BLACK WILL no sooner found himself inside the tent than he took out a
dark lantern and opened the slide cautiously. There lay in one corner
the two men fast asleep side by side. Casting the glare around he saw at
his feet a dog with a chain round him. It startled him for a moment--but
only for a moment. He knew that dog was dead. mephistopheles had told
him within an hour after the feat was performed. Close to his very hand
was a pair of miner's boots. He detached them from the canvas and passed
them out of the tent; and now looking closely at the ground he observed
a place where the soil seemed loose. His eye flashed with triumph at
this. He turned up the openings of the tent behind him to make his
retreat clear if necessary. He made at once for the loose soil, and the
moment he moved forward Robinson's gut-lines twisted his feet from under
him. He fell headlong in the middle, and half a dozen little bells rang
furiously at the sleepers' heads.
Up jumped Tom and George, weapons in hand, but not before Black Will had
wrenched himself clear and bounded back to the door. At the door, in his
rage at being balked, he turned like lightning and leveled his pistol at
Robinson, who was coming at him cutlass in hand. The ex-thief dropped on
his knees and made a furious upward cut at his arm. At one and the same
moment the pistol exploded and the cutlass struck it and knocked it
against the other side of the tent. The bullet passed over Robinson's
head. Black Will gave a yell so frightful that for a moment it paralyzed
the men, and even with this yell he burst backward through the opening,
and with a violent wrench of his left hand brought the whole tent down
and fled, leaving George and Robinson struggling in the canvas like cats
in an empty flour-sack.
The baffled burglar had fled but a few yards, when, casting his eye
back, he saw their helplessness. Losing danger in hatred he came back,
not now to rob, but murder, his left hand lifted high and gleaming like
his cruel eye. As he prepared to plunge his knife through the canvas,
flash bang! flash bang! bang! came three pistol-shots in his face from
the patrol, who were running right slap at him not thirty yards off,
and now it was life or death. He turned and ran for his life, the patrol
blazing and banging at him. Eighteen shots they fired at him, one after
another; more than one cut his clothes, and one went clean through his
hat, but he was too fleet, he distanced them; but at the reports diggers
peeped out of distant tents, and at sight of him running, flash bang
went a pistol at him from every tent he passed, and George and Robinson,
who had struggled out into the night, saw the red flashes issue, and
then heard the loud reports bellow and re-echo as he dodged about down
the line, and then all was still and calm as death under the cold, pure
stars.
Craake!
They put up their tent again. The patrol came panting back. “He has
got off--but he carried some of our lead in him. Go to bed, captain, we
won't leave your tent all night.”
Robinson and George lay down again thus guarded. The patrol sat by the
tent. Two slept, one loaded the arms again and watched. In a few minutes
the friends were actually fast asleep again, lying silent as the vast
camp lay beneath the silver stars.
Craake!
And now it was cold, much colder than before, darker, too, no moon now,
only the silver stars; it makes one shiver. Nature seemed to lie stark
and stiff and dead, and that accursed craake her dirge. All tended to
shivering and gloom. Yet a great event approached.
Craake!
A single event, a thousand times weightier to the world, each time it
comes, than if with one fell stroke all the kingdoms of the globe became
republics and all the republics empires, so to remain a thousand years.
An event a hundred times more beautiful than any other thing the eye can
hope to see while in the flesh, yet it regaled the other senses, too,
and blessed the universal heart.
Before this prodigious event came its little heralds sweeping across the
face of night. First came a little motion of cold air--it was dead-still
before; then an undefinable freshness; then a very slight but rather
grateful smell from the soil of the conscious earth. Next twittered from
the bush one little hesitating chirp.
Craake! went the lugubrious quail, pooh-poohing the suggestion. Then
somehow rocks and forest and tents seemed less indistinct in shape;
outlines peeped where masses had been.
Jug! jug! went a bird with a sweet jurgle in his deep throat. Craake!
went the ill-omened one directly, disputing the last inch of nature. But
a gray thrush took up the brighter view; otock otock tock! o tuee o o!
o tuee oo! o chio chee! o chio chee! sang the thrush, with a decision
as well as a melody that seemed to say: “Ah! but I am sure of it; I am
sure, I am sure, wake up, joy! joy!”
From that moment there was no more craake. The lugubrious quail shut up
in despair, perhaps in disdain,* and out gurgled another jug! jug! jug!
as sweet a chuckle as Nature's sweet voice ever uttered in any land;
and with that a mist like a white sheet came to light, but only for a
moment, for it dared not stay to be inspected, “I know who is coming,
I'm off,” and away it crept off close to the ground--and little drops of
dew peeped sparkling in the frost-powdered grass.
* Like anonymous detraction before _vox populi._
Yock! yock! O chio faliera po! Otock otock tock! o chio chee! o chio
chee!
Jug! jug! jug! jug!
Off we go! off we go!
And now a thin red streak came into the sky, and perfume burst from the
bushes, and the woods rang, not only with songs some shrill, some as
sweet as honey, but with a grotesque yet beautiful electric merriment of
birds that can only be heard in this land of wonders. The pen can give
but a shadow of the drollery and devilry of the sweet, merry rogues that
hailed the smiling morn. Ten thousand of them, each with half a dozen
songs, besides chattering and talking and imitating the fiddle, the fife
and the trombone. Niel gow! niel gow! niel gow! whined a leather-head.
Take care o' my hat! cries a thrush, in a soft, melancholy voice; then
with frightful harshness and severity, where is your bacca-box! your
box! your box! then before any one could answer, in a tone that said
devil may care where the box is or anything else, gyroc de doc! gyroc
de doc! roc de doc! cheboc cheboc! Then came a tremendous cackle ending
with an obstreperous hoo! hoo! ha! from the laughing jackass, who had
caught sight of the red streak in the sky--harbinger, like himself, of
morn; and the piping crows or whistling magpies modulating and humming
and chanting, not like birds, but like practiced musicians with rich
baritone voices, and the next moment creaking just for all the world
like Punch, or barking like a pug dog. And the delicious thrush with its
sweet and mellow tune. Nothing in an English wood so honey-sweet as his
otock otock tock! o tuee o o! o tuee o o! o chio chee! o chio chee!
But the leather-heads beat all. Niel gow! niel gow! niel gow! off we
go! off we go! off we go! followed by rapid conversations, the words
unintelligible but perfectly articulate, and interspersed with the
oddest chuckles, plans of pleasure for the day, no doubt. Then ri tiddle
tiddle tiddle tiddle tiddle tiddle! playing a thing like a fiddle with
wires; then “off we go” again, and bow! wow! wow! jug! jug! jug! jug!
jug! and the whole lot in exuberant spirits, such extravagance of
drollery, such rollicking jollity, evidently splitting their sides with
fun, and not able to contain themselves for it.
Oh! it was twelve thousand miles above the monotonous and scanty strains
of a European wood; and when the roving and laughing, and harshly
demanding bacca-boxes and then as good as telling you they didn't care
a feather for bacca-boxes or anything else, gyroc de doc! cheboc cheboc
cheboc! and loudly announcing their immediate departure, and perching in
the same place all the more and sweet, low modulations ending in putting
on the steam and creaking like Punch, and then almost tumbling off the
branches with laughing at the general accumulation of nonsense--when all
this drollery and devilry and joy and absurdity were at their maddest,
and a thousand feathered fountains bubbling song were at their highest,
then came the cause of all the merry hubbub--the pinnacles of rock
glowed burnished gold, Nature, that had crept from gloom to pallor,
burst from pallor to light and life and burning color--the great sun's
forehead came with one gallant stride into the sky--and it was day!
