TOO STRANGE NOT TO BE TRUE.
A little after sunrise on a prematurely early spring morning at the end
of August Lady Taieri's air-cruiser left Melbourne. There was sufficient
heat to make the southerly course not too severe, and it was decided to
call at Stewart's Island to examine its vast fishery establishments. A
gay and happy party was on board. Lord and Lady Taieri were genial,
lively people, and liked by a large circle of friends. They loved
nothing better than to assemble around them pleasant companions, and to
entertain them with profuse hospitality. No provision was wanting to
amuse the party, which consisted, besides the two Miss Fitzherberts,
Lord Montreal, and Colonel Laurient, of nearly twenty happy young people
of both sexes. General and Lady Buller also were there. The General was
the descendant of an old New Zealand family which had acquired immense
wealth by turning to profitable use large areas of pumice-stone land
previously supposed to be useless.
The Bullers were always scientifically disposed; and one lady of the
family, a professor of agricultural science, was convinced that the
pumice-stone land could be made productive. It was not wanting in
fertilising properties; but the difficulty was that on account of its
porous nature, it could not retain moisture. Professor Buller first had
numerous artesian wells bored, and obtained at regular distances an
ample supply of water over a quarter of a million of acres of pumice
land, which she purchased for two shillings an acre. After a great many
experiments, she devised a mixture of soil, clay, and fertilising agents
capable of being held in water by suspension. She drenched the land with
the water thus mixed. The pumice acted as a filter, retaining the
particles and filtering the water. As the land dried it became less
porous. Grass seed was surface-sown. Another irrigation of the charged
water and a third, after some delay, of clear water, completed the work.
When once vegetation commenced, there was no difficulty. The land was
found particularly suitable for subtropical fruits and for grapes. Vast
fruit-canning works were established; and a special effervescent wine
known as Bullerite was produced, and was held in higher estimation than
the best champagne. Whilst more exhilarating, it was less intoxicating.
It fetched a very high price, for it could be produced nowhere but on
redeemed pumice land. Not a little proud was General Buller of his
ancestor's achievement. He was in the habit of declaring that he did not
care for the wealth he inherited in consequence; it was the genius that
devised and carried out the reclamation, he said, which was to him its
greatest glory. Nevertheless in practice he did not seem to disregard
the substantial results he enjoyed. General Buller was a soldier of
great scientific attainments. His only child, Phoebe, a beautiful girl
of seventeen, was with them. She was the object of admiration of most
of the young men on board, Lord Montreal alone excepted. Beyond some
conventional civilities, he seemed unconscious of the presence of any
one but Maud Fitzherbert; and she was nothing reluctant to receive his
attentions.
The cruiser was beautifully constructed of pure aluminium. Everything
conducive to the comfort of the passengers was provided. The machinery
was very powerful, and the cruiser rose and fell with the grace and ease
of a bird. After clearing the land, it kept at about a height of fifty
feet above the sea, and, without any strain on the machinery, made
easily a hundred miles an hour.
About four o'clock in the afternoon a descent was made on Stewart's
Island. The fishing establishments here were of immense extent and
value. They comprised not only huge factories for tinning the fresh fish
caught on the banks to the south-east, but large establishments for
dressing the seal-skins brought from the far south, as also for sorting
and preparing for the market the stores of ivory brought from near the
Antarctic Pole, the remnants of prehistoric animals which in the regions
of eternal cold had been preserved intact for countless ages.
To New Zealand mainly belonged the credit of Antarctic research.
