children
into rigid statues. The men's faces were livid with terror, and some
seconds passed before either had recovered his senses sufficiently to
act. Then one man, with a great sweep of his arms, caught up all the
children into one tumble bunch, and flung them screaming with pain and
surprise under the bed of the adjoining room. The other, who was
directly responsible for the mischief, seeing that the only chance to
save his house and himself was to get Gum outside, clutched the smoking
monkey in his arms and rushed to the door. Quick as the movement was, it
was not quick enough. Those inside heard a deafening report; the house
was filled with smoke; the doorway became a heap of fallen timber, and
the blackened body of a man lay groaning among the charred ruins. One of
the robbers, their wives, and all the children were safe. But when the
smoke cleared away, and the body by the door was examined, life was all
but extinct. For weeks the robber hung between life and death. It forms
no part of this story to tell what pains he suffered, or what agonies of
mind he passed through, or how, when months after he was able to crawl
from his bed and go out into the air it was to see never more the
sunlight or the flowers with his sightless eyes. Certainly Donald's
words had come true. When the miner heard that evening what had
happened, although he had already sent off word to the nearest
police-station with the names of the guilty men, he took no further
action in the matter. God's punishment was quicker than man's.
[Illustration: THE CAN OF GUNPOWDER TIED TO HIS TAIL]