Out shone ten thousand tents of every size and hue and shape, from Isaac
Levi's rood of white canvas down to sugar-loaves, and even to miserable
roofs built on the bare ground with slips of bark, under which unlucky
diggers crept at night like badgers--roofed beds--no more--the stars
twinkling through chinks in the tester. The myriad tents were clustered
for full five miles on each side of the river, and it wound and sparkled
in and out at various distances, and shone like a mirror in the distant
background.
At the first ray the tents disgorged their inmates, and the human
hive began to hum; then came the fight, the maneuvering, the desperate
wrestle with Nature, and the keen fencing with their fellows--in short,
the battle--to which, that nothing might be wanting, out burst the
tremendous artillery of ten thousand cradles louder than thunder, and
roaring and crashing without a pause.
The base of the two-peaked rock that looked so silvery in the moon is
now seen to be covered with manuscript advertisements posted on it; we
can only read two or three as we run to our work:
“_Immense_ reduction in eggs only one shilling each!!! Bevan's store.”
“Go-ahead library and registration office for new chums. Tom Long in the
dead-horse gully.”
“If this meets the i of Tom Bowles he will ear of is pal in the
iron-bark gully.”
“This is to give notice that whereas my wife Elizabeth Sutton has taken
to drink and gone off with my mate Bob, I will not be answerable for
your debts nor hold any communication with you in future.
“JAMES SUTTON.”
A young Jew, Nathan, issued from Levi's tent with a rough table and two
or three pair of scales and other paraphernalia of a gold assayer and
merchant. This was not the first mine by many the old Jew had traded in.
His first customers this morning were George and Robinson.
“Our tent was attacked last night, Mr. Levi.”
“Again? humph!”
“Tom thinks he has got enemies in the camp.”
“Humph! the young man puts himself too forward not to have enemies.”
“Well,” said George, quickly, “if he makes bitter enemies he makes warm
friends.”
George then explained that his nerve and Robinson's were giving way
under the repeated attacks.
“We have had a talk and we will sell the best part of our dust to you,
sir. Give him the best price you can afford for Susan's sake.”
And away went George to look for his quartz river, leaving the ex-thief
to make the bargain and receive the money.
In the transaction that followed Mr. Levi did not appear to great
advantage. He made a little advance on the three pounds per ounce on
account of the quantity, but he would not give a penny above three
guineas. No! business was business; he could and would have _given_
George a couple of hundred pounds in day of need, but in buying and
selling the habits of a life could not be shaken off. Wherefore Robinson
kept back eight pounds of gold-dust and sold him the rest for notes of
the Sydney Bank.
“Well, sir,” said Tom, cheerfully, “now my heart is light; what we have
got we can carry round our waists now by night or day. Well, friend,
what do you want, poking your nose into the tent?”
Coming out suddenly he had run against a man who was in a suspicious
attitude at the entrance.
“No offense,” muttered the man, “I wanted to sell a little gold-dust.”
Levi heard what Robinson said, and came quickly out.
He seated himself behind the scales.
“Where is your gold?”
The man fumbled and brought out about an ounce. All the time he weighed
it, the Jew's keen eye kept glancing into his face he lowered his eyes
and could not conceal a certain uneasiness. When he was gone, Levi asked
Robinson whether he knew that face.
“No,” said Robinson, “I don't.”
Levi called Nathan out.
“Nathan, look at that man, follow him cautiously, and tell me where we
have seen him; above all, know him again. Surely that is the face of an
enemy.”
Then the old man asked himself where he had seen such an eye and brow
and shambling walk as that; and he fell into a brown study and groped
among many years for the clew.
“What! is Erin-go-bragh up with the sun for once?” cried Robinson to
Mary McDogherty, who passed him spade on shoulder.
“Sure if she warn't she'd never keep up with Newgut,” was the instant
rejoinder.
“Hem! how is your husband, Mary?”
“Och, captain, it is a true friend ye are for inquiring. Then it's tied
in a knot he is.
“Mercy on us, tied in a knot?”
“Tied in a knot intirely--wid the rheumatism--and it's tin days I'm
working for him and the childhre, and my heart's broke against gravel
and stone intirely. I wish it was pratees we are digging, I'd maybe dig
up a dinner any way.”
“There is no difficulty, the secret is to look in the right place.”
“Ay! ay! take your divairsion, ye sly rogue!--I wish ye had my five
childhre.”
“Oh! you spiteful cat!”
“Well, Ede, come to sell?”
“A little.”
“What is to do out there? seems a bit of a crowd.”
“What, haven't you heard? it is your friend Jem! he has got a slice of
luck, bought a hole of a stranger, saw the stuff glitter, so offered him
thirty pounds; he was green and snapped at it; and if Jem didn't wash
four ounces out the first cradleful I'm a Dutchman.”
“Well, I am right glad of that.”
A young digger now approached respectfully. “Police report, captain.”
“Hand it here. May I sit at your table a minute, Mr. Levi?” Mr. Levi
bowed assent.
“No clew to the parties that attacked our tent last night?”
“None at present, captain, but we are all on the lookout. Some of us
will be sure to hear of something, course of the day, and then I'll come
and tell you. Will you read the report? There is the week's summary as
well.”
“Of course I will. Mum! mum! 'Less violence on the whole this week; more
petty larceny.' That is bad. I'll put it down, Mr. Levi. I am determined
to put it down. What an infernal row the cradles make. What is this? 'A
great flow of strangers into the camp, most thought to be honest, but
some great roughs; also a good many Yankees and Germans come in at
the south side.' What is this? 'A thief lynched yesterday. Flung
headforemost into a hole and stuck in the clay. Not expected to live
after it.' Go it, my boys! Didn't I say law is the best for all parties,
thieves included? Leave it, Andrew, I will examine it with the utmost
minuteness.”
The dog used fine words on these occasions, that he might pass for
a pundit with his clique, and being now alone he pored over his
police-sheet as solemn and stern as if the nation depended on his
investigations.
A short explosion of laughter from Andrew interrupted this grave
occupation. The beak looked up with offended dignity, and, in spite of a
mighty effort, fell a sniggering. For following Andrew's eyes he saw two
gig umbrellas gliding erect and peaceful side by side among the pits.
“What on earth are they?”
“Chinamen, captain. They are too lazy to dig. They go about all day
looking at the heaps and poking all over the camp. They have got eyes
like hawks. It is wonderful, I am told, what they contrive to pick up
first and last. What hats! Why, one of 'm would roof a tent.”
“Hurroo!”
“What is up now?”
“Hurroo!” And up came Mary McDogherty dancing and jumping as only Irish
ever jumped. She had a lump of dim metal in one hand and a glittering
mass in the other. She came up to the table with a fantastic spring
and spanked down the sparkling mass on it, bounding back one step like
india-rubber even as she struck the table.
“There, ould gintleman, what will ye be after giving me for that? Sure
the luck is come to the right colleen at last.”
“I deal but in the precious metals and stones,” replied Isaac, quietly.
“Sure, and isn't gould a precious metal?”
“Do you offer me this for gold? This is not even a metal. It is
mica--yellow mica.
“Mikee?” cried Mary, ruefully, with an inquiring look.
At this juncture in ran George, hot as fire. “There!” cried he,
triumphantly to Robinson, “was I right or wrong? What becomes of your
gold-dust?” And he laid a nugget as big as his fist on the table.