Commenced in the interests of science, it soon became endowed with
permanent activity on account of its commercial results. A large island,
easily accessible, which received the name of Antarctica, was discovered
within ten degrees of the Pole, stretching towards it, so that its
southern point was not more than ten miles from the southern apex of the
world. From causes satisfactorily explained by scientists, the
temperature within a hundred-mile circle of the Pole was comparatively
mild. There was no wind; and although the cold was severe, it was
bearable, and in comparison with the near northern latitudes it was
pleasant. On this island an extraordinary discovery was made. There were
many thousands of a race of human beings whose existence was hitherto
unsuspected. The instincts of man for navigating the ocean are well
known. A famous scientific authority, Sir Charles Lyell, once declared
that, if all the world excepting one remote little island were left
unpeopled, the people of that island would spread themselves in time
over every portion of the earth's surface. The Antarctic Esquimaux were
evidently of the same origin as the Kanaka race. They spoke a language
curiously little different from the Maori dialect, although long
centuries must have elapsed since the migrating Malays, carried to the
south probably against their own will, found a resting-place in
Antarctica. Nature had generously assimilated them to the wants of the
climate. Their faces and bodies were covered with a thick growth of
short curly hair, which, though it detracted from their beauty, greatly
added to their comfort. They were a docile, peaceful, intelligent
people. They loved to come up to Stewart's Island during the winter and
to return before the summer made it too hot for them to exist, laden
with the presents which were always showered upon them. They were too
useful to the traders of Stewart's Island not to receive consideration
at their hands. The seal-skins and the ivory obtained from Antarctica
were the finest in the world, and the latter was procured in immense
quantities from the ice-buried remains of animals long since extinct as
a living race.
Lady Taieri's friends spent a most pleasant two hours on the island.
Some recent arrivals from Antarctica were objects of great interest. A
young chief especially entertained them by his description of the
wonders of Antarctica and his unsophisticated admiration of the
novelties around him. He appeared to be particularly impressed with
Phoebe Buller. The poor girl blushed very much; and her companions were
highly amused when the interpreter told them that the young chief said
she would be very good-looking if her face was covered with hair, and
that he would be willing to take her back with him to Antarctica. Lady
Taieri proposed that they should all visit the island and be present at
the wedding. This sally was too much. Phoebe Buller retired to her
cabin on the cruiser, and was not seen again until the well-lighted
farms and residences on the beautiful Taieri plains, beneath the flying
vessel, reminded its occupants that they were close to their
destination.
During the next six days Lady Taieri gave a series of magnificent
entertainments. There were dances, dinner-parties, picnics, a visit to
the glacier region of Mount Cook, and finally a ball in Dunedin of
unsurpassed splendour. This was on the eve of the opening of the
river-works; and all the authorities of Wellington, including the
Governor and his Ministers, honoured the ball with their presence.
An account of the river-works will not be unacceptable. So long since as
1863 it was discovered that the river Molyneux, or Clutha as it was
sometimes called, contained over a great length rich gold deposits. More
or less considerable quantities of the precious metal were obtained from
time to time when the river was unusually low. But at no time was much
of the banks and parts adjacent thereto uncovered. Dredging was resorted
to, and a great deal of gold obtained; but it was pointed out that the
search in that manner was something like the proverbial exploration for
a needle in a haystack. A great scientist, Sir Julius Von Haast,
declared that during the glacial period the mountains adjacent to the
valley of the Molyneux were ground down by the action of glaciers from
an average height of several thousand feet. Every ounce of the
pulverised matter must have passed through the valley drained by the
river; and he made a calculation which showed that, if the stuff
averaged a grain to the ton, there must be in the interstices of the
river bed many thousands of tons of gold.
Nearly fifty years before the period of this history the grandfather of
Hilda and Maud Fitzherbert set himself seriously to unravel the problem.
His design was to deepen the bed of the Mataura river, running through
Southland, and to make an outlet to it from Lake Whakatip.
Simultaneously he proposed to close the outlet from the lake into the
Molyneux and, by the aid of other channels, cut at different parts of
the river to divert the tributary streams, to lay bare and clear from
water fully fifty miles of the river bed between Lake Whakatip and the
Dunstan. It was an enormous work. The cost alone of obtaining the
various riparian and residential rights absorbed over two millions
sterling. Twice, too, were the works on the point of completion, and
twice were they destroyed by floods and storms.
