“I KNOW it, Tom. When I was sailing to this country we came to a part
where the north star went down and down to the water's edge, and this
was all we got in exchange for it.”
“George,” said Tom, rather sternly, “how do you know they don't hear us,
and here we are surrounded by enemies, and would you run down our only
friend? That silver star will save our lives if they are to be saved at
all. Come on; and, George, if you were to take your revolver and blow
out my brains, it is no more than I deserve for sleeping away the
precious hours of night, when I ought to have been steering out of this
cursed timber-net by that blessed star.”
With these words Robinson dived into the wood, steering due east by the
Southern Cross. It was like going through a frozen river. The scrub
was loaded with snow, which it discharged in masses on the travelers at
every step.
“Keep your revolver dry in your hat and your lucifers, too,” cried
Robinson. “We shall have to use them both, ten to one. As to our skins,
that is hopeless.”
Then the men found how hard it is to take a line and keep it in the
Australian bush. When the Southern Cross was lost in a cloud, though
but for a minute, they were sure to go all wrong, as they found upon
its reappearance; and sometimes the scrub was impenetrable and they were
forced to go round it and walk four hundred yards, advancing eastward
but twenty or thirty.
Thus they battled on till the sun rose.
“Now we shall be all in the dark again,” said poor Robinson, “here comes
a fog.”
“Stop, Tom,” said George; “oughtn't we to make this good before we go
on?”
“What do you mean?”
“We have come right by the star so far, have we not?”
“Yes.”
“Then let us bark fifty of these trees for a mark. I have seen that
varmint Jacky do that.”
“A capital idea, George; out with our knives--here goes.”
“No breakfast to-day, Tom.”
“No, George, nor dinner, either, till we are out of the wood.”
These two poor fellows walked and ran and crept and struggled all day,
sometimes hoping, sometimes desponding. At last, at five o'clock in the
afternoon, their bellies gnawed with hunger, their clothes torn to
rags, their skin bleeding, they came out upon some trees with the bark
stripped. They gave one another a look that words can hardly paint. They
were the trees they had barked twelve hours ago!
The men stood silent--neither cared to tell the other all he felt--for
now there crept over these two stout bosoms a terrible chill, the sense
of a danger new to them in experience, but not new in report. They had
heard of settlers and others who had been lost in the fatal labyrinth of
the Australian bush, and now they saw how easily it might be true.
“We may as well sit down here and rest; we shall do no good till night.
What, are you in pain, George?”
“Yes, Tom, a little.”
“Where?”
“Something gnaws my stomach like an adder.”
“Oh, that is the soldier's gripes,” said Tom, with a ghastly attempt at
a jest. “Poor George!” said he, kindly, “I dare say you never knew what
it was to go twenty-four hours without food before.”
“Never in my life, Tom.”
“Well, I have, and I'll tell you the only thing to do--when you can't
fill the breadbasket, shut it. Go to sleep till the Southern Cross comes
out again.”
“What, sleep in our dripping clothes?”
“No, we will make a roaring fire with these strips of bark; they are dry
as tinder by now.”
A pyre four feet high was raised, the strips being laid from north to
south and east to west alternately, and they dried their blankets and
warmed their smoking bodies.
“George, I have got two cigars; they must last us two days.”
“Oh, I'm no great smoker--keep them for your own comfort.”
Robinson wore a sad smile.
“We can't afford to smoke them; this is to chew; it is not food, George,
but it keeps the stomach from eating itself. We must do the best for our
lives we can for Susan's sake.”
“Give it me, Tom; I'll chew it, and thank you kindly. You are a wise
companion in adversity, Tom; it is a great grief to me that I have
brought you into this trouble, looking for what I know you think is a
mare's nest, as the saying is.”
“Don't talk so, George. True pals like you and me never reproach one
another. They stand and fall together like men. The fire is warm,
George--that is one comfort.”
“The fire is well enough, but there's nothing down at it. I'd give a
hundred pounds for a mutton chop.”
