'By open, honest daylight robbery.'
Jim looked at his brother with a feeling of despair; he recognised the
utter hopelessness of argument based on accepted ideas of right and
wrong. In disputing he felt like a child blowing bubbles against a stone
wall. Ryder's attitude implied that he had tested everything in the fire
of a terrible experience.
'Man, man!' cried Done, 'how can you hope to beat the world?'
'For four years I have beaten it. And I am appreciated. The Government of
Victoria has just raised the price of my head to one thousand pounds.'
'Why not leave the country at once?'
'As soon as you are ready.'
'Impossible. I will not go.'
'I remain until you change your mind, unless, in the meantime, some safe
and convenient means of transporting my hard-earned gold presents itself.
I have an alternative scheme, but it means greater risks, and, besides, I
find I am still capable of the preposterous folly of liking. I like you.'
'Then give up this brutal scheme, join with me, make an effort to work
the poison out of your blood, to revive a clean, honest interest in
existence, and I'll stand by you through thick and thin, against the law
and all your enemies, while I've a heart-beat left in me. It's worth the
effort, Dick; the world is fair, men are decent, and women are sweet.'
Ryder sat nursing a foot, smiling a smile of kindly interest. 'My boy,'
he said, 'you have the ardent sentimentality of a good mother's
pink-cheeked cub of nineteen. Has it occurred to you that I have run a
very great risk in being seen for five minutes in your company? Your name
is Done, and you made the name rather familiar along Forest Creek; we are
alike, as you have noted, and although Richard Done, the escaped convict,
is not much thought of at this date, it is certain that hearing your name
awakened recollection amongst the old Vandemonians in the police here,
and they have probably run the rule over you more than once. If I were to
join with you, they'd clap the darbies on me within a week.'
Jim spread his hands in a gesture of despair. 'I have been mistaken for
Solo once; that risk must always follow you,' he said.
'I am prepared; but the Government shall never pay their thousand pounds
for a live man. I appear as little as possible in the diggings in this
guise, however. You did not know me as the chief performer in that little
comedy with Brigalow on Diamond Gully. You did not recognise me in the
dark man who talked with you and Burton while the madcap from Kyley's was
leading the troopers a merry dance along the lead. By the way, I admire
your taste in women, Jim. She's a fine, unshamed barbarian, this Aurora.'
The subject was distasteful to Jim. He put it aside hastily. 'If I worked
with you in this scheme for disposing of the gold you would run the same
risk,' he said.
'No; I need not appear in the matter. The field I speak of, which is
probably very rich in itself, is so situated that we might work it for a
year without being discovered. Meanwhile, by making frequent trips to
Ballarat and Bendigo, you could sell a great deal of my gold along with
such as we may earn. Then I should sail for England, taking with me as
much gold as I could safely handle, leaving you to sell more, and
eventually join me with the remainder. In this way we can, if we choose,
rid ourselves of three hundred thousand pounds' worth without attracting
any particular attention.'
'You reckoned on finding me greedy for gold.'
'I reckoned more on finding you willing to seize an opportunity of
exacting from society some return for death, torture, and infamy!'
'There was a time when you might have prevailed.'
'That time may come again. It needs only a new grievance--the law to
bruise you, the women to betray.'
Jim shook his head. He felt the disc of Lucy's locket pressing against
his breast under his folded arms. 'I cannot believe it,' he said.
The other was silent for some moments, and Jim watched him with troubled
eyes. None of the cruelty and the viciousness to which Ryder had given
utterance found expression in his features, which were marked with
sensitive lines and some refinement. Done thought of Brummy the Nut, and
it seemed to him little short of miraculous that this man had been able
to come through similar experiences and yet show no evidence of it in his
face. Ryder arose and moved away a few paces.
'If you go from here to another field,' he said, 'leave word for me at
one of the stores.'
'Are you going?'
'I may not leave Jim Crow for a few days.'
'You have something in hand?'
'Meaning some robbery? No; it is possible Solo has made a dramatic
disappearance from contemporaneous history.'