It Is Never Too Late to Mend

This line Jacky repeated at least forty times; but he evaded monotony by the following simple contrivance:

with similar changes, and then back again.

One of our own savages saved a great poet from monotony by similar means;* very good of him.

And now the gins took up the tune without the words and the dance began to it. First, two figures ghastly with white paint came bounding like Jacks-in-the-box out of the gloom into the red light, and danced gracefully—then one more popped out—then another, at set intervals of time—then another, all painted differently—and swelled the dance by degrees; and still, as the dance grew in numbers, the musicians sang and drummed louder and faster by well-planned gradations, and the motion rose in intensity, till they all warmed into the terrible savage corroboree jump, legs striding wide, head turned over one shoulder, the eyes glaring with fiendish intensity in one direction, the arms both raised and grasping waddies and boomerangs—till at last they worked up to such a gallop of fierce, buck-like leaps that there was a jump for each beat of the music. Now they were in four lines, and as the figures in the front line jumped to the right, each keeping his distance to a hair, the second line jumped to the left, the third to the right, and the fourth to the left.

The twinkle and beauty and symmetry of this was admirable, and, strange as it may appear, not only were the savages now wrought up to frenzy at this climax of the dance, but the wonderful magnetic influence these children of Nature have learned to create and launch in the corroboree so stirred the white men's blood, that they went half mad too, and laughed and shouted and danced, and could hardly help flinging themselves among the mad fiends and jumping and yelling with them; and when the jump was at its fiercest and quickest, and the great frenzy boiling over, these cunning artists brought it to a dead stop sharp upon the climax—and all was still.

In another minute they were all snoring; but George and Robinson often started in their slumbers, dreaming they saw the horrid figures—the skeletons, lizards, snakes, tartan shawls, and whitened fiends, the whole lot blazing at the eyes and mouth like white budelights, come bounding one after another out of the black night into the red torchlight, and then go striding and jumping and glaring and raging and bucking and prancing, and scattering battle and song and joy and rage and inspiration and stark-staring frenzy all around.

They awoke at daylight rather cold, and found piles of snow upon their blankets, and the lizards and skeletons and imps and tartan shawls deteriorated. The snow had melted on their bodies, and the colors had all run—some of them away. Quid multa? we all know how beauties look when the sun breaks on them after a ball.

They asked for Jacky. To their great chagrin he was not to be found. They waited, getting crosser and crosser, till nine o'clock, and then out comes my lord from the wood, walking toward them with his head down on his bosom, the picture of woe—the milmeridien movement over again.

“There! don't let us scold him,” said George, “I am sure he has lost a relation, or maybe a dear friend; anyway I hope it is not his sweetheart—poor Jacky. Well, Jacky! I am glad you have washed your face, now I know you again. You can't think how much better you look in your own face than painted up in that unreasonable way, like-like-like-I dono-what-all.”

“Like something between a devil and a rainbow,” suggested Robinson.

“But what is wrong?” asked George, kindly. “I am almost afraid to ask, though!”

Encouraged by the tone of sympathy, the afflicted chief pointed to his face, sighed, and said:

“Kalingalunga paint war, and now Kalingalunga wash um face and not kill anybody first. Kalingalunga Jacky again, and show your white place in um hill a good deal soon.”

And the amiable heathen cleared up a little at the prospect of serving George, whom he loved—aboriginally.

Jem remained with the natives upon some frivolous pretense. His real hope was to catch the ruffian whom he secretly believed to be still in the wood. “He is like enough to creep out this way,” thought Jem, “and then—won't I nail him!”

In half an hour they were standing under the spot whose existence Robinson had so often doubted.

“Well, George, you painted it true. It really is a river of quartz running between those two black rocks. And that you think is the home of the gold, eh?”

“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 mass 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 grass a few centuries of centuries ago.

Jacky, seated on what seemed a grassy 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 mass 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 grass.

“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 circumstances 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 circumstances 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 assigns to the great enemy of man. That personage knocks out nobody's brains, cuts nobody'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 passions 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.

