THE JEWELER'S SHOP
Dent and Doherty became the heroes of one of those fairy-tales in which
the times were rich. For eight consecutive days, after laying the gutter
bare from wall to wall of the shaft, and slabbing the latter down to the
last inch, they washed their twenty tubs a day, and averaged rather
better than four ounces to the tub. The daily yield only once fell below
L300 at current rates; but more than once it impinged upon L400.
Altogether the eight days realized upwards of L50; which was the
aggregate amount handed over to the Commissioner, who forwarded it to
Geelong by Gold Escort, which delivered it to a firm of gold-buyers whom
the Commissioner could recommend, and who presently remitted some L2,400
in hard cash.
These wonderful days were also the most comfortable that the partners
had yet spent upon the diggings. They were properly looked after for the
first time. They had three good meals a day, to say nothing of coffee
and a biscuit before they went to work in the early morning and
afternoon tea with hot cakes or any other incongruous luxury which
happened to occur to the steward's mind. Denis said it was a good thing
they were working so hard. Doherty rolled his eyes and put on flesh. The
pair were being spoiled and cosseted by a master-hand, and it did them
more good than their success. They were the better workers by day, the
better sleepers by night, and this despite the manifold excitements of
every waking hour.
Jewson was excelling himself; but an outsider would have said it was
well worth his while, for Denis had hit upon a scale of pay which made
him after all a small partner, whose earnings might amount to several
sovereigns a day, and could not fall below five pounds a week. As prices
went, the bargain was not extravagant, and Denis was the first to
appreciate the blessing of better food; the steward's prowess was no
small asset in the suddenly successful concern, and he must be kept in
it by hook or crook; on that the partners were agreed. And yet Denis was
as far as ever from trusting the man in his heart, though his original
prejudice had abated not a little.
Jewson wore a shade over the blackened eye, which had only been exposed
by moonlight; but Denis's distrust was not such as to make him want to
lift it, because it never occurred to him to discredit the account of
his cousin's violence; and therein is seen the working of another
prejudice, on which a cunning brain had counted all along. A simple
nature, on the other hand, is simple even in its suspicions; and the
worst that Denis harboured were engendered by Jewson's strange practice
of shopping at night only and usually being hours about it. Denis
sometimes had a mind to follow him, but it was not in his nature to play
the spy, and so the real spy went free.
The lucky pair took their luck very coolly, one because he did not
understand the value of money, the other because he understood it too
well to estimate a thousand pounds at a penny more than a tithe of the
ten thousand on which he had set his heart. In money matters, however,
the point of view is everything, and in none is it more mercurial. A day
or two served to inure the partners to the idea of dividing a couple of
thousand a week, and Denis began almost to resent the fact that at this
rate it would take ten whole weeks for him to reach his minimum; he was
also annoyed that in all the gold they had got there was not as yet a
single nugget.
"I promised to send the first one home to England," he said openly in
the hut. "I would give a hundred pounds to have one worth fifty to send
by the mail to-morrow night!"
Jewson was crouching over his camp-oven at the time; his back
straightened, and for some moments he sat in an arrested attitude, his
head thrown up in undisguised attention; but this was not noticed, and
his face could not be seen.
That night the steward was so long upon his rounds that Denis did not
sit up for him, but decided on a word of remonstrance in the morning.
Yet when morning came, the coffee was so hot and aromatic, the biscuit
so crisp, the fresh air so cool and so invigorating, that he found it
difficult to complain just then. And in the first hour of the new day
that happened which effaced all untoward impressions from his mind.
Denis had been lowered into the shaft to dig. Doherty had raised one
bucket of wash-dirt, and was waiting for the next, when a loud shout
brought him to the shaft's mouth.
"A nugget, Jimmy! A nugget in the nick of time! I nearly cut it in two
with the spade!"
It was a very small nugget, much in the shape and size of a kidney-bean,
but of singularly pure and smooth gold, and Denis declared that it was
just the thing. With the point of his knife he removed every particle of
earth, and then scrubbed it with soap and water until it was as bright
as the last sovereign from the mint. It seemed to give him greater
pleasure than all the gold-dust despatched to Geelong; and no more work
was done before breakfast, which was taken with the nugget on the table
in front of Denis, save when he pressed a piece of twine into the cleft
made by the spade and tried how it looked round Doherty's neck.
