SPRINGING A TRAP.
Sedgwick found waiting for him advices from the mine, all of which were
favorable and the output for another month, less the expenses of mining
and milling, which amounted in the aggregate to something over $90,000,
had been forwarded to the Bank of France.
The Wedge of Gold Mining Company was reorganized. Browning was made
president; Sedgwick, treasurer; McGregor, secretary; and all three, with
Jordan, directors. A regular dividend of two shillings per share, and a
special dividend of as much more was declared, aggregating in all
£30,000. This was given to the _Times_ for publication, and attached
to it was the following note:
"The reporter of the _Times_ was able to obtain the following particulars
of this wonderful property from the secretary:
"'A forty-stamp mill has been in operation on the property since June
last. The mill yielded in June, above expenses, £17,000 and 15 shillings;
in July, £18,000 and 5 shillings. The ore already developed above the
tunnel level is sufficient to insure the running of the present works to
their full capacity for five years to come. The ore on the tunnel level
is equal to any in the mine, and the ore chute has been demonstrated by
exploration on the tunnel level to be at least 630 feet in length, with
an average width of 16 feet. The tunnel cuts the mine at a depth of 500
feet. The office of the company in London is No. ----, ---- Street. The
officers are John Browning, president; James Sedgwick, treasurer; Hugh
McGregor, secretary; and these, with Thomas Jordan, make up the directory
of the company.'"
When, next morning, Jenvie, Hamlin and Stetson read the above in the
_Times_, they were filled with consternation.
"I feared that man Sedgwick from the first," said Jenvie. "Our first
account of him, that 'he must be a prize-fighter,' was true. He has
knocked us out, and he has made no more noise about it than does a
bull-dog when he takes a pig by the ear."
"What are we to do?" asked Hamlin.
"We must take in enough stock to cover our shortage at once," said
Jenvie, "even if we have to pay £1 per share for it."
So a messenger was sent to the office of the broker through which the
stock had been shorted, to buy at any price up to £1.
He returned with the information that the stock could be had, but the
price was £6 per share.
Then the three men realized for the first time the trap which had been
set for them, and how fatal had been its spring. The messenger was at
once sent out again, this time to the office of the company. He found the
secretary, who referred him to the ---- Bank, from which the dividends
were to be paid. There he found stock for sale, but the price demanded
was £6 per share.
He returned home and made his report. The three men gazed at each other
with blank looks of despair.
"Thirty thousand shares at £6 will take all we have," said Hamlin.
"And I shorted 10,000 shares besides," said Jenvie.
"So did I," said Hamlin.
"So did I," said Stetson.
"It seems clear enough that we are absolutely ruined," said Hamlin.
"I wonder what has become of that Portuguese, Emanuel," said Hamlin.
At that moment he entered the office. He looked like the picture of
despair. He broke out with: "It is awful! I have just heard ze truth. It
was that American who did it. When you thought last year that he had gone
to America, he, with another American, had gone to Africa.
"They found ze mine. They found a way out from it by going in the
opposite direction from which they came. Sedgwick went by Australia
to San Francisco, and ordered a forty-stamp mill. The other American
remained, and opened the mine by a tunnel. Sedgwick came back this way,
and, left here to meet the mill at Port Natal.
"It has been running three months. Two months' proceeds are here, and pay
dividends of four shillings, and it is good for two shillings per month
for years; with machinery doubled, good for four shillings per month for
years to come. The stock has gone to £6; it will go to £10 so soon as it
is well understood. And I lost it all, because I had not the sense to
find that way out from ze mine. The road by the trail would have cost
£75,000 or £100,000, and I believed only impassable mountains were to ze
west."
"How did you find all this out?" asked Jenvie.
"From ze Secretary, McGregor. He was master of ze ship that carried the
machinery from San Francisco, and he brought ze Americans from Port
Natal. One was very sick with the fever, and came near dying. He had,
besides, one wound which he received with ze Boers coming out to the
coast from the mine. They are two devils. Ten or a dozen Boers attacked
them to get the first month's bullion, and they two killed five of them,
and drove ze rest away."
"I wish the Boers had killed them both," said Jenvie.
"They are hard men to kill," said Emanuel. "McGregor says, when ashore
one day at D'Umber, there was a chicken-shooting match. The chickens were
buried in the ground all but their heads, and the people were shooting at
ten paces when these men passed. They asked about it, and asked if they
might shoot with their own pistols; and when permission was given, they
drew their weapons and killed six chickens each in a minute, and were
laughing all the time as though it were nothing. They are devils, shure
enough."