Thus it was. Mr. Crawley had a natural love of spirits, without a stomach strong enough to deal with them. When he got away from Mr. Meadows he indulged more and more, and for some months past he had been subject to an unpleasant phenomenon that arises now and then out of the fumes of liquor. At the festive board, even as he raised the glass to his lips, the face of Crawley would often be seen to writhe with a sort of horror, and his eyes to become fixed on unseen objects, and perspiration to gather on his brow. Then such as were not in the secret would jump up and say, “What on earth is the matter?” and look fearfully round, expecting to see some horrid sight to justify that look of horror and anguish; but Crawley, his glassy eyes still fixed, would whimper out, his teeth chattering, and clipping the words: “Oh, ne-ne-never mind, it's o-o-only a trifling ap-parition!” He had got to try and make light of it, because at first he used to cry out and point, and then the miners ran out and left him alone with his phantoms, and this was terrible. He dreaded solitude; he schemed against it, and provided against it, and paid fellows to bear him company night and day, and at the festive board it was one thing to drink his phantoms neat and another to dilute them with figures of flesh and blood. He much preferred the latter.

At first, his supernatural visitors were of a unfavorable but not a ghastly character.

No. 1 was a judge who used to rise through the floor, and sit half in and half out of the wall, with a tremendous flow of horse-hair, a furrowed face, a vertical chasm between the temples, and a strike-me-off-the-rolls eye gleaming with diabolical fire from under a gray, shaggy eyebrow.

No. 2 was a policeman, who came in through the window, and stood imperturbable, all in blue, with a pair of handcuffs, and a calm eye, and a disagreeable absence of effort or emotion—an inevitable-looking policeman.

But as Crawley went deeper in crime and brandy, blood-boltered figures, erect corpses, with the sickening signs of violence in every conceivable form, used to come and blast his sight and arrest the glass on its way to his lips, and make his songs and the boisterous attempts at mirth of his withered heart die in a quaver and a shiver of fear and despair. And at this period of our tale these horrors had made room for a phantom more horrible still to such a creature as Crawley. The air would seem to thicken into sulfurous smoke, and then to clear, and then would come out clearer and clearer, more and more awful, a black figure with hoof and horns and tail, eyes like red-hot carbuncles, teeth a chevaux-de-frise of white-hot iron, and an appalling grin.*

CHAPTER LXXII.

THE party, consisting of Jacky, Jem, Robinson and George, had traversed about one half the bush, when a great heavy crow came wheeling and cackling over their heads, and then joined a number more who were now seen circling over a gum-tree some hundred yards distant.

“Let us go and see what that is,” said Jem.

Jacky grinned, and led the way. They had not gone very far when another great black bird rose so near their feet as to make them jump, and peering through the bushes they saw a man lying on his back. His arm was thrown in an easy, natural way round his gun, but at a second glance it was plain the man was dead. The crows had ripped his clothes to ribbons with their tremendous beaks, and lacerated the flesh and picked out the eyes.

They stepped a few paces from this sight. There was no sign of violence on the body.

“Poor fellow!” said Jem. “How did he come by his end, I wonder?” And he stretched forward and peered with pity and curiosity mingled.

“Lost in the bush!” said Robinson, very solemnly. And he and George exchanged a meaning look.

“What is that for?” said George, angrily, to Jacky—“grinning in sight of a dead body?”

“White fellow stupid fellow,” was all Jacky's reply.

The men now stepped up to the body to examine it; not that they had much hope of discovering who it was, but still they knew it was their duty for the sake of his kindred to try and find out.

George, overcoming a natural repugnance, examined the pockets. He found no papers. He found a knife, but no name was cut in the handle. In the man's bosom he found a small metal box, but just as he was taking it out Jem gave a halo!

“I think I know him,” cried Jem. “There is no mistaking that crop of black hair; it is my old captain, Black Will.”

“You don't say so! What could he be doing here without his party?”

“Anything in the box, George?” asked Robinson.

“Nothing but a little money. Here is a sovereign—look. And here is a bank-note.”

“A five-pound note?”

“Yes—no; it is more than that a good deal. It is for fifty pounds, Tom.”

“What?”

“A fifty-pound note, I tell you.”

“Jem!”

“Captain!”

A most expressive look was exchanged between these two, and by one impulse they both seized the stock of the gun that was in the dead man's hand. They lifted it, and yes—two fingers were wanting on the right hand.

“Come away from that fellow,” cried Robinson to George. “Let him lie.”

George looked up in some wonder. Robinson pointed sternly to the dead hand in silence. George, by the light of the other men's faces, saw it all, and recoiled with a natural movement of repugnance as from a dead snake. There was a breathless silence—and every eye bent upon this terrible enemy lying terrible no longer at their feet.

“How did he die?” asked Robinson, in a whisper.

“In the great snow-storm,” replied George, in a whisper.

