It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 145

"Well, I do. Look here, Tom! look at this great large heap of quartz bowlders, all of different sizes; they have all rolled down here out of that river of quartz."

"Why, of course they have! who doubts that?"

"Many is the time I have sat on that green mound where Jacky is sitting now, and eaten my bread and cheese."

"I dare say! but what has that to do with it? what are we to do? Are we to go up the rock and peck into that ma.s.s of quartz?"

"Well, I think it is worth while."

"Why, it would be like biting a piece out of the world! Look here, Master George, we can put your notion about the home of the gold to the test without all that trouble."

"As how?"

"You own all these quartz stones rolled out of yon river; if so, they are samples of it. Ten thousand quartz stones is quite sample enough, so begin and turn them all over, examine them--break them if you like.

If we find but a speck of gold in one of them I'll believe that quartz river is gold's home--if not, it is all humbug!"

George pulled a wry face; he found himself pinned to his own theory.

"Well," said he, "I own the sample tells us what is in the barn; so now I am vexed for bringing you here."

"Now we _are_ here, give it a fair trial; let us set to and break every bowlder in the thundering heap."

They went to work and picked the quartz bowlders; full two hours they worked, and by this time they had made a considerable heap of broken quartz; it glittered in the sun, but it glittered white, not a speck of yellow came to light.

George was vexed. Robinson grinned; expecting nothing, he was not disappointed. Besides, he was winning an argument, and we all like to turn out prophets. Presently a little cackle from Jacky.

"I find um!"

"Find what?" asked Robinson, without looking up.

"A good deal yellow stone," replied Jacky, with at least equal composure.

"Let me see that," said George, with considerable curiosity; and they both went to Jacky.

Now the fact is that this heap of quartz stones was in reality much larger than they thought, only the greater part of it had been overgrown with moss and patches of gra.s.s a few centuries of centuries ago.

Jacky, seated on what seemed a gra.s.sy mound, was in reality perched upon a part of the antique heap; his keen eye saw a little bit of yellow protruding through the moss, and he was amusing himself clipping it with his tomahawk, cutting away the moss and chipping the stone, which made the latter glitter more and yellower.

"Hallo!" cried George, "this looks better."

Robinson went on his knees without a word.

"It is all right," said he, in a great flutter, "it is a nugget--and a good-sized one--a pound weight, I think. Now then, my lad, out you come;" and he dug his fingers under it to jerk it out.

But the next moment he gave a screech and looked up amazed.

"Why, this is the point of the nugget; it lies the other way, not flat.

George! I can't move it! The pick! Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! The pick! the pick!"

"Stand clear," shouted George, and he drove the point of the pick down close by the prize, then he pressed on the handle. "Why, Tom, it is jammed somehow."

"No, it is not jammed--it is its own weight. Why, George!"

"Then, Tom! it is a hundred-weight if it is an ounce!"

"Don't be a fool," cried the other, trembling all over; "there is no such thing in nature."

The nugget now yielded slowly to the pressure and began to come up into the world again inch by inch after so many thousand years. Of course, before it could come all out, the soil must open first, and when Robinson, glaring down, saw a square foot of earth part and gape as the nugget came majestically up, he gave another cry, and with trembling hands laid hold of the prize, and pulled and tugged and rolled it on the clean moss--to lift it was not so easy. They fell down on their knees by the side of it like men in a dream. Such a thing had never been seen or heard of--a hundred-weight of quartz and gold, and beautiful as it was great. It was like honeycomb, the cells of which had been sliced by a knife; the shining metal brimmed over in the delicate quartz cells.

They lifted it. Yes, full a hundredweight; half the ma.s.s was quartz, but four-fifths of the weight they knew must be gold. Then they jumped up and each put a foot on it, and shook hands over it.

"Oh, you beauty!" cried George, and he went on his knees and kissed it; "that is not because you are gold, but because you take me to Susan.