The friends sat like sacrifices by the fire, and chewed their cigars in
silence, with foreboding hearts. After a while, as the heat laid hold
of him, George began to dose. Robinson felt inclined to do the same, but
the sense that perhaps a human enemy might be near caused him to fight
against sleep in this exposed locality; so, whenever his head bobbed
down, he lifted it sharply and forced his eyes open. It was on one of
these occasions that, looking up, he saw, set as it were in a frame of
leaves, a hideous countenance glaring at him; it was painted in circular
lines, red, blue and white.
“Get up, George,” roared Robinson; “they are upon us!”
And both men were on their feet, revolvers pointed. The leaves parted,
and out came this diabolical face which they had never seen before, but
with it a figure they seemed to know, and a harsh cackle they instantly
recognized, and it sounded like music to them.
“Oh, my dear Jacky,” cried George, “who'd have thought it was you! Well,
you are a godsend! Good afternoon. Oh, Jacky!--how d'ye do?”
“Jacky not Jacky now, cos um a good deal angry, and paint war.
Kalingalunga berywelltanku” (he always took these four words for one).
“Now I go fetch white fellow;” and he disappeared.
“Who is he going to fetch? is it the one that was following us?”
“No doubt. Then, Tom, it was not an enemy, after all!”
Jacky came back with Jem, who, at sight of them alive and well, burst
into extravagances. He waved his hat round his head several times and
then flung it into a tree; then danced a _pas seul_ consisting of steps
not one of them known at the opera house, and chanted a song of triumph
the words of which were, Ri tol de riddy iddydol, and the ditty naught;
finally he shook hands with both.
“Never say die!”
“Well, that is hearty! and how thoughtful of him to come after us, and
above all to bring Jacky!”
“That it was,” replied George. “Jem,” said he, with feeling, “I don't
know but what you have saved two men's lives.”
“If I don't it shan't be my fault, farmer.”
George. “Oh, Jacky, I am so hungry! I have been twenty-four hours
without food.”
Kalingalunga. “You stupid fellow to go widout food, always a good deal
food in bush.”
George. “Is there? then for Heaven's sake go and get us some of it.”
Kalingalunga. “No need go, food here.” He stepped up to the very tree
against which George was standing, showed him an excrescence on the
bark, made two clean cuts with his tomahawk, pulled out a huge white
worm and offered it George. George turned from it in disgust; the wild
chief grinned superior and ate it himself, and smacked his lips with
infinite gusto.
Meantime his quick eye had caught sight of something else. “A good deal
dinner in dis tree,” said he, and he made the white men observe some
slight scratches on the bark. “Possum claws go up tree.” Then he showed
them that there were no marks with the claw reversed, a clear proof the
animal had not come down. “Possum in tree.”
The white men looked up into the bare tree with a mixture of wonder
and incredulity. Jacky cut steps with his tomahawk and went up the main
stem, which was short, and then up a fork, one out of about twelve;
among all these he jumped about like a monkey till he found one that was
hollow at the top.
“Throw Kalingalunga a stone, den he find possum a good deal quick.”
They could not find a stone for their lives, so, being hungry, Robinson
threw a small nugget of gold he had in his pocket. Jacky caught it,
placed it at the top of the hollow fork and let it drop. Listening
keenly, his fine ear heard the nugget go down the fork, striking the
wood first one side then another, and then at a certain part sound
no more. Down he slips to that silent part, makes a deep cut with his
tomahawk just above the spot, thrusts in his hand and pulls out a large
opossum, yelling and scratching and emitting a delicious scent in an
agony of fear. The tomahawk soon silenced him, and the carcass fell
among the applauding whites. Now it was Robinson's turn. He carved the
raw animal for greater expedition, and George helped him to wrap each
limb and carcass in a thin covering of clay. Thus prepared, it was
thrust into the great pile of burning ashes.
“Look yonder, do! look at that Jem! Why, Jem, what are you up to,
patroling like a sentinel out there?”