“No,” said Jem, in the same tone, “he was alive yesterday. I saw his footprint after the snow was melted.”

“There was snow again last night, Tom. Perhaps he went to sleep in that with his belly empty.”

“Starvation and fatigue would do it without the snow, George. We brought a day's provisions out with us, George. He never thought of that, I will be bound.”

“Not he,” said Jem. “I'll answer for him he only thought of robbing and killing—never thought about dying himself.”

“I can't believe he is dead so easy as this,” said Robinson.

The feeling was natural. This man had come into the wood and had followed them burning to work them ill, and they to work him ill. Both were utterly baffled. He had never prevailed to hurt them, nor they him. He was dead, but by no mortal hand. The immediate cause of his death was unknown, and will never be known for certain while the world lasts.

L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose!

CHAPTER LXXIII.

“DON'T keep staring at it so, farmer, it is an ugly sight. You will see him in your sleep if you do that. Here is something better to look at—a letter. And there I carried it and never once thought of it till the sight of his hand made me feel in my pocket, and then my hand ran against it. 'Tis from Mr. Levi.”

“Thank you, Jem. Tom, will you be so kind as read it me while I work?”

“Yes, give it me. Work? Why, what are we going to work at in the bush?”

“I should think you might guess,” replied George quietly, while putting down his pickax and taking off his coat. “Well, I am astonished at both of you. You ought to know what I am going to do. Humph! Under this tree will be as good a place as any.”

“Jem, as I am a sinner, he is going to bury him.”

“Bury what? The nugget?”

“No, Jem, the Christian.” *

“A pretty Christian,” sneered Robinson.

“You know what I mean, Tom?”

“I know it is very kind of you to take all this trouble to bury my enemy,” said Robinson, hurt.

“Don't ye say that,” replied George, hurt in his turn. “He was as much my enemy as yours.”

“No such thing. He was here after me, and has been tormenting me this twelve months. You have no enemy, a great soft spoon like you.”

“Keep your temper, Tom,” answered George, in a mollifying tone. “Let each man act according to his lights. I couldn't leave a corpse to the fowls of the air.

“Gibbet a murderer, I say—don't bury him; especially when he has just been hunting our very lives.”

“Tom,” replied George doggedly, “death settles all accounts. I liked the man as little as you could; and it is not to say I am in love with a man because I sprinkle a little earth over his dead bones. Ugh! This is the unkindest soil to work. It is full of roots, enough to break a fellow's heart.”

While George was picking and grubbing out roots, and fighting with the difficult soil, Robinson opened Levi's letter viciously and read out:

“George Fielding, you have an enemy in the mine—a secret, cowardly, unscrupulous enemy, who lies in wait for your return. I have seen his face, and tremble for you. Therefore listen to my words. The old Jew, whom twice you have saved from harm and insult, is rich, his children are dead, the wife of his bosom is dead. He loves no creature now but you and Susannah; therefore run no more risks for gold, since much gold awaits you without risk. Come home. Respect the words of age and experience—come home. Delay not an hour. Oh, say not, 'I will sleep yet one more night in my tent, and then I will depart,' but ride speedily after me on the very instant. Two horses have I purchased for you and the young man your friend—two swift horses with their saddles. The voucher is inclosed. Ride speedily after me this very hour, lest evil befall you and yet more sorrow fall upon Susannah and upon—Isaac Levi.”

The reading of this letter was followed by a thoughtful silence broken only by the sound of George's pickax and the bursting roots.

“This is a very extraordinary letter. Mr. Levi knows more than he tells you, George.”

“I am of your opinion.”

“Why, captain,” said Jem, “to go by that letter, Fielding is the marked man, and not you after all. So it is his own enemy he is digging that grave for.”

“Do you think you will stop him by saying that?” asked Robinson, with a shrug.

“He was my enemy, Tom, and yours too; but now he is nobody's enemy; he is dead. Will you help me lay him in the earth, or shall I do it by myself?”

“We will help,” said the others, a little sullenly.

They brought the body to its grave under the tall gum-tree.

“Not quite so rough, Tom, if you please.”

“I didn't mean to be rough that I know of—there.”

They laid the dead villain gently and reverently in his grave. George took a handful of soil and scattered it over him.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” said he, solemnly.

The other two looked down and sprinkled soil, too, and their anger and bitterness began to soften by the side of George and over the grave.

Then Jem felt in his pocket and produced something wrapped in silver paper.

