"A real pal was Jake Morley, but as I said before, weak; and a perfect
fool when the 'hell fire' they served out in the grog shanties was in
him. What poison it was, brewed in the Devil's own vat, I should say,
and it sent men wild and burned up both body and brains, when they had
any. When Jake went I was lonely. He was as tender as a woman to me. I
got sick, down with the fever, and there was precious little for us in
camp, and what there was did more harm than good. Men fought and robbed,
aye, and killed, too, for food in those days, and a man's life was not
worth as much as a horse's. Jake stood by me all that time, some weeks,
so I heard, and he got food somehow and somewhere. When I came round he
made light of the whole thing, and went on a 'burst.' I didn't see him
for days, when I found him he was at the bottom of a shaft with his neck
broken. Drink, of course; that was what they put it down to, but I
didn't. I had my own notions. A shove in the dark was easy, and he had
enemies. I got even with one of them."
"Did you----" commenced Jack.
"No; I never killed a man, although I might easily have done so in
self-defence, and no blame to me. There was gold then, heaps of it. The
Great Tom Mine is a trifle to it; but it was harder to get, and there
was no machinery.
"I did fairly well, but I soon sold out after Jake was gone; I couldn't
somehow cotton to the others, thinking as I did one of them had done for
him.
"But I was going to tell you we are in for a big thing--bigger than the
Great Tom. I got off the track, my memory runs away with me at times; I
hope you do not mind it?"
"I wish it would run away more frequently," said Jack smiling.
"I don't mind telling you things," said Barry, "but there are some men I
would not open my mind to. Read that."
Jack took the paper; it was torn and dirty, and there was a lot of
scrawling writing on it. With difficulty he made out the words, but
failed to grasp the full extent of the meaning.