“Never you heed Jem,” was the dry reply; “you mind the roast, captain,
and I'll mind--my business;” and Jem continued to parade up and down
with his gun cocked and his eye piercing the wood.
To Robinson's repeated and uneasy inquiries what meant this pantomime,
Jem persisted in returning no answer but this: “You want your dinner,
captain; eat your dinner, and then I'll hoffer a hobservation; meantime,
as these woods are queer places, a little hextra caution is no sin.”
The pie dishes were now drawn out of the ashes and broken, and the
meat baked with all its juices was greedily devoured. “It tastes like a
rabbit stuffed with peppermint,” said George, “and uncommon nice it is.
Now I am another man.”
“So am I; Jacky forever!”
“Now, Jem, I have dined. Your story, if you please. Why are you here?
for you are a good fellow, but you haven't got gumption enough to say to
yourself, 'These two will get lost in the bush, I'll take Jacky and pull
them out.'”
“You are right, captain, that wasn't the way at all; and, since your
belly is full and your courage up, you will be able to enjoy my story
better than you could afore.”
“Yes, so let us have it;” and Robinson leaned back luxuriously, being
filled and warmed.
“First and foremost,” commenced this artful narrator, “there is a chap
prowling in this wood at the present time with a double-barreled gun to
blow out your brains, captain.”
“The devil,” cried Robinson, starting to his feet.
“And yours, farmer.”
“How do you know?” asked George, without moving.
“That is what I am going to tell you. That Mary McDogherty came crying
to my tent all through the snow. 'What is up?' says I; says she, 'Murder
is up.' Then she told me her cousin, an Irish boy, was at Bevan's store
and he heard some queer talk, and he looked through a chink in the wall
and saw two rascals putting their heads together, and he soon made out
they were driving a bargain to rob you two. One was to do it, the other
was a-egging him on. 'I must have fifty pounds first,' says this one.
'Why?' says the other. 'Because he has been and locked my pal up that
was to be in it with me.'”
“Ah!” cried Robinson. “Go on, Jem--there is a clew anyway.”
“I have got a thicker one behind. Says the other, 'Agreed! when will you
have it?' 'Why, now,' says t'other. Then this one gave him a note. Pat
couldn't see that it was a fifty, but no doubt it was, but he saw the
man take it and put it in a little tin box and shove it in his bosom.”
“That note was the price of blood,” said Robinson. “Oh, the
black-hearted villains. Tell me who they were, that is all; tell me but
who they were!”
“The boy didn't know.”
“There! it is always so. The fools! they never know.”
“Stop a bit, captain, there is a clew (your own word).”
“Ay, and what is the clew?”
“As soon as ever the note was safe in his bosom he says: 'I sold you,
blind mate; I'd have given fifty sooner than not done this job. Look
here!' says he, 'I have sworn to have a life for each of these;' and,
captain,” said Jem, suddenly lowering his voice, “with that it seems he
held up his right hand.”
“Well, yes! yes! eh!”
“And there were two fingers a-missing on it!”
“Ah!”
“Now those two fingers are the ones you chopped off with your cutlass
the night when the tent was attacked.”
“Why, Tom, what is this? you never told me of this,” cried George.
“And which are in my pocket.”
“In your pocket?” said George, drawing away from him.
“Ay, farmer! wrapped up in silver paper, and they shall never leave my
pocket till I have fitted them on the man, and seen him hung or
shot with them two pickers and stealers tied round his bloodthirsty,
mercenairy, aass-aassinating neck, say that I said it.”
George. “Jacky, show us the way out of this wood.”
Kalingalunga bowed assent, but he expressed a wish to take with him some
of the ashes of the wambiloa. George helped him.
Robinson drew Jem aside. “You shouldn't have mentioned that before
George; you have disgusted him properly.”
“Oh, hang him! he needn't be so squeamish; why, I've had 'em salt--”
“There, there! drop it, Jem, do!”