“Ochone!” cried the Irishwoman, “they all have the luck barrin' poor
Molly McDogherty.”
The mica was handled, and George said to her compassionately, “You see,
my poor girl, the first thing you should do is to heft it in your hand.
Now see, your lump is not heavy like--”
“Pyrites!” said Isaac, dryly, handing George back his lump. “No! pyrites
is heavier than mica--and gold than pyrites.”
“Mr. Levi, don't go to tell me this is not a metal,” remonstrated
George, rather sulkily, “for I won't have it.”
“Nay, it is a metal,” replied Levi, calmly, “and a very useful metal,
but not of the precious metals. It is iron.”
“How can it be iron when it is yellow? And how is one to know iron from
gold, at any rate?”
“Be patient, my son.” said the old Jew calmly, “and learn. Take this
needle. Here is a scale of gold; take it up on the needle-point. You
have done it. Why? Because gold is a soft metal. Now take up this scale
from your pyrites?”
“I can't.”
“No, because iron is a hard metal. Here is another childish test--a
bloodstone, called by some the touchstone. Rub the pyrites on it. It
colors it not--a hard metal. Now rub this little nugget of pure gold I
have just bought.”
“Ay! this stains the stone yellow.”
“A soft metal. Here in this little phial is muriatic acid. Pour a drop
on my nugget. The metal defies it. Now pour on your pyrites. See how
it smokes and perishes. It cannot resist the acid. There are many other
tests, but little needed. No metal, no earthly substance, resembles gold
in the least.”
“Not to a Jew's eye,” whispered Robinson.
“And much I marvel that any man or even any woman who has been in a gold
mine and seen and handled virgin gold should take mica” (here he knocked
the mica clean off the table) “or pyrites” (here he spanged that in
another direction) “for the royal metal.”
“I'll tell you what to do, Mary,” began Robinson, cheerfully. “Hallo!
she is crying. Here is a faint heart.”
“Och! captain dear, Pat an' me we are kilt right out for want of luck.
Oh! oh! We niver found but one gould--and that was mikee. We can't fall
upon luck of any sort--good, bad or indifferent--that is where I'm broke
and spiled and kilt hintirely. Oh! oh! oh!”
“Don't cry. You have chosen a bad spot.”
“Captain, avick, they do be turning it up like carrots on both sides of
huz. And I dig right down as if I'd go through the 'orld back to dear
old Ireland again. He! he! he! oh! oh! An' I do be praying to the Virgin
at every stroke of the spade, I do, and she sends us no gould at all at
all, barrin' mikee, bad cess to 't. Oh!”
“That is it. You are on two wrong tacks. You dig perpendicular and pray
horizontal. Now you should dig horizontal and pray perpendicular.”
“Och! captain, thim's hard words for poor Molly McDogherty to quarry
through.”
“What is that in your hand?”
“Sure it is an illigant lump of lead I found,” replied poor Mary; the
base metal rising in estimation since her gold turned out dross. “Ye are
great with the revolver, captain,” said she, coaxingly, “ye'll be afther
giving me the laste pinch of the rale stuff for it?”
Robinson took the lump. “Good heavens! what a weight!” cried he. He eyed
it keenly. “Come, Mr. Levi,” cried he, “here is a find; be generous. She
is unlucky.”
“I shall be just,” said the old man gravely. He weighed the lump and
made a calculation on paper, then handed her forty sovereigns.
She looked at them. “Oh, now, it is mocking me ye are, old man;” and she
would not take the money. On this he put it coolly down on the table.
“What is it at all?” asked she, faintly.
“Platinum,” replied Isaac, coldly.
“And a magnificent lump of it!” cried Robinson, warmly.
“Och, captain! och, captain, dear! and what is plateenum at all--if ye
plaze?”
“It is not like your mica,” said Isaac. “See, it is heavier than gold,
and far more precious than silver. It has noble qualities. It resists
even the simple acid that dissolves gold. Fear not to take the money.
I give you but your metal's value, minus the merchant's just profit.
Platinum is the queen of the metals.”
“Och, captain, avick! och! och! come here till I eat you!” And she flung
her arm round Robinson's neck, and bestowed a little furious kiss on
him. Then she pranced away; then she pranced back. “Platinum, you are
the boy; y'are the queen of the mitals. May the Lord bless you, ould
gentleman, and the SAINTS BLESS YOU! and the VIRGIN MARY BLESS YOU!”*
And she made at Isaac with the tears in her eyes, to kiss him; but he
waved her off with calm, repulsive dignity. “Hurroo!” And the child of
Nature bounded into the air like an antelope, and frisked three times;
then she made another set at them. “May you live till the skirts of your
coat knock your brains out, the pair of ye! hurroo!” Then with sudden
demureness, “An' here's wishing you all sorts of luck, good, bad an'
indifferent, my darlin's. Plateenum foriver, and gould to the Divil,”
cried she, suddenly, with a sort of musical war-shout, the last words
being uttered three feet high in air, and accompanied with a vague kick,
utterly impossible in that position except to Irish, and intended, it
is supposed, to send the obnoxious metal off the surface of the globe
forever. And away she danced.
* These imprecations are printed on the ascending scale by
way of endeavor to show how the speaker delivered them.
Breakfast now! and all the cradles stopped at once.
“What a delightful calm,” said Robinson, “now I can study my
police-sheet at my ease.”
This morning, as he happened to be making no noise, the noise of others
worried him.
“Mr. Levi, how still and peaceful they are when their time comes to
grub. 'The still sow sups the kail,' as we used to say in the north; the
English turn the proverb differently, they say 'The silent hog--'”
“Jabber! jabber! jabber!--aie! aie!”
“Hallo! there's a scrimmage! and there go all the fools rushing to see
it. I'll go, too!”
Alas! poor human nature; the row was this. The peaceful children of
the moon, whom last we saw gliding side by side, vertical and seemingly
imperturbable, had yielded to the _genius loci,_ and were engaged in
bitter combat, after the manner of their nation. The gig umbrellas were
resolved into their constituent parts; the umbrellas proper, or hats,
lay on the ground--the sticks or men rolled over one another scratching
and biting. Europe wrenched them asunder with much pain, and held them
back by their tails, grinning horribly at each other, and their long
claws working unamiably.
The diggers were remonstrating; their morality was shocked.
“Is that the way to fight? What are fists given us for, ye varmint?”
Robinson put himself at the head of the general sentiment. “I must do a
bit of beak here!!!” cried he; “bring those two tom-cats up before me!!”
The proposal was received with acclamation. A high seat was made for
the self-constituted beak, and Mr. Stevens was directed to make the
Orientals think that he was the lawful magistrate of the mine. Mr.
Stevens, entering into the fun, persuaded the Orientals, who were
now gig umbrellas again, that Robinson was the mandarin who settled
property, and possessed, among other trifles, the power of life and
death. On this they took off their slippers before him, and were
awestruck, and secretly wished they had not kicked up a row, still more
that they had stayed quiet by the banks of the Hoang-ho.
Robinson settled himself, demanded a pipe, and smoked calm and terrible,
while his myrmidons kept their countenances as well as they could. After
smoking in silence a while, he demanded of the Chinese, “What was the
row?”
1st Chinaman. “Jabber! jabber! jabber!”
2d Chinaman. “Jabber! jabber! jabber!”
Both. “Jabber! jabber! jabber!”
“What is that? Can't they speak any English at all?”
“No!”
“No wonder they can't conduct themselves, then,” remarked a digger.
The judge looked him into the earth for the interruption.
“You get the story from them, and tell it.”