Mr. Fitzherbert had to take several partners, and his own enormous
fortune was nearly dissipated. He had lost his son and his son's wife
when his grandchildren, Hilda and Maud, were of tender age. After his
death the two girls found a letter from him in which he told them he had
settled on each of them three thousand pounds a year and left to them
jointly his house and garden near Dunedin, with the furniture, just as
they had always lived in it. Beyond this comparatively inconsiderable
bequest, he wrote, he had devoted everything to the completion of the
great work of his life. It was certain now that the river would be
uncovered; and if he was right in his expectations, they would become
enormously wealthy. If it should prove he was wrong, "which," he
continued, "I consider impossible, you will not think unkindly of the
old grandfather whose dearest hope it was to make you the richest girls
in the world." The time had come when these works, upon which so much
energy had been expended, and which had been fruitful of so many
disappointments, were to be finished; and a great deal of curiosity as
to the result was felt in every part of the Empire. Hilda and Maud
Fitzherbert had two and a half tenths each of the undertaking, and
Montreal and his younger brother had each one tenth, which they had
inherited, but it was understood that Montreal had parted with his own
share to Colonel Laurient; two tenths were reserved for division amongst
those people whose riparian and other rights Mr. Fitzherbert had
originally purchased; and of the remaining tenth one half was the
property of Sir Central Vincent Stout, Baronet, a young though very able
lawyer, the other half belonged to Lord Larnach, one of the wealthiest
private bankers in the Empire. There was by no means unanimity of
opinion concerning the result of the works. Some people held, they would
prove a total failure, and that the money spent on them had been wasted
by visionary enthusiasts; others thought, a moderate amount of gold
might be obtained; while very few shared the sanguine expectations which
had led old Fitzherbert to complacently spend the huge sums he had
devoted to his life's ideal. And now the result of fifty years of toil
and anxiety was to be decided. It was an exceptionally fine day, and
thousands of people from all parts of New Zealand thronged to the
ceremony. Some preferred watching the river Molyneux subside as the
waters gradually ran out; others considered the grander sight to be the
filling of the new channel of the Mataura river.
It had been arranged that two small levers pressed by a child would
respectively have the effect of opening the gates that barred the new
channel to the Mataura and of closing the gates that admitted the lake
waters to the Molyneux. As the levers were pressed a signal was to run
down the two rivers, in response to which guns stationed at frequent
intervals were to thunder out a salute.
Precisely at twelve the loud roar of artillery announced the transfer of
the waters. Undoubtedly the grander sight was on the Mataura river. The
progress of the liberated water as it rushed onward in a great seething,
foaming, swirling mass, gleaming under the bright rays of the sun,
formed a picture not easily to be forgotten. But the other river
attracted more attention, for there not only nature played a part, but
the last scene was to be enacted in a drama of great human interest. And
this scene was more slowly progressing. The subsidence of the water was
not very quick. The Molyneux was a quaint, many-featured river, partly
fed by melted snow, partly by large surface drainage, both finding their
way to the river through the lake, and by independent tributaries. At
times the Molyneux was of great volume and swiftness. On the present
occasion it was on moderate terms--neither at its slowest nor fastest.
But as the river flowed on without its usual accession from the lake
and the diverted tributaries, an idealist might have fancied that it was
fading away through grief at the desertion of its allies. Lady Taieri's
party were located on a dais erected on the banks of the river about
twenty miles from the lake. After an hour or so the subsidence of the
water became well marked; and occasionally heaps of crushed quartz,
called tailings, from gold workings on the banks, became visible. Some
natural impediments had prevented these from flowing down the river and
built them up several feet in height. Here and there crevices, deep and
narrow or shallow and wide, became apparent.
The time was approaching when it would be known if there was utter
failure or entire success or something midway between. It had been
arranged that, if any conspicuous deposit of gold became apparent, a
signal should be given, in response to which all the guns along the
river banks should be fired.
At a quarter past one o'clock the guns pealed forth; and loud as was the
noise they made, it seemed trifling compared with the cheers which ran
up and down the river from both banks from the throats of the countless
thousands of spectators. The announcement of success occasioned almost
delirious joy. It seemed as if every person in the vast crowd had an
individual interest in the undertaking. The telephone soon announced
that at a turn in the river about seven miles from the lake what
appeared to be a large pool of fine gold was uncovered. Even as the news
became circulated there appeared in the middle of the river right
opposite Lady Taieri's stand a faint yellow glow beneath the water.