“Captain! are you going to let them take us out of the wood before we
have hunted it for that scoundrel?”
“Yes, I am. Look here, Jem, we are four, and he is one, but a
double-barreled gun is an awkward enemy in a dark wood. No, Jem, we will
outwit him to the last. We will clear the wood and get back to the camp.
He doesn't know we have got a clew to him. He will come back without
fear, and we will nail him with the fifty-pound note upon him. And
then--Jack Ketch.”
The whole party was now on the move, led by Kalingalunga, bearing the
sacred ashes.
“What on earth is he going to do with them?”
The chief heard this query, and looking back said gravely, “He take
them to 'Milmeridien';” and the party followed Jacky, who twisted and
zigzagged about the bush till, at last, he brought them to a fairy spot,
whose existence in that rugged wood none of them had dreamed possible.
It was a long, open glade, meandering like a river between two deep,
irregular fringes of the drooping acacia, and another lovely tree
which I only know by its uncouth, unmelodious, scientiuncular name--the
eucalyptus. This tree, as well as the drooping acacia, leaned over the
ground with long leaves like disheveled hair.
Kalingalunga paused at the brink and said to his companions in a low,
awestruck voice, “Milmeridien.”
The glade was full of graves, some of them fresh, glittering with bright
red earth under the cool, green acacias, others richly veiled with
golden moss more or less according to their age; and in the recesses of
the grove peeped smoother traces of mortality, mossy mounds a thousand
years old, and others far more ancient still, now mere excrescences of
green, known to be graves only by the light of that immense gradation of
times and dates and epochs.
The floor of the open glade was laid out as a vast parterre--each grave
a little flower-bed, round, square, oval, or rhomboid; and all round
each bed flowed in fine and graceful curves little paths too narrow
for a human foot. Primeval tradition had placed them there that spirits
might have free passage to visit all the mighty dead. For here reposed
no vulgar corpses. Here, their heads near the surface, but their feet
deep in earth, sat the great hunters and warriors of every age of the
race of Kalingalunga, once a great nation, though now a failing tribe.
They sat there this many a day, their weapons in their hands, ready to
start up whenever the great signal should come, and hunt once more, but
without fatigue, in woods boundless as the sea, and with bodily frames
no longer mortal, to knock and be knocked on the head, _ad infinitum._
Simple and benign creed!
A cry of delight burst from the white men, and they were going to spread
themselves over the garden of the dead.
The savage checked them with horror.
“Nobody walk there while him alive,” said he. “Now you follow me and
not speak any words at all, or Kalingalunga will leave you in the
bush.--Hush!”
The savage paused, that even the echo of his remonstrance might die well
away before he traversed the garden. He then bowed his head down upon
his breast in a set manner, and so remained quiet a few seconds. In that
same attitude he started and walked slowly by the verge of the glade,
keeping carefully clear of the graves, and never raising his head. About
half way he stopped and reverently scattered the ashes of the wambiloa
upon three graves that lay near the edge, then forward--silent,
downcast, reverential.
“Mors omnibus est communis!” The white men, even down to Jem, understood
and sympathized with Kalingalunga. In this garden of the dead of all
ages they felt their common humanity, and followed their black brother
silent and awestruck. Melted, too, by the sweet and sacred sorrow of
this calm scene; for here Death seemed to relax his frown, and the dead
but to rest from trouble and toil, mourned by gentle, tender trees; and
in truth it was a beautiful thought of these savage men to have given
their dead for companions those rare and drooping acacias, that bowed
themselves and loosed their hair so like fair women abandoned to sorrow
over the beloved and dead, and night and morning swept with their dewy
eyelashes the pillows of the brave. _Requiescant in pace!--resurgant in
pacem!_ For I wish them better than they wished themselves.