After a conference, Mr. Stevens came forward.
“It is about a nugget of gold, which is claimed by both parties.”
Robinson. “Stop! bring that nugget into court; that is the regular
course.”
Great interest began to be excited, and all their necks craned
forward--when Mr. Stevens took from one of the Chinese the cause of so
sanguinary a disturbance, and placed it on the judge's table. A roar of
laughter followed--it was between a pea and a pin's head in magnitude.
Robinson. “You know this is shocking. Asia, I am ashamed of you. Silence
in the court! Proceed with the evidence.”
Mr. Stevens. “This one saw the gold shining, and he said to the other,
'Ah!'”
Robinson (writing his notes). “Said--to--the-other--'Ah!'--Stop! what
was the Chinese for 'ah'?”
Stevens. “'Ah!”
Robinson. “Oh!”
Andrew. “Come! the beggars have got hold of some of our words!”
Robinson. “Silence in the court!”
Andrew. “I ask pardon, captain.”
Stevens. “But the other pounced on it first, so they both claim it.”
Robinson. “Well! I call it a plain case.”
Stevens. “So I told them.”
Robinson. “Exactly! Which do you think ought to have it?”
Stevens. “Why, I told them we have a proverb--'Losers, seekers--finders,
keepers.'”
Robinson. “Of course; and which was the finder?”
Stevens. “Oh! of course this one that--hum! Well, to be sure he only
said 'ah!' he did not point. Then perhaps--but on the other hand--hum!”
Robinson. “Why, don't you see? but no!--yes! why it must be the one
that--ugh! Drat you both! why couldn't one of you find it, and the other
another?”
Robinson was puzzled. At last he determined that this his first judgment
should satisfy both parties.
“Remove the prisoners,” said he; “are they the prisoners or the
witnesses? remove them anyway, and keep them apart.”
Robinson then searched his pockets, and produced a little gold swan-shot
scarce distinguishable from the Chinese. He put this on the table, and
took up the other.
“Fetch in number one!”
The Chinaman came in with obeisances and misgivings; but when the judge
signed to him to take up the gold, which he mistook for the cause of
quarrel, his face lightened with a sacred joy--he receded, and with a
polite gesture cleared a space; then, advancing one foot with large
and lofty grace, he addressed the judge, whose mouth began to open with
astonishment, in slow, balanced and musical sentences. This done, he
retired with three flowing salaams, to which the judge replied with
three little nods.
“What on earth did the beggar say? What makes you grin, Mr. Stevens?”
Stevens. “He said--click!”
Robinson. “Come! tell me first, laugh after.”
Stevens. “He said, 'May your highness flourish like a tree by the
side of a stream that never overflows, yet is never dry, but
glides--(click!)--even and tranquil as the tide of your prosperity--'”
Robinson. “Well, I consent!”
Stevens. “'May dogs defile the graves of your enemies! '”
Robinson. “With all my heart! provided I am not dancing over them at the
time.”
Stevens. “When satiated with earthly felicity, may you be received in
paradise by seventy dark-eyed houris--'”
Robinson. “Oh! my eye!”
Stevens. “Click! 'Each bearing in her hand the wine of the faithful; and
may the applause of the good at your departure resemble the waves of the
ocean beating musically upon rocky caverns. Thy servant, inexperienced
in oratory, retires abashed at the greatness of his subject, and the
insignificance of his expressions.' So then he cut his stick!”
Robinson. “A very sensible speech! Well, boys, I'm not greedy; I take
the half of that offer, and give you the rest--bring in the other
gentleman!”
No. 2 advanced with reverences and misgivings. Robinson placed the gold
on the table and assigned it to him. A sacred joy illumined him, and he
was about to retire with deep obeisances.
“Where is his speech?” cried the judge ruefuly.
Stevens explained to him that the other had returned thanks. On this No.
2 smiled assentingly, and advancing delivered the following sentences:
“Your slave lay writhing in adversity, despoiled by the unprincipled.
He was a gourd withered by the noonday sun, until your virtues descended
like the dew, and refreshed him with your justice and benignity.
“Wherefore hear now the benediction of him whom your clemency has raised
from despair.
“May your shadow increase and cover many lands. May your offspring be a
nation dwelling in palaces with golden roofs and walls of ivory, and
on the terraces may peacocks be as plentiful as sparrows are to the
undeserving. May you live many centuries shining as you now shine;
and at your setting may rivulets of ink dug by the pens of poets flow
through meadows of paper in praise of the virtues that embellish you
here on earth. Sing-tu-Che, a person of small note but devoted to your
service, wishes these frivolous advantages to the Pearl of the West, on
whom be honor.”
Chorus of diggers. “My eye!”
Robinson rose with much gravity and delivered himself thus:
“Sing-tu-Che, you are a trump, an orator, and a humbug. All the better
for you. May felicity attend you. Heichster guchster--honi soit qui
mal y pense--donner und blitzen--tempora mutantur--O mia cara and pax
vobiscum. The court is dissolved.”
It was, and I regret to add that Judge Robinson's concluding sentences
raised him greatly in the opinion of the miners.
“Captain knows a thing or two.”
“If ever we send one to parliament that is the man.”
“Halo! you fellows, come here! come here!”
A rush was made toward Jem, who was roaring and gesticulating at Mr.
Levi's table. When they came up they found Jem black and white with
rage, and Mr. Levi seated in calm indifference.
“What is it?” asked Robinson.
“The merchant refuses my gold.”
“I refuse no man's gold,” objected Levi coolly, “but this stuff is not
gold.”
“Not gold-dust,” cried a miner; and they all looked with wonder at the
rejected merchandise.
Mr. Levi took the dust and poured it out from one hand to the other; he
separated the particles and named them by some mighty instinct.
“Brass--or-molu--gilt platinum to give it weight; this is from
Birmingham, not from Australia, nor nature.”
“Such as it is it cost me thirty pounds,” cried Jem. “Keep it. I shall
find him. My spade shall never go into the earth again till I'm quits
with this one.”
“That is right,” roared the men, “bring him to us, and the captain shall
sit in judgment again;” and the men's countenances were gloomy, for this
was a new roguery and struck at the very root of gold digging.
“I'll put it down, Mr. Levi,” said Robinson, after the others had gone
to their work; “here is a new dodge, Brummagem planted on us so far from
home. I will pull it down with a tenpenny cord but I'll end it.”
Crash! went ten thousand cradles; the mine had breakfasted. I wish I
could give the European reader an idea of the magnitude of this sound
whose cause was so humble. I must draw on nature for a comparison.
Did you ever stand upon a rocky shore at evening when a great storm has
suddenly gone down, leaving the waves about as high as they were while
it raged? Then there is no roaring wind to dull the clamor of the
tremendous sea as it lashes the long re-bellowing shore. Such was
the sound of ten thousand cradles; yet the sound of each one was
insignificant. Hence an observation and a reflection--the latter I
dedicate to the lovers of antiquity--that multiplying sound, magnifies
it in a way science has not yet accounted for; and that, though men are
all dwarfs, Napoleon included, man is a giant.
The works of man are so prodigious they contradict all we see of any
individual's powers; and even so when you had seen and heard one man
rock one cradle, it was all the harder to believe that a few thousand of
them could rival thunder, avalanches, and the angry sea lashing the long
reechoing shore at night. These miserable wooden cradles lost their
real character when combined in one mighty human effort; it seemed as
if giant labor had stretched forth an arm huge as an arm of the sea
and rocked one enormous engine, whose sides where these great primeval
rocks, and its mouth a thundering sea.