"Half should be yours, by rights," he said; "but you won't mind if I
credit you with the weight instead? Don't be a fool! Of course I'll do
that! But it was almost my last promise--to send her my first
nugget--and it's been such a long time coming."
"Funny it's coming just when you wanted it for the mail," remarked
Doherty in perfect innocence; but the steward spoke up from his
self-appointed place beside the fire.
"I only wonder it's the first," said he; "but you take my word it ain't
the last. Talk about jewelers' shops! You've opened one of the best on
Ballarat. Look at the men you're bringing back to the gully; there'd be
a rush if it wasn't for the depth they've got to sink, and that you had
all done for you. I sha'n't be satisfied till I see you put your pick
into a bit like they took out of Canadian Gully twelve months ago."
Nothing could have been more consistent and withal less officious than
the discreetly sympathetic encouragement of the steward; he also knew
something about gold-mining, and his unobtrusive suggestions were often
of value. Denis was indeed more and more unable to reconcile the useful
landsman with the ship's steward who had broached the ship's spirits and
misbehaved himself in other ways; but after all, a man might pull
himself together, and having suffered from a bad master, might well
desire to make the most of a good one. So Denis was imposed upon while
still as much on guard against imposition as these engrossing days
allowed.
And the eight days of harvest were almost at an end; that very morning
there was a subtle change in the appearance of a bucketful that Doherty
sent up, and Denis forthwith washed an almost wholly unprofitable tub.
He then went down the shaft, and found as he expected that they had
struck the bottom of the gutter, and were on the hard paleozoic floor.
The difference was even more marked than that between the red clay and
the auriferous drift, here only four or five feet thick. There were
still some tubs to take before the corners of the shaft were cleared to
the bed-rock.
"And then?" asked Doherty with a blank face.
"Then the fun begins."
"Tunneling?"
"Of course."
"But how do you know which way?"
"Down the gully; nothing simpler. But first of all we can try all round
with trowels, in holes just big enough to take your arm, like tasting
cheese; then where it's richest we shall tunnel for another three
months, and if this is the gutter and not a pocket we shall be well
enough off by that time to take a spell and talk things over."
They were for once down the shaft together, and as they stood discussing
the situation the steward's small head appeared like that of a pin
against the little square of sky high above.
"There's a Chinaman selling beer," he shouted down. "Would you like
some?"
"Very much," answered Denis. "Draught or bottle, steward?"
"Draught."
"Then take three pints, and cool it in the gallon jar. It's an
occasion," continued Denis down below. "The first of the nuggets before
breakfast and the last of the gutter before noon; only, it's not the
last; and even if it were, that little nugget would be some consolation
to me."
When they regained the upper air there was still half-an-hour before the
midday meal, and Denis spent it in finishing a long letter and packing
the nugget with it in a small tin box unearthed by Jewson. This he tied
up in brown paper, but was unable to seal for want of wax; and the
parcel remained by his plate as the naked nugget had done at breakfast.
It was now the middle of January, and the hottest weather that Denis had
ever known on land. The well-built hut was cooler than the open air, but
to swallow a pannikin of tea was to have a warm bath in one's clothes.
The beer was therefore a great and timely treat; each man made short
work of his pint, and the little package was duly toasted on the eve of
its travels. Denis intended taking it to the post-office himself, while
the other two enjoyed the siesta which was a necessity of the digger's
existence in the hot season. A pipe on the bed was all he would allow
himself that day; the others were already asleep when he lit up and
began puffing vigorously to keep his eyes open. The eight long days
were beginning to tell on him. This one was also of an unbearable and
inhuman heat.
Denis was the first to open his eyes. The pipe had dropped from his
teeth. It could not have dangled very long, yet the bowl was the coldest
thing Denis had touched that day. Well, it was lucky he had not set fire
to himself; and since the others were still stretched in slumber, the
steward on his blanket near the door, it could not be very late. Time
enough at least to do what he had intended doing without disturbing
them--and with a bound Denis was in the middle of the floor.