After Milmeridien came a thick scrub, through which Kalingalunga tracked
his way; and then a loud hurrah burst from all, for they were free--the
net was broken. There were the mountains before them and the gaunt wood
behind them at last. The native camp was visible two miles distant,
and thither the party ran and found food and fires in abundance. Black
sentinels were set at such distances as to render a surprise impossible,
and the travelers were invited to sleep and forget all their troubles.
Robinson and Jem did sleep, and George would have been glad to, and
tried, but was prevented by an unfortunate incident--_les enfans
terribles_ found out his infirmity, viz., that nothing they could do
would make him hit them. So half a dozen little rascals, potter bellied
than you can conceive, climbed up and down George, sticking in their
twenty claws like squirrels, and feeling like cold, slippery slugs. Thus
was sleep averted, until a merciful gin, hearing the man's groans, came
and cracked two or three of these little black pots with a waddie or
club, so then George got leave to sleep, and just as he was dozing off,
ting, tong, ti tong, tong, tong, came a fearful drumming of parchment.
A corroboree or native dance was beginning. No more sleep till that was
over--so all hands turned out. A space was cleared in the wood, women
stood on both sides with flaming boughs and threw a bright red light
upon a particular portion of that space; the rest was dark as pitch.
Time, midnight. When the white men came up the dancing had not begun.
Kalingalunga was singing a preliminary war song.
George had picked up some of the native language, and he explained
to the other that Jacky was singing about some great battle, near the
Wurra-Gurra River.
“The Wurra-Gurra! why, that is where we first found gold.”
“Why of course it is! and--yes! I thought so.”
“Thought what?”
“It is our battle he is describing.”
“Which of 'em?--we live in hot water.”
“The one before Jem was our friend. What is he singing? Oh, come! that
is overdoing it, Jacky! Why, Jem! he is telling them he killed you on
the spot.”
“I'll punch his head!”
“No! take it easy,” said Robinson; “he is a poet; this is what they call
poetical license.”
“Lie without sense, I call it--when here is the man.”
“Ting tong! ting tong tong!--
I slew him--he fell--by the Wurra-Gurra River.
I slew him!--ting tong! he fell--ting tong!
By the Wurra-Gurra River--ting ting tong!”
This line Jacky repeated at least forty times; but he evaded monotony by
the following simple contrivance:
“I _slew_ him; he _fell_ by the Wurra-Gurra River--ting tong!
_I_ slew him; _he_ fell, by the Wurra-Gurra River,
I slew him; he fell, by the _Wurra-Gurra River,”_
with similar changes, and then back again.
One of our own savages saved a great poet from monotony by similar
means;* very good of him.
* The elder Sheridan, who used to teach his pupils to tresh
dead Dryden out thus: _None_ but the brave,/None but the
_brave,_/None _but_ the brave, deserve the fair.
And now the gins took up the tune without the words and the dance began
to it. First, two figures ghastly with white paint came bounding
like Jacks-in-the-box out of the gloom into the red light, and danced
gracefully--then one more popped out--then another, at set intervals of
time--then another, all painted differently--and swelled the dance by
degrees; and still, as the dance grew in numbers, the musicians sang
and drummed louder and faster by well-planned gradations, and the
motion rose in intensity, till they all warmed into the terrible savage
corroboree jump, legs striding wide, head turned over one shoulder, the
eyes glaring with fiendish intensity in one direction, the arms both
raised and grasping waddies and boomerangs--till at last they worked up
to such a gallop of fierce, buck-like leaps that there was a jump for
each beat of the music. Now they were in four lines, and as the figures
in the front line jumped to the right, each keeping his distance to a
hair, the second line jumped to the left, the third to the right, and
the fourth to the left.
The twinkle and beauty and symmetry of this was admirable, and, strange
as it may appear, not only were the savages now wrought up to frenzy
at this climax of the dance, but the wonderful magnetic influence these
children of Nature have learned to create and launch in the corroboree
so stirred the white men's blood, that they went half mad too,
and laughed and shouted and danced, and could hardly help flinging
themselves among the mad fiends and jumping and yelling with them; and
when the jump was at its fiercest and quickest, and the great frenzy
boiling over, these cunning artists brought it to a dead stop sharp upon
the climax--and all was still.