Crash! from meal to meal!
The more was Robinson surprised when, full an hour before dinner-time,
this mighty noise all of a sudden became feebler and feebler, and
presently human cries of a strange character made their way to his ear
through the wooden thunder.
“What on earth is up now?” thought he--“an earthquake?”
Presently he saw at about half a mile off a vast crowd of miners making
toward him in tremendous excitement. They came on, swelled every moment
by fresh faces, and cries of vengeance and excitement were now heard,
which the wild and savage aspect of the men rendered truly terrible. At
last he saw and comprehended all at a glance.
There were Jem and two others dragging a man along whose white face
and knocking knees betrayed his guilt and his terror. Robinson knew him
directly; it was Walker, who had been the decoy-duck the night his tent
was robbed.
“Here is the captain! Hurrah! I've got him, captain. This is the beggar
that peppered the hole for me, and now we will pepper him!”
A fierce burst of exultation from the crowd. They thirsted for revenge.
Jem had caught the man at the other end of the camp, and his offense was
known by this time to half the mine.
“Proceed regularly, Jem,” said Robinson. “Don't condemn the man
unheard.”
“Oh, no! He shall be tried, and you shall be the judge.”
“I consent,” said Robinson, somewhat pompously.
Then arose a cry that made him reflect.
“Lynch! Lynch! a seat for Judge Lynch!” and in a moment a judgment-seat
was built with cradles, and he was set on high, with six strange faces
scowling round him for one of his own clique. He determined to back out
of the whole thing.
“No, no!” cried he; “that is impossible. I cannot be a judge in such a
serious matter.”
“Why not?” roared several voices.
“Why not? Because I am not a regular beak; because I have not got
authority from the Crown.”
There was a howl of derision.
“We give you authority!”
“We order you to be judge!”
“We are King, Lords, and Commons!”
“Do what we bid you, or,” added a stranger, “we will hang you and the
prisoner with one rope!”
Grim assent of the surrounding faces; Robinson sat down on the
judgment-seat not a little discomposed.
“Now then,” remonstrated one; “what are you waiting for? Name the jury.”
“Me!” “Me!” “Me!” “I!” “I!” “I!” and there was a rush for the office.
“Keep cool,” replied another. “Lynch law goes quick, but it goes by
rule. Judge, name the jury.”
Robinson, a man whose wits seldom deserted him, at once determined to
lead, since he could not resist. He said with dignity: “I shall choose
one juryman from each of the different countries that are working in
this mine, that no nation may seem to be slighted, for this gold belongs
to all the world.”
“Hurrah! Well done, judge. Three cheers for Judge Lynch!”
“When I call a country, give me a name, which I will inscribe on my
report of the proceedings. I want a currency lad first.”
“Here is one. William Parker.”
“Pass over. France.”
“Present. Pierre Chanot.”
“Germany.”
“Here. Hans Muller.”
“Holland.”
“Here. Jan Van der Stegen.”
Spain and Italy were called, but no reply. Asleep, I take it.
“United States.”
“Here. Nathan Tucker.”
Here Robinson, casting his eyes round, spied McLaughlan, and, being
minded to dilute the severity of his jury, he cried out, “Scotland.
McLaughlan, you shall represent her.”
No answer.
“McLaughlan,” cried several voices, “where are ye? Don't you hear Judge
Lynch speak to you?”
“Come, McLaughlan, come over; you are a respectable man.”
Mr. McLaughlan intimated briefly in his native dialect that he was, and
intended to remain so; by way of comment on which he made a bolt from
the judgment-hall, but was rudely seized and dragged before the judge.
“For Heaven's sake, don't be a fool, McLaughlan. No man must refuse to
be a juryman in a trial by lynch. I saw a Quaker stoned to death for it
in California.”
“I guess I was thyar,” said a voice behind the judge, who shifted
uneasily.
McLaughlan went into the jury-box with a meaning look at Robinson, but
without another audible word.
“Mercy! mercy!” cried Walker.
“You must not interrupt the proceedings,” said Judge Lynch.
“Haud your whist, ye gowk. Ye are no fand guilty yet,” remonstrated a
juror.
The jury being formed, the judge called the plaintiff.
“The man sold me a claim for thirty pound. I gave him the blunt because
I saw the stuff was glittery. Well, I worked it, and I found it work
rather easy, that is a fact.”
“Haw! haw! haw!” roared the crowd, but with a horrible laughter, no
placability in it.
“Well, I found lots of dust, and I took it to the merchant, and he says
it is none of it gold. That is my tale.”
“Have you any witnesses?”
“I don't know. Yes, the nigger; he saw it. Here, Jacky, come and tell
them.”
Jacky was thrust forward, but was interrupted by McLaughlan as soon as
he opened his mouth. The Scottish juror declined to receive evidence but
upon oath. The judge allowed the objection.
“Swear him in, then,” cried a hundred voices.
“Swear?” inquired Jacky, innocently.
Another brutal roar of laughter followed.
Jacky was offended.
“What for you laugh, you stupid fellows? I not a common black fellow.
I been to Sydney and learn all the white man knows. Jacky will swear,”
added he.
“Left your hond,” cried McLaughlan. “It is no swearing if you dinna left
your hond.”
“Dat so stupid,” said Jacky, lifting his hand peevishly. This done, he
delivered his evidence thus: “Damme I saw dis fellow sell dirt to dis
fellow, and damme I saw dis fellow find a good deal gold, and damme I
heard him say dis is a dam good job, and den damme he put down his spade
and go to sell, and directly he come back and say damme I am done!”
“Aweel,” said McLaughlan; “we jaast refuse yon lad's evidence, the
deevelich heathen.”
A threatening murmur.
“Silence! Hear the defendant.”
Walker, trembling like an aspen, owned to having sold the claim, but
denied that the dust was false. “This is what I dug out of it,” said he;
and he produced a small pinch of dust.
“Hand it to me,” said the judge. “It seems genuine.”
“Put it to the test. Call the merchant for a witness,” cried another.
A party ran instantly for Levi. He refused to come. They dragged him
with fearful menaces.
“A test, old man; a test of gold!”
The old Jew cast his eyes around, took in the whole scene, and with a
courage few of the younger ones would have shown, defied that wild mob.
“I will give you no test. I wash my hands of your mad passions, and your
mockeries of justice, men of Belial!”
A moment's silence and wonder, a yell of rage, and a dozen knives in the
air.
The judge rose hastily, and in a terrible voice that governed the tumult
for an instant said: “Down knives! I hang the first man that uses one
in my court.” And during the momentary pause that followed this he cried
out: “He has given me a test. Run and fetch me the bottle of acid on his
table.”
“Hurrah! Judge Lynch forever!” was now the cry, and in a minute the
bottle was thrust into the judge's hand.
“Young man,” said Isaac solemnly, “do not pour, lest Heaven bring your
soul to as keen a test one day. Who are you that judge your brother?”
Judge Lynch trembled visibly as the reverend man rebuked him thus, but,
fearing Isaac would go farther and pay the forfeit of his boldness,
he said calmly: “Friends, remove the old man from the court, but use
respect. He is an aged man.”
Isaac was removed. The judge took the bottle and poured a drop on that
small pinch of dust the man had last given him.
No effect followed.
“I pronounce this to be gold.”
“There,” put in McLaughlan, “ye see the lad was no deceiving ye; is it
his fault if a' the gowd is no the same?”
“No!” whimpered Walker, eagerly, and the crowd began to whisper and
allow he might be innocent.
