Charley was sitting on the couch, leaning towards Michael, his shoulders
hunched, his eyes gleaming, when Potch went into the hut.
"You can't bluff me," Potch heard him say. "You may throw dust in the
eyes of the men here, but you can't bluff me.... It was you did for
me.... It was you put it over on me--took those stones."
"Well, you tell the boys," Potch heard Michael say.
His voice was as unconcerned as though it were not anything of
importance they were discussing. Potch found relief in the sound of it,
but its unconcern drove Charley to fury.
"You know I took them from Paul," he shouted. "You know--I can see it in
your eyes ... and you took them from me. When ... how ... I don't
know.... You must 've sneaked into the house when I dozed off for a bit,
and put a parcel of your own rotten stuff in their place.... How do I
know? Well, I'll tell you...."
He settled back on the sofa. "I hung on to the best stone in the
lot--clear brown potch with good flame in it--hopin' it would give me a
clue some day to the man who'd done that trick on me. But I couldn't
place the stone; I'd never seen it on you, and Jun had never seen it
either. I was dead stony when I sold it to Maud ... and I told her why
I'd been keeping it, seeing she was in the show at the start off. She
sold the stone to Armitage in America, and first thing the old man said
when he saw it was: 'Why, that's Michael's mascot!'"
"Remembered when you'd got it, he said," Charley continued, taking
Michael's interest with gratified malice. "First stone you'd come on, on
Fallen Star, and you wouldn't sell--kept her for luck.... Old Armitage
wouldn't have anything to do with the stone then--didn't believe Maud's
story.... But John Lincoln got it. He told me...."
"I see," Michael murmured.
"Don't mind telling you I'm here to play Armitage's game," Charley said.
Michael nodded. "Well, what about it?"
"This about it," Charley exclaimed irritably, his excitement and
impatience rising under Michael's calmness. "You're done on the Ridge
when this story gets around. What I've got to say is ... you took the
opals. You've got 'em. You're done for here. But you could have a good
life somewhere else. Clear out, and----"
"We'll go halves, eh?" Michael queried.
"That's it," Charley assented. "I'll clear out and say nothing--although
I've told Rummy enough already to give him his suspicions. Still,
suspicions are only suspicions--nothing more. When I came here I didn't
even mean to give you this chance.... But 'Life is sweet, brother!'
There's still a few pubs down in Sydney, and a woman or two. I wouldn't
go out with such a grouch against things in general if I had a flash in
the pan first.... And it'd suit you all right, Michael.... With this
scheme of Armitage's in the wind----"
"And suppose I haven't got the stones?" Michael inquired.
Charley half rose from the sofa, his thin hands grasping the table.
"It's a lie!" he shrieked, shivering with impotent fury. "You know it
is.... What have you done with 'em then? What have you done with those
stones--that's what I want to know!"
"You haven't got much breath," Michael said; "you'd better save it."
"I'll use all I've got to down you, if you don't come to light," Charley
cried. "I'll do it, see if I don't."
Potch walked across to his father. He had heard Charley abusing and
threatening Michael before without being able to make out what it was
all about. He had thought it bluff and something in the nature of a
try-on; but he had determined to put a stop to it.
"No, you won't!" he said.
"Won't I?" Charley turned on his son.
"No." Potch's tone was steady and decisive.
Charley looked towards Michael again.
"Well ... what are you going to do about it?"
"I've told you," Michael said. "Nothing."
"Did y' hear what I've been calling your saint?" Charley cried, turning
to Potch. "I'm calling him what everybody on the fields'd be calling him
if they knew."
Michael's gaze wavered as it went to Potch.
"A thief," Charley continued, whipping himself into a frenzy. "That's
what he is--a dirty, low-down thief! I'm the ordinary, decent sort ...
get the credit for what I am ... and pay for it, by God! But he--he
doesn't pay. I bag all the disgrace ... and he walks off with the
goods--Rouminof's stones."
Potch did not look at Michael. What Charley had said did not seem to
shock or surprise him.
"I've made a perfectly fair and reasonable proposition," Charley went on
more quietly. "I've told him ... if he'll go halves----"
"Guess again," Potch sneered.
Charley swung to his feet, a volley of expletives swept from him.
"I've told Rummy to get the law on his side," he cried shrilly, "and
he's going to. There's one little bit of proof I've got that'll help
him, and----"
"You'll get jail yourself over it," Potch said.
"Don't mind if I do," Charley shouted, and poured his rage and
disappointment into a flood of such filthy abuse that Potch took him by
the shoulders.
"Shut your mouth," he said. "D'y' hear?... Shut your mouth!"
Charley continued to rave, and Potch, gripping his shoulders, ran him
out of the hut.