The packet was not on the table where he had left it. Had he left it
there? He tore the blankets off his bed in the wild hope of finding it
there. No; he remembered keeping his eye on it as he lay back smoking
like a sot. In an instant the things were swept off the table in a vain
search for the little brown-paper parcel. All this time Denis was
venting his feelings in little involuntary cries, but now he called the
other two by their names. They stirred uneasily without waking.
Denis began to guess what had happened. His mouth was dry and his head
heavy. The light had altered. Outside the shadows had run like ink, and
by the watch it was almost five o'clock. A three hours' sleep instead of
one! And his packet gone with the time for posting it!
He searched further before finally rousing his companions; and there
were signs that the whole place had been carefully ransacked, but none
as yet that anything else had disappeared. Denis was equally thankful
that he had got rid of the gold-dust and that cash payment was still to
come; after all, the value of the nugget was chiefly sentimental; and
there was some compensation in the thought that the thief could not have
chosen a worse time for himself or a better one for his victims.
"Robbed!" echoed Doherty, sitting up stupidly at last. His eyes had lost
all their brightness, and he was soon nursing his head between his
hands. But Jewson was quicker to grasp what had happened--quicker than
Denis himself.
"That yellow devil of a Chinaman!" he exclaimed, and sat smacking his
lips with a wry face. "Opium! I thought so! I've known the taste too
many years; but I'll know _him_ when I see him again, and I'll string
him up to the nearest tree by his own pig-tail. Draught beer, eh? I
wonder who else he offered it to? See what comes of striking it rich and
letting it get about that you have struck it! No, I know you can't help
it, unless you've got a private river to wash your dirt in; but that's
what's done it, as sure as I'm standing here."
"But you are not standing there," rejoined Denis, as the servant made
for the door. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
"To lay my hands on John Chinaman!" answered Jewson with an oath. "To
catch him red-handed with your nugget on him, and to ram his own
pig-tail down his yellow throat!"
The partners were left looking at each other with rather different
expressions.
"He'll do it, too," said Doherty, jerking his head toward the door.
"Trust the old steward!"
"I suppose one must trust him," remarked Denis in a dubious tone.
"Trust him? Of course you must! Why not, mister? Hasn't he looked after
us well enough so far? Hasn't he made all the difference in the world to
us, and haven't you admitted it every day? I don't care what he was at
sea; let's take him as we find him ashore, and then we sha'n't get
wrong. You don't seriously think the steward's had anything to do with
this, do you?"
"Not seriously," replied Denis; nor, on reflection, had he the smallest
ground for any such suspicion.
"Because," pursued Doherty, triumphantly, "if he wanted to put up a
robbery, it's a funny thing he should wait until there was hardly
anything to rob--isn't it?"
"Of course."
"And you've lost nothing except the nugget, have you?"
"And the parcel it was in, and my letter!"
"Perhaps he's a chap like me, wot can't read," the lad suggested by way
of consolation. "But are you sure that's all you've missed?"
He was looking very hard at Denis.
"I think so, Jimmy. Why?"
"If you undo another shirt-button I'll tell you."
There was no need for Denis to do that. His fingers were down his neck
in an instant. And the lanyard of his beloved's hair, which had
encircled it day and night for the last three months, was gone with the
little ring that Nan had given him at their farewell on board the
_Memnon_.
His rage and distress knew no bounds; the loss of a far larger nugget
had been a bagatelle compared with this. A certain superstition was
ingrained in Denis; it was one of the few things he had inherited from
both the races whose blood clashed in his veins; and in a moment it was
as though his star had fallen from the zenith. Apart from the loss of
that which he held dearer than aught but Nan herself--her
talisman--there was the utter ill-omen of such a loss. And Denis raved
about both, bidding Doherty find another mate as quick as he could, for
they were at the end of their tether and would wash no more ounces.
"And if we did," cried the distracted fellow, "if we took out a million
between us after this, it would only be to go home and find her dead!
You make a note of it, and then clear out of the sinking ship. My luck
has ended this day!"