The man standing behind the judge said, with a cold sneer: “That is the
stuff he did not sell--now pour on the stuff he sold.”
These words brought back the prejudice against the prisoner, and a
hundred voices shouted, “Pour!” while their eyes gleamed with a terrible
curiosity.
Judge Lynch, awestruck by this terrible roar, now felt what it is to be
a judge; he trembled and hesitated.
“Pour!” roared the crowd, still louder and more fiercely.
McLaughlan read the judge's feeling, and whimpered out, “Let it fa',
lad--let it fa'!”
“If he does our knives fall on him and you. Pour!”
Robinson poured. All their fierce eyes were fixed on the experiment. He
meant to pour a drop or two, but the man behind him jogged his arm, and
half the acid in the bottle fell upon Walker's dust.
A quantity of smoke rose from it, and the particles fizzed and bubbled
under the terrible test.
“Trash! a rope--no! dig a hole and bury him--no! fling him off the rock
into the water.”
“Silence!” roared Robinson, “I am the judge, and it is for me to
pronounce the verdict.”
“Silence! hear Judge Lynch!” Silence was not obtained for five minutes,
during which the court was like a forest of wild beasts howling.
“I condemn him to be exposed all day, with his dust tied round his neck,
and then drummed out of the camp.”
This verdict was received first with a yell of derisive laughter, then
with a roar of rage.
“Down with the judge!”
“We are the judges!”
“To the rock with him!”
“Ay, to the rock with him.”
With this, an all-overpowering rush was made, and Walker was carried off
up the rock in the middle of five hundred infuriated men.
The poor wretch cried, “Mercy! mercy!”
“Justice! dog,” was the roar in reply. The raging crowd went bellowing
up the rock like a wave, and gained a natural platform forty feet above
the great deep pool that lay dark and calm below. At the sight of it,
the poor wretch screamed to wake the dead, but the roars and yells of
vengeance drowned his voice.
“Put his dust in his pocket,” cried one, crueler than the rest.
Their thirst of vengeance was too hot to wait for this diabolical
proposal; in a moment four of them had him by the shoulders and heels;
another moment and the man was flung from the rock, uttering a terrible
death-cry in the very air; then down his body fell like lead, and struck
with a tremendous plunge the deep water that splashed up a moment, then
closed and bubbled over it.
From that moment the crowd roared no longer, but buzzed and murmured,
and looked down upon their work half stupidly.
“Hush!”
“What is that?”
“It is his head!”
“He is up again!”
“Can he swim?”
“Fling stones on him.”
“No! Let him alone, or we'll fling you atop of him.”
“He is up, but he can't swim. He is only struggling! he is down again!”
He was down, but only for a moment; then he appeared again choking and
gurgling.
“Mercy! mercy!”
“Justice, thieving dog!” was the appalling answer.
“Save me! save me! Oh, save me! save me!”
“Save yourself! if you are worth it!” was the savage reply.
The drowning, despairing man's head was sinking again, his strength
exhausted by his idle struggles, when suddenly on his left hand he saw
a round piece of rock scarce a yard from him. He made a desperate effort
and got his hand on it. Alas! it was so slimy he could not hold by it;
he fell off it into the water; he struggled up again, tried to dig his
feet into the rock, but, after a convulsive fling of a few seconds, fell
back--the slimy rock mocked his grasp. He came up again and clung, and
cried piteously for help and mercy. There was none!--but a grim silence
and looks of horrible curiosity at his idle struggles. His crime had
struck at the very root of their hearts and lives. Then this poor,
cowardly wretch made up his mind that he must die. He gave up praying to
the pitiless, who could look down and laugh at his death-agony, and he
cried upon the absent only. “My children! my wife! my poor Jenny!” and
with this he shut his eyes, and, struggling no more, sank quietly down!
down! down. First his shoulders disappeared, then his chin, then
his eyes, and then his hair. Who can fathom human nature? that sad,
despairing cry, which was not addressed to them, knocked at the bosoms
that all his prayers to them for pity had never touched. A hasty, low
and uneasy murmur followed it almost as a report follows a flash.
“His wife and children!” cried several voices with surprise; but there
were two men this cry not only touched, but pierced--the plaintiff and
the judge.
“The man has got a wife and children,” cried Jem in dismay, as he tried
to descend the rock by means of some diminutive steps. “They never
offended me--he is gone down, ---- me if I see the man drowned like a
rat--Hallo!--Splash!”
Jem's foot had slipped, and, as he felt he must go, he jumped right out,
and fell twenty feet into the water.
At this the crowd roared with laughter, and now was the first shade
of good-nature mixed with the guffaw. Jem fell so near Walker that on
coming up he clutched the drowning man's head and dragged him up once
more from death. At the sight of Walker's face above water again, what
did the crowd, think you?
They burst into a loud hurrah! and cheered Jem till the echoes rang
again.
“Hurrah! Bravo! Hurrah!” pealed the fickle crowd.
Now Walker no sooner felt himself clutched than he clutched in return
with the deadly grasp of a drowning man. Jem struggled to get free in
vain. Walker could not hear or see, he was past all that; but he could
cling, and he got Jem round the arms and pinned them. After a few
convulsive efforts Jem gave a loud groan. He then said quietly to the
spectators, “He will drown me in another half minute.” But at this
critical moment out came from the other extremity of the pool Judge
Lynch, swimming with a long rope in his hand; one end of this rope he
had made into a bight ere he took the water. He swam behind Walker and
Jem, whipped the noose over their heads and tightened it under their
shoulders. “Haul!” cried he to Ede, who held the other end of the rope.
Ede hauled, and down went the two heads.
A groan of terror and pity from the mob--their feelings were reversed.
“Haul quick, Ede,” shouted Robinson, “or you will drown them, man
alive.”
Ede hauled hand over hand, and a train of bubbles was seen making all
across the pool toward him. And the next moment two dripping heads came
up to hand close together, like cherries on a stalk; and now a dozen
hands were at the rope, and the plaintiff and defendant were lifted
bodily up on to the flat rock, which came nearly to the water's edge on
this side the pool.
“Augh! augh! augh! augh!” gasped Jem.
Walker said nothing. He lay white and motionless, water trickling from
his mouth, nose and ears.
Robinson swam quietly ashore. The rocks thundered with cheers over his
head.
The next moment, “the many-headed beast” remembered that all this was a
waste of time, and bolted underground like a rabbit, and dug and pecked
for the bare life with but one thought left, and that was GOLD.
“How are you, Jem?”
“Oh, captain, oh!” gasped poor Jem, “I am choked--I am dead--I am
poisoned--why, I'm full of water; bring this other beggar to my tent,
and we will take a nanny-goat together.”
So Jem was taken off hanging his head, and deadly sick, supported by
two friends, and Walker was carried to the same tent, and stripped and
rubbed and rolled up in a blanket; and lots of brandy poured down him
and Jem, to counteract the poison they had swallowed.
Robinson went to Mr. Levi, to see if he would lend him a suit, while
he got his own dried. The old Jew received my lord judge with a low,
ironical bow, and sent Nathan to borrow the suit from another Israelite.
He then lectured my lord Lynch.
“Learn from this, young man, how easy it is to set a stone rolling down
hill, how hard to stop it half-way down. Law must always be above the
mob, or it cannot be law. If it fall into their hands it goes down
to their own level and becomes revenge, passion, cruelty, anything
but--law. The madmen! they have lost two thousand ounces of gold--to
themselves and to the world, while they have been wasting their time
and risking their souls over a pound of brass, and aspiring to play the
judge and the executioner, and playing nothing but the brute and the
fool--as in the days of old.”