"Do you think Browning knew all about this from the first?" asked Hamlin.
"Not at all," said Emanuel. "No one in London knew where the Americans
had gone, except his wife. Browning thought he had gone back to America.
His wife knew. She got a dispatch from Australia, and letters from Port
Natal ze same day, saying he was going to San Francisco to order
machinery, and would return this way and be with her in four months,
and then she left at once and beat him a week into San Francisco.
"And I am ruined. My little stock is all gone. A mine worth £2,000,000 I
sold for £2,000." And he went out.
"What can we do?" asked Jenvie. "I expect a notice every moment to call
at the broker's and settle."
"Can we not assign our property?" asked Hamlin.
"We could," said Jenvie, "but to-morrow we should all be looking through
the bars of a prison."
"And even Grace was in the conspiracy to rob us," said Hamlin, in an
injured tone.
"She is a brave, true woman, I think," said Jenvie, "and as it looks to
me, she is the only one to whom we can now appeal."
"May be so," said Hamlin. "Her husband worships her, I am told."
"Suppose we go to your house and persuade your wife to go and bring her
home where we can see her," said Jenvie.
This was agreed to, and with heavy hearts the three men entered a
carriage and were driven to the Hamlin house.
As they went up the steps, Grace Sedgwick herself opened the door. She
had been to see her mother, and was just going out.
"Come back, Grace," said her step-father; "we wish to see you
particularly."
She returned with them, and her step-father told her how they were
involved--in what danger they were, not only of absolute ruin, but of
a criminal prosecution, and begged her to see her husband and intercede
with him.
"My husband needs no entreaties to do what is right," said Grace.
"Suppose the case were reversed, what would you grant my husband?"
They all hung their heads. Grace looked at them and continued: "You
robbed dear, confiding Jack of his fortune, which he had honestly
acquired. You robbed him for the double purpose of making him a beggar,
and of breaking his heart, though one of you was his step-father, another
the step-father of the woman he loved better than his own life. It was
that which set Jack's nearest friend to be your Nemesis. Our troth had
just been plighted. It was like death to part us, but he who is my
husband said to me: 'There must be no scandal, if we can help it, but
this wrong must be righted. I must go to Africa, and if I can work out
the dear boy's deliverance, it must be done.' And I consented to it. He
moved secretly, but with the force and energy of his nature. He and the
friend who went with him have performed a great work. They have taken
what was unloaded upon Jack as worthless, and converted it into something
richer than a little kingdom. It seems, too, that in the blindness of
your avarice, you dared fate itself to make more money out of that wreck,
and now you are in the toils. Suppose my husband had done by you as you
have dealt with Jack, and you had him where you now are, what mercy would
you show him?"
They were silent. They had not even self-respect to sustain them.
Grace waited a moment, and then went on: "But he is of different
material. There is no malice in his nature. He cares nothing for the
triumph which comes through revenge.
"He knew when you dared to sell that stock short, told me of it, and
asked what would be right. I replied that I thought if you would restore
to Jack what he had been robbed of, with interest on the money to date,
it would be fair; and his answer was that to compel you to do that very
thing was what caused him to leave me and go to Africa.
"In that you can get an idea of him. He had money enough for himself and
Jack both; he had no desire for revenge, but he was determined that you
should be made to do justice to his friend, whom you had so greatly
wronged, and that, if possible, it should be done without any noise."
"Do you think he would settle that way?" asked Jenvie.
"He has no settlement to make," said Grace; "but I think he would
recommend Jack to settle that way."
"And where could we meet Jack?" asked Jenvie.
"I do not know," said Grace, "nor is it necessary. I think the broker
with whom you dealt in the stocks has authority to settle. That was a
little trap set for you. There is not a share of the stock that is not in
the company's office at this moment."
"I did not mean to rob Jack," said Hamlin. "I wanted to break his
engagement with Rose, hoping he would turn to you."
"We all understood that from the first," said Grace, "but we had made
entirely different arrangements--arrangements worth two of that--which
suited us all around." And bowing, the young wife left the room.
The three men found, upon visiting the broker, that he had received
orders to settle with them on the terms outlined by Grace, and they
complied by turning over what money they had and some outside property.
It left them with fair fortunes. But the story got out through Emanuel;
their prestige was broken, and they closed up their business within a few
days, and disappeared from the business walks of London. Two months later
Jenvie died in a moment of apoplexy; the succeeding autumn Hamlin
succumbed to typhoid fever, and Stetson sailed away to lose himself
in the depths of Australia.