BURTON found his mate gloomy and taciturn all next day, a condition so
remarkable in Done that it gave Mike some little concern, but he made no
comment; and Jim was too absorbed in the strange, new development in his
life to discover his friend's uneasiness. Ryder's story brought Jim's
youthful sufferings back to him with painful vividness; it awakened some
animosities he had thought dead, and he recognised, though shrinking from
the idea with actual terror, in Ryder's attitude towards his kind the
frame of mind into which he was drifting when he broke away from Chisley
and its associations. Remembering well his own heart up to the time when
human interests and sympathies began to awaken kindred emotions within
him, he understood that the resemblance between himself and his brother
was as close on the moral side as it was on the physical, but with Ryder
the demoralizing influences had worked their utmost. How like their
sufferings had been! differing only in degree; but his own sufferings
looked pale and fanciful now beside those of his brother. His afflictions
were of the spirit only. He and Ryder were of a supersensitive race and
every soul-pang he endured had been augmented a thousand times in his
brother's case, and driven in by the prison cell, the leg-irons, the
loathsome associations, the animalizing toil in the quarries--the lash!
Jim had heard enough of the infamy of the system to understand, if not
the worst, sufficient to make his skin creep at the thought of it. He
realized to what state of heart and mind Ryder had been driven, knowing
how he himself had developed under the stress of comparatively trivial
wrongs, and the whole man ached with sympathy. It required a strong
effort to restrain his inclination to tears, a weakness of the flesh he
had surprised in himself before now.
And Ryder had suffered all this, knowing himself to be guiltless of the
crime of which he was convicted. Stony was there in his tent. If Jim had
known where to find his brother he would have gone to him in the morning,
prompted by the generous affection that had sprung in his heart, feeling
that Ryder might be won over by new friendships and new interests. It
seemed to him that the wholesome effects worked in his case might be
repeated in that of his brother, forgetting their disparity in years. The
change had come to him while he was yet little more than a boy; Ryder was
a man in middle life, and no longer capable of youth's saving
enthusiasms.
Jim was early for the appointment, but Ryder was already at the
rendezvous, seated on the log, smoking, and apparently deriving placid
enjoyment from his cigar. The young man's greeting was warm, but the
elder showed no emotion. If any liking for Jim existed in him it was
carefully hidden away. Throughout their previous meeting he had borne
himself with seriousness, as if something of importance to him were at
stake; to-night he was in a wholly different humour, more like the man
who had encountered Jim in Mary Kyley's bar.
'Are we to consider the relationship established?' he said.
'I am quite convinced,' answered Jim. 'I have not doubted it from the
moment you declared yourself.'
'You are much too confiding, my boy. As an impostor I might have gathered
all these details from the real Richard Done.'
'With what object?'
'Well, I have an object, an ulterior motive. I want you to share a large
fortune with me.'
Jim laughed. 'You may pick up a large family of brothers on those terms,'
he said.
'You will do. Is it a bargain?'
'What is this fortune? Where is it? How was it come by?'
'The fortune is mainly in virgin gold; it is in an untried alluvial
field.'
'If the field is untried, how do you know the gold is in it?'
'I put it there.'
Jim looked at Ryder sharply. 'You have not answered one of my questions,'
he said. 'How was the gold come by?'
'There's no objection on that score,' Ryder answered lightly. 'It was
come by dishonestly, every grain of it.'
'To me that is a serious objection. I am an honest man, my instincts are
all for fair dealing, and I believe, as a simple everyday working
principle, honesty is the best policy.'
'Honesty is not a policy, my boy: it is a misfortune.'
'Why do you wish to share your loot with me?'
'Seventy or eighty thousand ounces of gold is not easily accounted for
nor easily disposed of by a guest of the Queen who is on leave without a
ticket that will bear the closest investigation. You could dispose of it
safely enough.'
'And if I were asked to account for it?'
'That is provided for. I have discovered a field within a day's journey
that nobody else knows of--that nobody else is likely to know of. You and
I go there, we work it for a few months, and the gold I have mentioned is
to be represented as the result of our labours if it becomes necessary to
make explanations. A few thousand ounces in nuggets which might 'by some
unhappy chance be recognised by previous owners we shall batter into
slugs and reserve for sale in other lands.'