“This belongs!” said he, with a horrible simplicity. “The farmer is too good for this world, but it is a good fault. There, farmer,” said he, looking to George for approbation as he dropped the little parcel into the grave. “After all,” continued Jem, good-naturedly, “it would have been very hard upon a poor fellow to wake up in the next world and not have what does belong to him to make an honest living with.”

The grave was filled in, and a little mound made at the foot of the tree. Then George took out his knife and began to cut the smooth bark.

“What now? Oh, I see. That is a good idea, George. Read them a lesson. Say in a few words how he came here to do a deed of violence and died himself—by the hand of Heaven.”

“Tom,” replied George, cutting away at the bark, “he is gone where he is sure to be judged; so we have no call to judge him. God Almighty can do that, I do suppose, without us putting in our word.”

“Well, have it your own way. I never saw the toad so obstinate before, Jem. What is he cutting, I wonder?”

The inscription, when finished, ran thus:

“Now, Tom, for England!”

They set out again with alacrity, and battled with the bush about two hours more. George and Robinson carried the great nugget on a handkerchief stretched double across two sticks, Jem carried the picks. They were all in high spirits, and made light of scratches and difficulties. At last, somewhat suddenly, they burst out of the thick part into the mere outskirts frequented by the miners, and there they came plump upon brutus, with a gun in his hand and pistols peeping out of his pockets, come to murder Black Will and rob him of his spoils.

They were startled, and brutus astounded, for he was fully persuaded George and Robinson had ceased to exist. He was so dumfounded that Robinson walked up to him and took the gun out of his hands without any resistance on his part. The others came round him, and Robinson demanded his pistols.

“What for?” said he.

Now at this very moment his eye fell upon that fabulous mass of gold they carried, and both his eyes opened, and a sort of shiver passed over him. With ready cunning he looked another way, but it was too late. Robinson had caught that furtive glance, and a chill came over him that this villain should have seen the prize, a thing to excite cupidity to frenzy. Nothing now would have induced Robinson to leave him armed.

He replied, sternly: “Because we are four to one, and we will hang you on the nearest tree if you don't give them up. And, now, what are you doing here?”

“I was only looking for my pal,” said brutus.

“Well, you won't want a gun and pistols to look for your pal. Which way are you going?”

“Into the bush.”

“Then mizzle! That is the road.”

brutus moved gloomily away into the bush.

“There,” said Robinson, “he has turned bushranger. I've disarmed him, and saved some poor fellow's life and property. Cover up the nugget, George.”

They went on, but presently Robinson had a thought.

“Jacky,” said he, “you saw that man; should you know him again?”

“Yes.”

“Jacky, that man is our enemy. Could you track him by his footsteps without ever letting him see you?”

Jacky smiled superior.

“Then follow him and see where he goes, and whom he joins—and come to the mine directly and tell me.”

Jacky's eyes gleamed at this intelligence. He sat down, and in a few turns of the hand painted his face war, and glided like a serpent on brutus's trail.

The rest cleared the wood, and brought the nugget, safe hidden in their pocket-handkerchief, to camp. They begged Jem to accept the fifty pounds, if he did not mind handling the price of blood.

Jem assured them he had no such scruples, and took it with a burst of thanks.

Then they made him promise faithfully not to mention to a soul about the monster nugget. No more he did while he was sober, but, alas! some hours later, having a drop in his head, he betrayed the secret to one or two—say forty.

Robinson pitched their tent and mounted guard over the nugget. George was observed to be in a strange flutter. He ran hither and thither. Ran to the post-office—ran to the stationer—got paper—drew up a paper—found McLaughlan—made him sign it—went to Mr. Moore—showed him Isaac's voucher; on which Moore produced the horses, a large black horse with both bone and blood, and a good cob.

George was very much pleased with them, and asked what Levi had given for them.

“Two hundred and fifty pounds for the pair.”

“Good Heavens,” cried George, “what a price! Mr. Levi was in earnest.” Then he ran out and went to the tent and gave Robinson his letters. “But there were none for me, Tom,” sighed George. “Never mind, I shall soon—”

Now these letters brought joy and triumph to Robinson; one contained a free pardon, the other was a polite missive from the Colonial Government, in answer to the miners' petition he had sent up.

“Secretary had the honor to inform Mr. Robinson that police were on the road to the mine, and that soldiers would arrive by to-morrow to form an escort, so that the miners' gold might travel in safety down to Sydney.”

