The Lifeboat Part 30

"Hallo! Jack, let's hoist out the stuff now."

"Ay, ay, Harry," replies a strong voice, with a sailor-like ring in it, from below, "I'll be on deck in a jiffy."

Let us descend and look at this miner. The hole is narrow and deep; at the bottom of it is a dark tunnel two feet broad, between two and three feet high, and twenty-five feet long. At the farther extremity of it crouches a man with a pickaxe in his hands, and a candle beside him. It is a very awkward position in which to work, and the result is that this man pants and blows and sighs, and sometimes laughs quietly to himself at the comicality of his att.i.tudes, while the perspiration pours over his face in large beads continuously. It seems very hard work, and so, indeed, it is, but the man is an unusually big and strong fellow, larger even than his fair companion above ground. His hair is short, black, and curly, as are his beard and whiskers, but at this moment his whole head and face are so besmeared with clay that his aspect is piebald and not more becoming than his att.i.tude. Still, there is a ma.s.sive grandeur in the outline of his features which cannot be destroyed by incrustations of clay, although his complexion is obscured by it.

Like his comrade above, his costume consists of flannel shirt, dark trousers, and big boots. His shirt sleeves being rolled up to the shoulders, display a pair of arms that a sculptor might gaze on with admiration.

This strong man pants and gasps more than ever with the heat as he drives the pick and tears up the earth for gold. Presently the candle burns dim; the air is getting foul.

"Hallo, the candle's going out!" cries the dark miner, scrambling towards the bottom of the shaft on his hands and knees.

"Ha! time to take a mouthful o' fresh air, Jack," remarks the fair miner, looking into the hole.

In another moment a wild dishevelled clay-bespattered figure comes to the surface, rises like a giant out of the earth, and the countenance and proportions of our friend John Bax are revealed, in spite of the strange costume and black moustache and beard and incrustations of clay which more than half disguise him.

"Whew! how hot it is," said Bax, as he stepped out of the hole.

"You may say that," observed his friend, rising; "but come along, Jack, let's get up the stuff and wash out as much as we can before dinner.

Mind, you've got to write home this afternoon, and won't be able to help me much in the evening."

"Come along then," said Bax, going to work again with redoubled energy.

There was a windla.s.s over the hole by which the clay was raised to the surface. Bax wrought at this, and his mate went below to fill the buckets. Then they washed it out, and flooded away cartloads of worthless soil, until a small residue of clear shining particles remained behind. This they gathered carefully together, added it to the bag that held their fortune, remarked that there were "no nuggets this time," and that it was "hard work and little pay;" after which they flung down their tools, washed their hands and faces, and went into their tent to dine.

Thus did Bax and his mate (an old acquaintance unexpectedly met with after arrival in Australia) dig, and sweat, and toil for gold.

But Bax and his friend worked thus hard, only because it was their nature so to work at whatever their hands found to do. They had not set their hearts upon the gold.

After dinner Harry went out to drive his pick and shovel. Bax remained in the tent to drive the quill.

That night the two friends lay chatting and smoking in their tent after supper, with a solitary candle between them, and the result of the day's work--a small pile of shining dust--before them.

"We'll not make our fortunes at this rate," observed Harry, with a sigh.

"There's no saying what good fortune may be in store for us," observed Bax; "but put away the gold, it will do us no good to gaze at it."

Harry rolled the little heap in a piece of paper, and tossed it into the leathern bag which contained their earnings.

"Come now," said he, replenishing his pipe, "let's hear the letter, Bax, who d'ye say's the friend you've written to?"

"He's a boy," said Bax, "Tommy Bogey by name, of which name, by the way, he has no reason to be proud--but he's a first-rate fellow, and I fear will have set me down as a faithless friend, for I left him without saying good-bye, and the letter I wrote to him on my arrival here went to the bottom with the unfortunate ship that carried it. However, here is the epistle. I'm open to correction, Harry, if you think any part of it not ship-shape."

"All right," said Harry, "go ahead."

Bax read as follows:--

"Kangaroo Flats, Daisy Hill Diggings,

"Australia, _10th January_, 18--.

"MY DEAR TOMMY,--The mail is just about to leave us, so I write to let you know where I am and what doing--also to tell you that I have just heard of the wreck of the ship that conveyed my first letter to you, which will account for my _apparent_ neglect.

"Gold digging is anything but a paying affair, I find, and it's the hardest work I've ever had to do. I have only been able to pay my way up to this time. Everything is fearfully dear. After deducting the expenses of the last week for cartage, sharpening picks, etcetera, I and my mate have just realised 15 shillings each; and this is the first week we have made anything at all beyond what was required for our living. However, we live and work on in the hope of turning up a nugget, or finding a rich claim, singing--though we can't exactly believe--`There's a good time coming.'" Here Bax paused. "I won't read the next paragraph," said he, with a smile, "because it's about yourself, Harry, so I'll skip."

Nevertheless, reader, as we wish _you_ to hear that pa.s.sage, we will make Bax read on.

"My mate, Harry Benton, is an old schoolfellow, whom I met with accidentally in Melbourne. We joined at once, and have been together ever since. I hope that nothing may occur to part us. You would like him, Tommy. You've no idea what a fine, gentle, lion-like fellow he is, with a face like a true, bold man in expression, and like a beautiful woman in form. I'm not up to pen-and-ink description, Tommy, but I think you'll understand me when I say he's got a splendid figure-head, a strong frame, and a warm heart.