Michael heard them talking in Potch's hut--Charley yelling, threatening,
and cursing. A fit of coughing seized him. Then there was silence--a
hurrying to and fro in the hut. Michael heard Sophie go to the tank, and
carry water into the house, and guessed that Charley's paroxysm and
coughing had brought on the hemorrhage he had had two or three times
since his return to the Ridge.
A little later Potch came to him.
"He's had a bleeding, Michael," Potch said; "a pretty bad one, and he's
weak as a kitten. But just before it came on I told him I'd let him have
a pound a week, somehow, if he goes down to Sydney at once.... But if
ever he shows his face in the Ridge again ... or says a word more about
you ... I've promised he'll never get another penny out of me.... He can
die where and how he likes ... I'm through with him...."
Michael had been sitting beside his fire, staring into it. He had
dropped into a chair and had not moved since Potch and Charley left the
hut.
"Do you believe what he said, Potch?" he asked.
Michael felt Potch's eyes on his face; he raised his eyes to meet them.
There was no lie in the clear depths of Potch's eyes.
"I've known for a long time," Potch said.
Michael's gaze held him--the swimming misery of it; then, as if
overwhelmed by the knowledge of what Potch must be thinking of him, it
fell. Michael rose from his chair before the fire and stood before
Potch, his mind darkened as by shutting-off of the only light which had
penetrated its gloom. He stood so for some time in utter abasement and
desolation of spirit, believing that he had lost a thing which had come
to be of inexpressible value to him, the love and homage Potch had given
him while they had been mates.
"I've always known, too," Potch said, "it was for a good enough reason."
Michael's swift glance went to him, his soul irradiated by that
unprotesting affirmation of Potch's faith.
He dropped into his chair before the fire again. His head went into his
hands. Potch knew that Michael was crying. He stood by silently--unable
to touch him, unable to realise the whole of Michael's tragedy, and yet
overcome with love and sympathy for him. He knew only as much of it as
affected Sophie. His sympathy and instinct where Sophie was concerned
enabled him to guess why Michael had done what he had.
"It was for Sophie," he said.
"I intended to give them back to Paul--when she was old enough to go
away, Potch," Michael said after a while. "Then she went away; and I
don't know why I didn't give them to him at once. The things got hold of
me, somehow--for a while, at least. I couldn't make up my mind to give
them back to him--kept makin' excuses.... Then, when I did make up my
mind and went to get them, they were gone."
Potch nodded thoughtfully.
"You don't suspect anybody?" he asked.
Michael shook his head. "How can I? Nobody knew I had them, and yet ...
that night ... twice, I thought I had heard someone moving near me....
The memory of it's stayed with me all these years. Sometimes I think it
means something--that somebody must have been near and seen and heard.
Then that seems absurd. It was a bright night; I looked, and there was
no one in sight. There's only one person besides you ... saw ... I
think--knew I had the stones...."
"Maud?"
Michael nodded. "She came into the room with you that night. You
remember? ... And I've wondered since ... if she, perhaps, or Jun ... At
any rate, Armitage knows, or suspects--I don't know which it is
really.... He says he has proof. There's that stone I put in Charley's
parcel--a silly thing to do when you come to think of it. But I didn't
like the idea of leaving Charley nothing to sell when he got to Sydney;
and that was the only decent bit of stone I'd got. Making up the parcel
in a hurry, I didn't think what putting in that bit of stuff might lead
to. But for that, I can't think how Armitage could have proof I had the
stones except through Maud. And she's been in New York, and----"
"She may have told him she saw you the night she came for me," Potch
said.
"That's what I think," Michael agreed.
They brooded over the situation for a while.
"Does Sophie know?" Michael's eyes went to Potch, a sharper light in
them.
"Only that some danger threatens you," Potch said slowly. "Armitage told
her."
"You tell her what I've told you, Potch," Michael said.
They talked a little longer, then Potch moved to go away.
"There's nothing to be done?" he asked.
Michael shook his head.
"Things have just got to take their course. There's nothing to be done,
Potch," he said.
They came to him together, Sophie and Potch, in a little while, and
Sophie went straight to Michael. She put her arms round his neck and her
face against his; her eyes were shining with tears and tenderness.
"Michael, dear!" she whispered.
Michael held her to him; she was indeed the child of his flesh as she
was of his spirit, as he held her then.
He did not speak; he could not. Looking up, he caught Potch's eyes on
him, the same expression of faith and tenderness in them. The joy of the
moment was beyond words.
Potch's and Sophie's love and faith were beyond all value, precious to
Michael in this time of trouble. When he had failed to believe in
himself, Sophie and Potch believed in him; when his life-work seemed to
be falling from his hands, they were ready to take it up. They had told
him so. In his grief and realisation of failure, that thought was a
star--a thing of miraculous joy and beauty.