Doherty bore it as long as he could, then jumped up saying he was going
for the police. "Not for you," he added, "though you deserve the Logs
if ever a man did. I've heard a blackfellow talk like that, but not a
white man, and may I never hear the like again! We'll have the traps on
the track of that Chinaman, as well as Jewson; and we'll get back what
you've lost for its own sake, not for what it can't alter one way or the
other."
This bracing remonstrance was not without effect. Denis controlled
himself by an effort, dashed away an unmanning tear, and was soon the
severest critic of his own despair; but he would not let Doherty summon
the police, neither would he go himself.
"It is too intimate--too sacred--her hair!" he whispered in a fresh
access of misery. "Fancy furnishing a description of that, and letting
them publish it broadcast! No, no; better lose it altogether; and may
the thief never dream what it was he took!"
"Then where are you going?" asked Doherty, following Denis as he strode
out of the hut.
"Down the shaft, to start the tunneling, and to try just one tub before
six, to see if the luck has changed or not."
While he was down, Doherty, waiting at the windlass, received a visit
from the friendly neighbour who had kept an eye on their cradle at the
creek. He said that one of his mates was minding it still, but as no one
had been near it all the afternoon, and nothing seemed doing on the
claim, he had just come to see if anything was amiss. The man was a
genial, broad-shouldered, black-bearded digger of a rough but excellent
type, and on reflection Doherty told him of the drugged beer and the
resultant loss of the nugget, but of nothing else. The digger seemed
considerably interested, asked several questions, and good-naturedly
lent a hand to raise Denis from the depths.
"I've just been hearing of your loss," said he, "and I congratulate you!
It's not many lucky diggers whose luck attracts the light-fingered
gentry and who only lose a four-ounce nugget after all! So that cook of
yours has gone to look for the Chinaman?"
"Yes."
"I hope he'll find him," said the burly digger, and went off with a dry
smile and a good-humoured nod.
But it was no Chinaman whom Jewson had gone to seek; it was a
gentlemanly digger of peculiarly British appearance, with military
whiskers which had never been allowed to meet upon the chin; and he was
found waiting at the place where the special coach with the English mail
was due to start for Melbourne at six o'clock.
"At last!" said he in an ungracious undertone. "What happened to you,
Jewson? I had given you up altogether."
"I thought he'd never wake up," whispered Jewson as they drew aside,
"and I dursn't run the risk of his finding me gone, as well as--as well
as this, sir!"
"What the devil are you talking about, Jewson? And what's that?"
It was a small brown-paper parcel which the steward had produced.
"Something you're going to be so kind as to post and register in
Melbourne, sir. In Melbourne, mind--not in London, Captain Devenish!"
"But it's addressed--why, damme, it's addressed to Miss Merridew!"
"I know that, sir."
"Who addressed it?"
"The clever bloke who thinks he's going to marry her," answered Jewson
through his artificial teeth. "Clever he may be," he added, "and
successful he is, but he ain't so clever that he's going to succeed in
that!"
Devenish took heart from the cunning and confident face raised so slyly
to his. Yet his heart of hearts sank within him, for it was still not
utterly debased, and his compact with this ruffian was a heaviness to
him. "What do you mean by asking me to post his presents to her?" he
demanded angrily; but his anger was due less to the request than to the
underlying subtlety which he felt he had far better not seek to probe.
"I'm not going to tell you, Captain Devenish. You said you'd leave it to
me, sir."
"But it is something from him to her?"
"That I promise you; but it'll tell its own tale, and you'll hear it
soon enough, once you get home safe and sound."
The driver had mounted to his place, the five horses had been put to.
Devenish hesitated with the little brown paper packet in his hand.
"And she really ought to have it?"
"It's only due to her, poor young lady."
"But to me? Is it due to me, man?"
"It'll do you more good, sir," said Jewson, raising his crafty eyes,
"than ever anything did you yet, in that quarter, Captain Devenish."
Ralph put the packet in an inner pocket. "Well, I'll think about it,"
said he. But he did not take the hand that was held out to him. He went
from Ballarat with no more than a nod to the man whom he was leaving
there to play a villain's part on his behalf. It was enough for Ralph
Devenish that he had soiled his soul.