"Poor fellow, he has had much sorrow since he came out here. He is a widower, and brought out his little daughter with him, an only child, whose sweet face was once like sunshine in our tent. Not long ago this pretty flower of the desert sickened, drooped, and died, with her fair head on her father's bosom. For a long time afterwards Harry was inconsolable; but he took to reading the Bible, and the effect of that has been wonderful. We read it regularly every night together, and no one can tell what comfort we have in it, for I too have had sorrow of a kind which you could not well understand, unless I were to go into an elaborate explanation. I believe that both of us can say, in the words of King David, `It was good for me that I was afflicted.'

"I should like _very_ much that you and he might meet. Perhaps you may one of these days! But, to go on with my account of our life and doings here."

(It was at this point that Bax continued to read the letter aloud.)

"The weather is tremendously warm. It is now (10th January) the height of summer, and the sun is unbearable; quite as hot as in India, I am told; especially when the hot winds blow. Among other evils, we are tormented with thousands of fleas. Harry stands them worse than I do," ("untrue!" interrupted Harry), "but their cousins the flies are, if possible, even more exasperating. They resemble our own house flies in appearance--would that they were equally harmless! Myriads of millions don't express their numbers more than ten expresses the number of the stars. They are the most persevering brutes you ever saw. They creep into your eyes, run up your nose, and plunge into your mouth. Nothing will shake them off, and the mean despicable creatures take special advantage of us when our hands are occupied in carrying buckets of gold-dust, or what, alas! ought to be gold-dust, but isn't! On such occasions we shake our heads, wink our eyes, and snort and blow at them, but all to no purpose--there they stick and creep, till we get our hands free to attack them.

"A change must be coming over the weather soon, for while I write, the wind is blowing like a gale out of a hot oven, and is shaking the tent, so that I fear it will come down about my ears. It is a curious fact that these hot winds always blow from the north, which inclines me to think there must be large sandy deserts in the interior of this vast continent. We don't feel the heat through the day, except when we are at the windla.s.s drawing up the pipeclay, or while washing our `stuff,' for we are generally below ground `driving.' But, although not so hot as above, it is desperately warm there too, and the air is bad.

"Our drives are two and a half feet high by about two feet broad at the floor, from which they widen a little towards the top. As I am six feet three in my stockings, and Harry is six feet one, besides being, both of us, broader across the shoulders than most men, you may fancy that we get into all sorts of shapes while working. All the `stuff' that we drive out we throw away, except about six inches on the top where the gold lies, so that the quant.i.ty of mullock, as we call it, or useless material hoisted out is very great. There are immense heaps of it lying at the mouth of our hole. If we chose to liken ourselves to gigantic moles, we have reason to be proud of our mole-hills! All this `stuff' has to be got along the drives, some of which are twenty-five feet in length. One of us stands at the top, and hoists the stuff up the shaft in buckets. The other sits and fills them at the bottom.

"This week we have taken out three cart-loads of washing stuff, which we fear will produce very little gold. Of course it is quite dark in the drives, so we use composition candles. Harry drives in one direction, I in another, and we hammer away from morning till night.

The air is often bad, but not explosive. When the candles burn low and go out, it is time for us to go out too and get fresh air, for it makes us blow terribly, and gives us sore eyes. Three-fourths of the people here are suffering from sore eyes; the disease is worse this season than it has been in the memory of the oldest diggers.

"We have killed six or seven snakes lately. They are very numerous, and the only things in the country we are absolutely _afraid_ of! You have no idea of the sort of dread one feels on coming slap upon one unexpectedly. Harry put his foot on one yesterday, but got no hurt.

They are not easily seen, and their bite is always fatal.

"From all this you will see that a gold-digger's life is a hard one, and worse than that, it does not pay well. However, I like it in the meantime, and having taken it up, I shall certainly give it a fair trial.

"I wish you were here, Tommy; yet I am glad you are not. To have you and Guy in the tent would make our party perfect, but it would try your const.i.tutions I fear, and do you no good mentally, for the society by which we are surrounded is anything but select.

"But enough of the gold-fields. I have a lot of questions to ask and messages to send to my old friends and mates at Deal."

At this point the reading of the letter was interrupted by an uproar near the tent. High above the noise the voice of a boy was heard in great indignation.

For a few minutes Bax and his friend did not move; they were too much accustomed to scenes of violence among the miners to think of interfering, unless things became very serious.

"Come, Bill, let him alone," cried a stern voice, "the lad's no thief, as you may see if you look in his face."

"I don't give a straw for looks and faces," retorted Bill, who seemed to have caused the uproar, "the young rascal came peeping into my tent, and that's enough for me."

"What!" cried the boy, in an indignant shout, "may I not search through the tents to find a friend without being abused by every scoundrel who loves his gold so much that he thinks every one who looks at him wants to steal it? Let me go, I say!"

At the first words of this sentence Bax started up with a look of intense surprise. Before it was finished he had seized a thick stick, and rushed from the tent, followed by his mate.

In two seconds they reached the centre of a ring of disputants, in the midst of which a big, coa.r.s.e-looking miner held by the collar the indignant lad, who proved to be an old and truly unexpected acquaintance.

"Bax!" shouted the boy.