‘And did the volcano really explode after all?’
‘It did, indeed,’ replied Captain Marion; ‘but not for a month
afterwards, and then so fiercely as to scatter death and destruction
throughout those narrow seas, grinding the island of Krakatoa itself
into cosmic dust—visible, according to scientists, nearly all over the
world.’
* * * * *
Here ends the story proper as compiled from the notes taken by one of
the passengers and jotted down in his cabin of a night as the Captain
finished each section of his narrative.
Lower down on the last pages of these notes is gummed, however, a
printed paragraph, cut from a Sydney daily newspaper, which runs as
follows:—
MARION—HILLIER.—On the 29th ultimo, at St James’s Church of
England, Sydney, by the Rev. R. Garnsey, George Wreford Marion,
master in the British Mercantile Marine, to Amy Margaret, daughter
of the late John Hillier, Esq., of Pevensey, Miller’s Point,
Sydney, and Eurella and Whydah stations, Riverina, N.S.W.
‘DOT’S CLAIM.’
It was evening in the German Arms at Schwartzdorf. Great fires blazed
in all the rooms of that old-fashioned hostelry, welcome enough on
entering from the chill, wild weather ruling over the mountainland
outside.
Tired with a heavy day’s work at inspecting the mining claims, which
were beginning to attract notice to this secluded spot, it was with a
feeling of satisfaction that, after tea, I drew a chair up to the
fire, lit my pipe, and made myself comfortable.
Presently there was a knock at the door and, in response to my ‘Come
in,’ there entered the man who told me this story.
In his hand he carried a canvas bag, whose contents he emptied on the
table with the remark, ‘I thought perhaps you might like to see
these.’
Very beautiful they were, without doubt—quartz, ironstone and gold,
mingled in the most fantastic manner; grotesque attempts by Nature’s
untrained fingers at crosses, hearts, stars, and other shapes defying
name.
‘We got these the last shot knocking off to-night,’ said the owner of
the pretty things as I asked him to sit down. ‘You might remember me
tellin’ you as I didn’t think we was very far from the main reef. I
believe we got it now in good earnest. Same lead as is in “Dot’s
Claim.” Same sort o’ country. Reef runnin’ with the same dip. An’ you
knows yourself, sir, as they took forty-five pound weight o’ specimens
richer than them out o’ “Dot’s” this mornin’.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said after a hasty glance at my note-book, ‘but
I don’t remember any such name. I thought, too, that I had seen all
the most important claims.’
‘Why, of course,’ he replied, ‘I forgot! It’s only a few of us old
hands as knows the story as calls it Dot’s now. When the big company
took it from Fairleigh they names it the “El Dorado.” I reckon t’other
was too short—didn’t sound high enough for ’em. But if it hasn’t the
best right to the old name I’d like to know the reason why.’
‘El Dorado,’ I remarked; ‘why that’s the original prospector’s claim.’
My visitor nodded, saying, ‘An’ I’m No. 2 South.’
‘Ward and party?’ I inquired, referring again to my memos.
‘That’s it. I’m Ward.’
‘Well, then, Mr Ward, I want to hear that story you hinted at just
now. Kindly touch that bell at your elbow. Thanks.’
It may have been only fancy, but I thought that between blooming
Gretchen journeying to and fro with hot water, tumblers, sugar, etc.,
etc., and my lucky reefer glances passed betokening a more than casual
acquaintance.
‘Yes, Gretchen, you may as well leave the kettle.’
I am trying to air my German, but fail lamentably, judging from the
expression on the girl’s full, fresh-coloured features as she
struggles to avoid laughing. Even my visitor smiles. Everything is
German here—bar, luckily, the beds. Outside the wind howled and beat
against the curtained windows, and the rain fell dully on the shingled
roof, and the roar of the Broken River came to our ears between the
storm gusts.
Inside, the fire flickered and fell, sending deep shadows over the
pine-panelled walls and the grave handsome face of my companion, the
first fruits of whose labour shone sullenly under the shaded
lamplight. From a distant room rose and died away faintly the chorus
of some song of the Fatherland.
‘Now,’ said I, as Gretchen finally closed the door, ‘now for the
story.’
‘Well,’ commenced Ward, after getting his pipe into good going order,
‘it’s over eight years ago since I came here from the West
Coast—Hokitika. I’d been diggin’ there. But my luck was clean out, so
I chucked it up, an’, after a lot of knockin’ about, settles down
here—would you believe it?—farmin’!
‘Now I know’d as much about farmin’ as a cow does o’ reefin’. Cert’nly
my mate—for there was a pair of us—had been scarin’ crows for a farmer
in the Old Country when he was a boy. That wasn’t much. Still, on the
strength o’ that experience, he used to give himself airs.
‘I think it was two years afore we got a crop o’ anythin’. Then it was
potaters. When we tried to sell ’em we couldn’t get an offer.
Everybody had potaters. So we just turned to an’ lived on ’em. They’re
fillin’, doubtless. But potaters and fish, an’ fish an’ potaters for a
change, all the year round, gets tiresome in the long run.
‘I often wonder now what could have possessed me an’ Bill to go in for
such a thing as farmin’. But there, when a chap’s luck’s out diggin’,
he’s glad to tackle anythin’ for a change!
‘Presently one or two more, men with fam’lies, settles close to us and
tries to make a livin’. It didn’t amount to much. Then up comes a
string o’ Germans, trampin’ along from the coast, carryin’ furniture
an’ tools, beds—ay, even their old women—on their backs. An’ they
settles, an’ starts the same game—clearin’, an’ ploughin’, an’ sowin’.
But I couldn’t see as any of ’em was makin’ a pile. They worked like
bullocks, women an’ all, late an’ early. The harder they worked, the
poorer they seemed to get. Bill an’ me had a pound or two saved up for
a rainy day. But they had nothin’; an’ how they lived was a mystery.
So, you see, takin’ things all round, it was high time somethin’
turned up. An’ somethin’ did. The next farm to us belonged to a
married couple. He was a runaway sailor. She’d been a passenger on
board. They had one child, just turned four year old, an’ they was
both fair wrapped up in that kid.
‘If Dot’s—Dot was his pet name—finger only ached, the work might go to
Jericho.
‘An’ indeed he were a most loveable little chap. With regards to him,
we was all of us ’most as bad as the father an’ mother, the way we
played with him an’ petted him. There was no denyin’ Dot of anythin’
once he looked at you out o’ those big blue eyes o’ his. And the
knowledgeableness of him! No wonder Jim Fairleigh an’ his missis
thought the sun rose every mornin’ out o’ the back o’ their boy’s
neck.’