Now, Tom, let us thank Heaven for its goodness to us, and back to camp this very day."

"Ay! but stop, we must wrap it in our wipes or we shall never get back alive. The very honest ones would turn villains at sight of it. It is the wonder of the world."

"I see my Susan's eyes in it," cried George, in rapture. "Oh, Tom, good, kind, honest Tom, shake hands over it once more!"

In the midst of all this rapture a horrible thought occurred.

"Why, it's Jacky's," said George, faintly, "he found it."

"Nonsense! nonsense!" cried Tom, uneasily; he added, however, "but I am afraid one third of it is--pals share, white or black."

All their eyes now turned uneasily to the Aboriginal, who lay yawning on the gra.s.s.

"Jacky give him you, George," said this worthy savage, with superb indifference. He added with a yawn: "What for you dance corroboree when um not dark?--den you bite yellow stone," continued this original, "den you red, den you white, den you red again, all because we pull up yellow stone-all dis a good deal dam ridiculous."

"So 'tis, Jacky," replied Robinson, hastily; "don't you have anything to do with yellow stone, it would make you as great a fool as we are. Now show us the shortest cut back home through the bush."

At the native camp they fell in with Jem. The monstrous nugget was too heavy to conceal from his shrewd eye, so they showed it him. The sight of it almost knocked him down. Robinson told him where they found it, and advised Jem to go and look for another. Alas! the great nugget already made him wish one friend away. But Jem said:

"No, I will see you safe through the bush first."

CHAPTER LXXI.

ALL this time two persons in the gold mine were upon thorns of expectation and doubt--brutus and Peter Crawley. George and Robinson did not return, but no more did Black Will. What had happened? Had the parties come into collision? and, if so, with what result? If the friends had escaped, why had they never been heard of since? If, on the other hand, Will had come off conqueror, why had he never reappeared? At last brutus arrived at a positive conviction that Black Will had robbed and probably murdered the men, and was skulking somewhere with their gold, thereby defrauding him, his pal; however, he kept this to himself, and told Crawley that he feared Will had come to grief, so he would go well armed, and see what was the matter, and whether he could help him.

So he started for the bush, well armed. Now his real object, I blush to say, was to murder Black Will, and rob him of the spoils of George and Robinson.

Wicked as these men of violence had been six months ago, gold and Crawley had made them worse, ay, much worse. Crawley, indeed, had never openly urged any of them to so deep a crime as murder, and it is worthy of note, as a psychological fact, that this reptile contrived to deceive itself into thinking that it had stopped short of crime's utmost limits; to be sure it had tempted and bribed and urged men to robbery under circ.u.mstances that were almost sure to lead to murder, but still murder might not occur; meantime it had openly discountenanced that crime, and checked the natural proclivity of brutus and Black Will toward deeds of blood.

Self-deception will probably cease at the first blast of the archangel's trumpet. But what human heart will part with it till then? The circ.u.mstances under which a human being could not excuse or delude or justify himself have never yet occurred in the huge annals of crime.

Prejudice apart, Crawley's moral position behind brutus and Black Will seems to bear a strong family likeness to that which Holy Writ a.s.signs to the great enemy of man. That personage knocks out n.o.body's brains, cuts n.o.body's throat, never was guilty of such brutality since the world was, but he finds some thorough egotist, and whispers how the egotism of his pa.s.sions or his interest may be gratified by the death of a fellow-creature. The egotist listens, and blood flows.

brutus and Black Will had both suffered for their crimes. brutus had been nailed by Carlo, twice gibbeted, and the bridge of his nose broken once. Black Will had been mutilated, and Walker nearly drowned, but "the close contriver of all harms" had kept out of harm's way. Violence had never recoiled on him who set it moving. For all that, Crawley, I must inform the reader, was not entirely prosperous. He had his little troubles, too, whether warnings that he was on the wrong path, or punishments of his vices, or both, I can't say.