Mr. Levi concluded by intimating that there was very little common sense
left upon earth, and that little it would be lost time to search for
among the Gentiles. Finally his discourse galled Judge Lynch, who
thereupon resolved to turn the laugh against him.
“Mr. Levi,” said he, “I see you know a thing or two. Will you be so good
as to answer me a question?”
“If it come within my knowledge,” replied the senior, with grave
politeness.
“Which weighs the heaviest, sir, a pound of gold or a pound of
feathers?” and he winked at Nathan, but looked in Isaac's face as demure
as a Quakeress.
“A pound of feathers,” replied Isaac.
Robinson looked half puzzled, half satirical.
“A childish question,” said Isaac sternly. “What boy knows not that
feathers are weighed by Avoirdupois, and gold by Troy weight, and
consequently that a pound of feathers weighs sixteen ounces, and a pound
of gold but twelve?”
“Well, that is a new answer,” cried Robinson. “Good-by, sir, you are too
hard for me;” and he made off to his own tent. It was a day of defeats.
The moment he was out of hearing, Isaac laughed. The only time he had
done it during six years. And what a laugh! How, sublimely devoid of
merriment! a sudden loud cackle of three distinct cachinni not declining
into a chuckle, as we do, but ending sharp in abrupt and severe gravity.
“I discomfited the young man, Nathan--I mightily discomfited him. Ha!
ha! ho! Nathan, did you as I bade you?”
“Yes, master, I found the man, and I sent Samuel, who went hastily to
him and cried out, 'Mr. Meadows is in the camp and wishes to speak
to you.' Master, he started up in wonder, and his whole face changed;
without doubt he is the man you suspected.”
“Yes,” said Isaac, reflecting deeply. “The man is Peter Crawley; and
what does he here? Some deep villainy lies at the bottom of this; but I
will fathom it, ay, and thwart it, I swear by the God of Abraham. Let me
think awhile in my tent. Sit you at the receipt of gold.”
The old man sat upon a divan in his tent, and pondered on all that had
happened in the mine; above all, on the repeated attacks that had been
made on that one tent.
He remembered, too, that George had said sorrowfully to him more than
once: “No letters for me, Mr. Levi, no letter again this month!” The
shrewd old man tied these two threads together directly.
“All these things are one,” said Isaac Levi.
Thus pondering, and patiently following out his threads, the old man
paced a mile down the camp to the post-office, for he had heard the
postman's horn, and he expected important letters from England, from his
friend and agent at Farnborough, Old Cohen.
There were letters from England, but none in old Cohen's hand. He put
them in his bosom with a disappointed look, and paced slowly, and deeply
pondering, back toward his tent. He was about half way, when, much to
his surprise, a stone fell close to him. He took, however, no notice,
did not even accelerate his pace or look round; but the next moment a
lump of clay struck him on the arm. He turned round, quivering with rage
at the insult, and then he saw a whole band of diggers behind him, who
the moment he turned his face began to hoot and pelt him.
“Who got poor Walker drowned? Ah! ah! ah!”
“Who refused to give evidence before Judge Lynch?” cried another, “Ah!
ah! ah!”
There were clearly two parties in the mob.
“Down with the Jew--the blood-sucker. We do all the work, and he gets
all the profit. Ah! ah! ah!”
And a lump of clay struck that reverend head and almost stunned the poor
old man. He sunk upon his knees, and in a moment his coat was torn to
shreds, but with unexpected activity he wriggled himself free and drew
a dagger long, bright, and sharp as a needle. His assailants recoiled
a moment. The next a voice was heard from behind, “Get on both sides of
him at once!”
Isaac looked and saw Peter Crawley. Then the old man trembled for his
life, and cried, “Help! help!” and they hemmed him in and knocked his
dagger out of his hand, and hustled and pommeled him, and would have
torn him in pieces, but he slipped down, and two of them got in front
and dragged him along the ground.
“To Walker's pool,” cried brutus, putting himself at the head of those
who followed.
All of a sudden Isaac, though half insensible, heard a roar of rage that
seemed to come from a lion--a whiz, a blow like a thunder-clap--saw one
of his assassins driven into the air and falling like a dead clod three
yards off, found himself dropped and a man striding over him. It was
George Fielding, who stood a single moment snorting and blowing out his
cheeks with rage, then went slap at the mob as a lion goes at sheep;
seized one of the small ruffians by the knees, and, by a tremendous
effect of strength and rage, actually used him as a flail, and struck
brutus with the man's head, and knocked that ruffian down stunned, and
his nose leveled with his cheeks. The mob recoiled a moment from this
one hero. George knew it could be but for a moment, so he had no sooner
felled brutus, and hurled the other's carcass in their faces, than he
pounced on Isaac, whipped him on his back and ran off with him.
He had got thirty yards with him ere the staggered mob could realize it
all.
The mob recovered their surprise, and with a yell like a pack of
hounds bursting covert dashed after the pair. The young Hercules made a
wonderful effort, but no mortal man could run very fast so weighted. In
spite of his start they caught him in about a hundred yards. He heard
them close upon him--put the Jew down--and whispered hastily, “Run to
your tent,” and instantly wheeled round and flung himself at thirty men.
He struck two blows and disabled a couple; the rest came upon him like
one battering-ram and bore him to the ground; but even as he went down
he caught the nearest assailant by the throat and they rolled over one
another, the rest kicking savagely at George's head and loins. The poor
fellow defended his head with one arm and his assailant's body for a
little while, but he received some terrible kicks on the back and legs.
“Give it him on the head!”
“Kick his life out!”
“Settle his hash!”
They were so fiercely intent on finishing George that they did not
observe a danger that menaced themselves.
As a round shot cuts a lane through a column of infantry, so clean came
two files of special constables with their short staves severing the mob
in two--crick, crack, crick, crick, crick, crick, crack, crack. In three
seconds ten heads were broken, with a sound just like glass bottles,
under the short, deadly truncheon, and there lay half a dozen ruffians
writhing on the ground and beating the Devil's tattoo with their heels.
“Charge back!” cried the head-policeman as soon as he had cut clean
through.
But at the very word the cowardly crew fled on all sides yelling. The
police followed in different directions a little way, and through
this error three of the felled got up and ran staggering off. When the
head-policeman saw that he cried out:
“Back, and secure prisoners.”
They caught three who were too stupefied to run, and rescued brutus from
George, who had got him by the throat and was hammering the ground with
his head.
“Let go, George,” cried Policeman Robinson, in some anxiety, “you are
killing the man.”
“Oh, I don't want to kill him neither,” said George.
And he slowly withdrew his grasp, and left off hammering with the
rascal's head, but looked at him as if he would have preferred to have
gone on a little longer. They captured the three others.
“Now secure them,” cried Ede. “Out with your wipes.”
“There is no need of wipes,” said Robinson.
He then, with a slight blush, and rather avoiding George's eye, put his
hand in his pockets and produced four beautiful sets of handcuffs, bran
new, polished to the fine. With a magical turn of the hand he handcuffed
the three men, still avoiding George's eye. Unnecessary. George's sense
of humor was very faint, and so was his sweetheart's--a sad defect.