In another minute they were all snoring; but George and Robinson often
started in their slumbers, dreaming they saw the horrid figures--the
skeletons, lizards, snakes, tartan shawls, and whitened fiends, the
whole lot blazing at the eyes and mouth like white budelights,
come bounding one after another out of the black night into the red
torchlight, and then go striding and jumping and glaring and raging and
bucking and prancing, and scattering battle and song and joy and rage
and inspiration and stark-staring frenzy all around.
They awoke at daylight rather cold, and found piles of snow upon their
blankets, and the lizards and skeletons and imps and tartan shawls
deteriorated. The snow had melted on their bodies, and the colors had
all run--some of them away. _Quid multa?_ we all know how beauties look
when the sun breaks on them after a ball.
They asked for Jacky. To their great chagrin he was not to be found.
They waited, getting crosser and crosser, till nine o'clock, and then
out comes my lord from the wood, walking toward them with his head down
on his bosom, the picture of woe--the milmeridien movement over again.
“There! don't let us scold him,” said George, “I am sure he has lost
a relation, or maybe a dear friend; anyway I hope it is not his
sweetheart--poor Jacky. Well, Jacky! I am glad you have washed your
face, now I know you again. You can't think how much better you look in
your own face than painted up in that unreasonable way, like-like-like-I
dono-what-all.”
“Like something between a devil and a rainbow,” suggested Robinson.
“But what is wrong?” asked George, kindly. “I am almost afraid to ask,
though!”
Encouraged by the tone of sympathy, the afflicted chief pointed to his
face, sighed, and said:
“Kalingalunga paint war, and now Kalingalunga wash um face and not kill
anybody first. Kalingalunga Jacky again, and show your white place in um
hill a good deal soon.”
And the amiable heathen cleared up a little at the prospect of serving
George, whom he loved--aboriginally.
Jem remained with the natives upon some frivolous pretense. His real
hope was to catch the ruffian whom he secretly believed to be still in
the wood. “He is like enough to creep out this way,” thought Jem, “and
then--won't I nail him!”
In half an hour they were standing under the spot whose existence
Robinson had so often doubted.
“Well, George, you painted it true. It really is a river of quartz
running between those two black rocks. And that you think is the home of
the gold, eh?”
“Well, I do. Look here, Tom! look at this great large heap of quartz
bowlders, all of different sizes; they have all rolled down here out of
that river of quartz.”
“Why, of course they have! who doubts that?”
“Many is the time I have sat on that green mound where Jacky is sitting
now, and eaten my bread and cheese.”
“I dare say! but what has that to do with it? what are we to do? Are we
to go up the rock and peck into that mass of quartz?”
“Well, I think it is worth while.”
“Why, it would be like biting a piece out of the world! Look here,
Master George, we can put your notion about the home of the gold to the
test without all that trouble.”
“As how?”
“You own all these quartz stones rolled out of yon river; if so, they
are samples of it. Ten thousand quartz stones is quite sample enough, so
begin and turn them all over, examine them--break them if you like.
If we find but a speck of gold in one of them I'll believe that quartz
river is gold's home--if not, it is all humbug!”
George pulled a wry face; he found himself pinned to his own theory.
“Well,” said he, “I own the sample tells us what is in the barn; so now
I am vexed for bringing you here.”
“Now we _are_ here, give it a fair trial; let us set to and break every
bowlder in the thundering heap.”
They went to work and picked the quartz bowlders; full two hours they
worked, and by this time they had made a considerable heap of broken
quartz; it glittered in the sun, but it glittered white, not a speck of
yellow came to light.
George was vexed. Robinson grinned; expecting nothing, he was not
disappointed. Besides, he was winning an argument, and we all like to
turn out prophets. Presently a little cackle from Jacky.
“I find um!”
“Find what?” asked Robinson, without looking up.