Gradually it grew brighter and brighter, until at length to the eyes of
the fascinated beholders there appeared a long, irregular fissure of
about twenty-five feet in length by about six or seven in width which
appeared to be filled with gold. Some of the company now rushed forward,
and, amidst the deafening cheers of the onlookers, dug out into boxes
which had been prepared for the purpose shovelsful of gold. Fresh boxes
were sent for, but the gold appeared to be inexhaustible. Each box held
five thousand ounces; and supposing the gold to be nearly pure, fifty
boxes would represent the value of a million sterling.
Five hundred boxes were filled, and still the pool opposite Hilda was
not emptied, and it was reported two equally rich receptacles were being
drained in other parts. Guards of the Volunteer forces were told off to
protect the gold until it could be placed in safety.
Hilda and Maud were high-minded, generous girls, with nothing of a
sordid nature in their composition; but they were human, and what human
being could be brought into contact with the evidence of the acquisition
of such vast wealth without feelings of quickened, vivid emotion? It is
only justice to them to say that their feelings were not in the nature
of a sense of personal gratification so much as one of ecstatic pleasure
at the visions of the enormous power for good which this wealth would
place in their hands. Every one crowded round with congratulations. As
Colonel Laurient joined the throng Hilda said to him, "Why should I not
equally congratulate you? You share the gold with us."
"Do I?" he said, with his inscrutable smile. "I had forgotten."
Lord Montreal, with a face in which every vestige of colour was wanting,
gravely congratulated Hilda, then, turning to her sister, said in a
voice the agitation of which he could not conceal, "No one, Miss Maud,
more warmly congratulates you or more fervently wishes you happiness."
Before the astonished girl could reply he had left the scene. It may
safely be said that Maud now bitterly regretted the success of the
works. She understood that Montreal, a poor man, was too proud to owe to
any woman enormous wealth. "What can I do with it? How can I get rid of
it?" she wailed to Hilda, who in a moment took in the situation.
"Maud dearest," she said, "control yourself. All will be well." And she
led her sister off the dais into the cruiser, in which they returned to
Lady Taieri's house. They met Montreal in the gallery leading to their
apartments. He bowed gravely.
Maud could not restrain herself. "You will kill me, Montreal," she said.
"What do I care for wealth?"
"Maud, you would not have me sacrifice my self-respect," he said, and
passed on.
He seemed almost unconscious where he was going. He was roused from his
bitter reverie.
"Colonel Laurient will be greatly obliged if you will go to him at
once," said a servant.
"Show me to his room," replied Montreal briefly.
"Laurient," said Montreal, "believe me, I am not jealous of your good
fortune."
"My good fortune!" said Laurient. "I do not know of anything very good.
I always felt sure that you would pay me what you owe me."
"Pay you what I owe you!" said Montreal, in a voice of amazement.
"Yes," replied Laurient. "You know that I come of a race of
money-lenders, and I have sent for you to ask you for my money and
interest."
But Montreal was too sad to understand a joke; and Laurient had noticed
what passed with Maud, and formed a shrewd conjecture that the gold had
not made either of them happy.
"Listen to me," he continued. "It is three years since you came to me
and asked me to buy your share in the Molyneux works, as you had need of
the money. I replied by asking what you wanted for your interest. You
named a sum much below what I thought its value--a belief which to-day's
results have proved to be correct. I am not in the habit of acquiring
anything from a friend in distress at less than its proper value, and I
was about to say so when I thought, 'I will lend this money on the
security offered. I will not worry Montreal by letting him think that he
is in debt and has to find the interest every half-year. There is quite
sufficient margin for interest and principal too; and when the gold is
struck, he will repay me.' I made this arrangement apparent in my will
and by the execution of a deed of trust. The share is still yours, and
out of the first money you receive you can repay me. Nay," he said,
stopping Montreal's enthusiastic thanks. "I said I was a money-lender.
Here is a memorandum of the interest, and you will see each year I have
charged interest on the previous arrears--perfect usury. Go, my dear
boy. I hate thanks, and I do not want money."
Montreal could not control himself to speak. Two minutes afterwards he
was in Hilda and Maud's sitting-room. "Forgive me, Maud darling! I have
the share. I thought I had lost it," he said incoherently; but he made
his meaning clear by the unmistakable caress of a lover.
Hilda left the room--an example the historian must follow.