Perhaps I may as well explain here how Robinson came so opportunely
to the rescue. The fact is, that a week ago he had ordered a lot of
constables' staves and four sets of handcuffs. The staves were nicely
painted, lettered “Captain Robinson's Police, A, B, C,” etc. They had
just come home, and Robinson was showing them to Ede and his gang, when
a hullabaloo was heard, and Levi was seen full half a mile off being
hunted. Such an opportunity of trying the new staves was not to be
neglected. Ede and his men jumped out of their claim and ran with
Robinson to the rescue. But they would have been too late if George, who
had just come into the camp at that very part, had not made his noble
and desperate assault and retreat, which baffled the assailants for two
precious minutes.
Robinson. “What shall we do with them now we have got them?”
George. “Give them a kick apiece on their behinds, and let them go--the
rubbish.”
Robinson. “Not if I know it.”
Ede. “I say blackguard 'em.”
Robinson. “No, that would be letting ourselves down to their level. No,
we will expose them as we did my old pal here before.”
Ede. “Why that is what I mean. Ticket them--put a black card on them
with their offense wrote out large.”
No sooner said than done. All four were tied to posts in the sun, and
black-carded, or, as some spell it, placarded, thus:
COWARD.
Attacked and abused an old man.
>N. B.--Not hanged this time because they
got a licking then and there.
“Let us go and see after Mr. Levi, George.”
“Well, Tom, I had rather not.”
“Why not? he ought to be very much obliged to you.”
“That is it, Tom. The old man is of rather a grateful turn of mind--and
it is ten to one if he doesn't go and begin praising me to my face--and
then that makes me--I don't know which way to look. Wait till he has
cooled upon it a bit.”
“You are a rum one. Well, George, I have got one proposal you won't say
no to. First, I must tell you there is really a river of quartz in the
country.”
“Didn't I tell you?”
“Yes, and I didn't believe it. But I have spoken to Jacky about it, and
he has seen it; it is on the other side of the bush. I am ready to
start for it to-morrow, for there is little good to be done here now the
weather has broken.”
George assented with joy; but, when Robinson suggested that Jacky would
be very useful to pilot them through the bush, his countenance fell.
“Don't think of it,” said he. “I know he is here, Tom, and I shan't go
after him. But don't let him come near me, the nasty little, creeping,
murdering varmint. Poor Abner will never get over his tomahawk--not if
he lives fifty years.”
In short, it was agreed they should go alone at peep of day.
“I have talked it over with Jem already, and he will take charge of our
tent till we come back.”
“So be it.”
“We must take some provisions with us, George.”
“I'll go and get some cold meat and bread, Tom.”
“Do. I'm going to the tent.”
Robinson, it is to be observed, had not been in his tent since George
and he left it and took their gold out of it just before sunrise. As
he now carried their joint wealth about his person, his anxiety was
transferred.
Now at the door of the tent he was intercepted by Jem, very red in the
face, partly with brandy, partly with rage. Walker, whose life he had
saved, whom he had taken to his own tent, and whom Robinson had seen
lying asleep in the best blanket, this Walker had absconded with his
boots and half a pound of tobacco.
“Well, but you knew he was a rogue. Why did you leave him alone in your
tent?”
“I only left him for a minute to go a few steps with you if you
remember, and you said yourself he was asleep. Well, the moment our
backs were turned he must have got up and done the trick.”
“I don't, like it,” said Robinson.
“No more don't I,” said Jem.
“If he was not asleep, he must have heard me say I was going to cross
the bush with my mate to-morrow at daybreak.”
“Well! and what if he did?”
“He is like enough to have gone and told the whole gang.”
“And what if he has?”
Robinson was about to explain to Jem. that he now carried all the joint
gold in his pocket, but he forbore. “It is too great a stake for me to
trust anybody unless I am forced,” thought he. So he only said: “Well,
it is best to be prudent. I shall change the hour for starting.”
“You are a cunning one, captain, but I really think you are overcareful
sometimes.”
“Jem,” said the other gravely, “there is a mystery in this mine. There
is a black gang in it, and that Walker is one of them. I think they have
sworn to have my gold or my life, and they shan't have either if I can
help it. I shall start two hours before the sun.”
He was quite right; Walker had been shamming sleep, and full four hours
ago he had told his confederates as a matter of course all that he had
heard in the enemy's camp.
Walker, a timid villain, was unprepared for the burst of savage
exultation from brutus and Black Will that followed this intelligence.
These two, by an instinct quick as lightning, saw the means of
gratifying at one blow their cupidity and hate. Crawley had already told
them he had seen Robinson come out of Levi's tent after a long stay, and
their other spies had told them his own tent had been left unguarded for
hours. They put these things together and conjectured at once that the
men had now their swag about them in one form or other.
“When do they go?”
“To-morrow at break of day,” he said.
“The bush is very thick!”
“And dark, too!”
“It is just the place for a job.”
“Will two of you be enough?”
“Plenty, the way we shall work.”
“The men are strong and armed.”
“Their strength will be no use to them, and they shan't get time to use
their arms.”
“For Heaven's sake, shed no blood unnecessarily,” said Crawley,
beginning to tremble at the pool of crime to whose brink he had led
these men.
“Do you think they will give up their swag while they are alive?” asked
brutus, scornfully.
“Then I wash my hands of it all,” cried the little self-deceiving
caitiff; and he affected to have nothing to do with it.
Walker was then thanked for his information, and he thought this was a
good opportunity for complaining of his wrongs and demanding redress.
This fellow was a thorough egotist, saw everything from his own point of
view only.
Jem had dragged him before Judge Robinson; Robinson had played the beak
and found him guilty; Levi had furnished the test on which he had been
convicted. All these had therefore cruelly injured and nearly killed
him.
Himself was not the cause. He had not set all these stones rolling by
forging upon nature and robbing Jem of thirty pounds. No! he could not
see that, nor did he thank Jem one bit for jumping in and saving his
life at risk of his own. “Why did he ever get him thrown in, the brute?
If he was not quite drowned he was nearly, and Jem the cause.”
His confederates soothed him with promises of vengeance on all their
three his enemies, and soon after catching sight of one of them, Levi,
they kept their word; they roused up some of the other diggers against
Isaac on the plea that he had refused to give evidence against Walker,
and so they launched a mob and trusted to mob nature for the rest. The
recoil of this superfluous villainy was, as often happens, a blow to the
head scheme.
brutus, who was wanted at peep of day for the dark scheme already hinted
at, got terribly battered by George Fielding, and placarded, and, what
was worse, chained to a post, by Robinson and Ede. It became necessary
to sound his body and spirit.
One of the gang was sent by Crawley to inquire whether he felt strong
enough to go with Black Will on that difficult and dangerous work
to-morrow. The question put in a passing whisper was answered in a
whisper.
“I am as strong as a lion for revenge. Tell them I would not miss
to-morrow's work for all the gold in Australia.”
The lowering face spoke loud enough if the mouth whispered.
The message was brought back to Black Will and Crawley.
“What energy!” said Crawley, admiringly.
“Ay!” said Black Will, “that is your sort; give me a pal with his skin
smarting and his bones aching for the sort of job that wood shall see
to-morrow. Have they marked him?” he inquired, with a strange curiosity.
“I am afraid they have; his nose is smashed frightful.”
“I am glad of it; now we are brothers and will have blood for blood.”
“Your expressions are dreadfully terse,” said Crawley, trying to smile,
but looking scared instead; “but I don't understand your remark; you
were not in the late unsuccessful attack on Mr. Levi, and you escaped
most providentially in the night business--the men have not marked you,
my good friend.”
“Haven't they?” yelled the man, with a tremendous oath--“haven't they?
LOOK HERE!” A glance was enough. Crawley turned wan and shuddered from
head to foot.