“A good deal yellow stone,” replied Jacky, with at least equal
composure.
“Let me see that,” said George, with considerable curiosity; and they
both went to Jacky.
Now the fact is that this heap of quartz stones was in reality much
larger than they thought, only the greater part of it had been overgrown
with moss and patches of grass a few centuries of centuries ago.
Jacky, seated on what seemed a grassy mound, was in reality perched
upon a part of the antique heap; his keen eye saw a little bit of yellow
protruding through the moss, and he was amusing himself clipping it with
his tomahawk, cutting away the moss and chipping the stone, which made
the latter glitter more and yellower.
“Hallo!” cried George, “this looks better.”
Robinson went on his knees without a word.
“It is all right,” said he, in a great flutter, “it is a nugget--and
a good-sized one--a pound weight, I think. Now then, my lad, out you
come;” and he dug his fingers under it to jerk it out.
But the next moment he gave a screech and looked up amazed.
“Why, this is the point of the nugget; it lies the other way, not flat.
George! I can't move it! The pick! Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! The pick! the
pick!”
“Stand clear,” shouted George, and he drove the point of the pick down
close by the prize, then he pressed on the handle. “Why, Tom, it is
jammed somehow.”
“No, it is not jammed--it is its own weight. Why, George!”
“Then, Tom! it is a hundred-weight if it is an ounce!”
“Don't be a fool,” cried the other, trembling all over; “there is no
such thing in nature.”
The nugget now yielded slowly to the pressure and began to come up into
the world again inch by inch after so many thousand years. Of course,
before it could come all out, the soil must open first, and when
Robinson, glaring down, saw a square foot of earth part and gape as the
nugget came majestically up, he gave another cry, and with trembling
hands laid hold of the prize, and pulled and tugged and rolled it on the
clean moss--to lift it was not so easy. They fell down on their knees by
the side of it like men in a dream. Such a thing had never been seen or
heard of--a hundred-weight of quartz and gold, and beautiful as it was
great. It was like honeycomb, the cells of which had been sliced by a
knife; the shining metal brimmed over in the delicate quartz cells.
They lifted it. Yes, full a hundredweight; half the mass was quartz, but
four-fifths of the weight they knew must be gold. Then they jumped up
and each put a foot on it, and shook hands over it.
“Oh, you beauty!” cried George, and he went on his knees and kissed it;
“that is not because you are gold, but because you take me to Susan.
Now, Tom, let us thank Heaven for its goodness to us, and back to camp
this very day.”
“Ay! but stop, we must wrap it in our wipes or we shall never get back
alive. The very honest ones would turn villains at sight of it. It is
the wonder of the world.”
“I see my Susan's eyes in it,” cried George, in rapture. “Oh, Tom, good,
kind, honest Tom, shake hands over it once more!”
In the midst of all this rapture a horrible thought occurred.
“Why, it's Jacky's,” said George, faintly, “he found it.”
“Nonsense! nonsense!” cried Tom, uneasily; he added, however, “but I am
afraid one third of it is--pals share, white or black.”
All their eyes now turned uneasily to the Aboriginal, who lay yawning on
the grass.
“Jacky give him you, George,” said this worthy savage, with superb
indifference. He added with a yawn: “What for you dance corroboree when
um not dark?--den you bite yellow stone,” continued this original, “den
you red, den you white, den you red again, all because we pull up yellow
stone-all dis a good deal dam ridiculous.”
“So 'tis, Jacky,” replied Robinson, hastily; “don't you have anything to
do with yellow stone, it would make you as great a fool as we are. Now
show us the shortest cut back home through the bush.”
At the native camp they fell in with Jem. The monstrous nugget was too
heavy to conceal from his shrewd eye, so they showed it him. The sight
of it almost knocked him down. Robinson told him where they found it,
and advised Jem to go and look for another. Alas! the great nugget
already made him wish one friend away. But Jem said:
“No, I will see you safe through the bush first.”