“Hurrah! this is good news,” cried Robinson, “and what a compliment to me. Do you hear, George? an escort of soldiers coming to the camp to-morrow; they will take the nugget safe to Sydney.”

“Not if we are robbed of it to-night,” replied George.

At this moment in came Jacky with news of brutus. That wily man had gone but a little way in the bush when he had made a circuit, and had slipped back into another part of the mine, and Jacky had followed him first by trail, afterward by sight, and had marked him down into a certain tent, on which he had straightway put a little red mark.

“Come back after our nugget, George. Fools we were to carry it blazing in folks' eyes.”

“I dare say we can beat him.”

“I am game to try. Jacky, I want to put a question to you.”

While Jacky and Tom were conferring in animated whispers, George was fixing an old spur he had picked up into the heel of his boot.

“That is capital, Jacky. Well, George, we have hit upon a plan.”

“And so have I.”

“You?”

“Yes! me! but tell me yours first, Tom.”

Robinson detailed him his scheme with all its ramifications, and a very ingenious stratagem it was.

For all that, when George propounded his plan in less than six words, Robinson stared with surprise and then gave way to ludicrous admiration.

“Well,” cried he, “simplicity before cunning; look at that now. Where was my head?—George, this is your day—carried nem. con.”

“And, Tom, you can do yours all the same.”

“Can I? Why, yes, to be sure I can. There, he saw that, too, before. Why, George, if you don't mind, you will be No. 1 and I No. 2. What makes you so sharp all of a sudden?”

“I have to think for Susan as well as us,” said the poor fellow, tenderly, “that is why I am sharp—for once in a way. And now, Jacky—you are a great anxiety to me, and the time is so short—come sit by me, dear Jacky, and let me try and make you understand what I have been doing for you, that you may be good and happy, and comfortable in your old age, when your poor old limbs turn stiff, and you can hunt no longer. In grateful return for the nugget, and more than that for all your goodness and kindness to me in times of bitter trouble.”

Then George showed Jacky how he had given Abner one-third of all his sheep and cattle, and Jacky two-thirds, and how McLaughlan, a just man, would see the division made. “And do leave the woods, except for a hunt now and then, Jacky; you are too good for them.”

Above all, George explained with homely earnestness the nature of the sheep, her time of lambing, etc., and showed Jacky how the sheep and cattle would always keep him fed and clothed, if he would but use them reasonably, and not kill the breeders for dinner.

And Jacky listened with glistening eyes, for George's glistened, and the sweet tones of affection and gratitude pierced through this family talk, and it is sad that we must drop the curtain on this green spot in the great camp and go among our villains.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

ROBINSON did not overrate the fatal power of the fabulous mass of gold, a glimpse of which he had incautiously given to greedy eyes. It drew brutus like a magnet after it. He came all in a flutter to mephistopheles, and told him he had met the two men carrying a lump of solid gold between them so heavy that the sticks bent under it. “The sweat ran down me at the sight of it, but I managed to look another way directly.”

What with the blows and kicks and bruises and defeats he had received, and with the gold mass his lawless eye had rested on, brutus was now in a state of mind terrible to think of.

Lust and hate, terrible twins, stung that dark heart to frenzy. Could he have had his will he would have dispensed with cunning, would have gone out and fired bullets from his gun into the tent, and, if his enemies came out alive, have met them hand to hand to slay or be slain. But the watchful foe had disarmed him, and he was compelled to listen to the more reynard-like ferocity of his accomplice.

“Bill,” said the assassin of Carlo, “keep cool, and you shall have the swag; and yet not lose your revenge neither.”

“—— you, tell me how.”

“Let the bottle alone, then; you are hot enough without that. Come nearer me. What I have got to say is not the sort of thing for me to bawl about. We should not be alive half an hour if it was heard to come from our lips.”

The two heads came close together, and Crawley leaned over the other side of the table and listened with senses keen as a razor.

“Suppose I show you how to make those two run out of their tent like two frightened women, and never once think about their swag?”

“Ah!”

“And fall blinded for life or dead or dying while we walk off with the swag.”

“Blind, dead, dying! give me your hand. How? how? how?”

“Hush! don't shout like that; come closer, and you, Smith.”

Then a diabolical scheme hissed into the listeners' ears—a scheme at once cowardly and savage—a scheme of that terrible kind that robs courage, strength and even skill of their natural advantages, and reduces their owners to the level of the weak and the timid—a scheme worthy of the assassin of Carlo, and the name I have given this wretch, whose brain was so fertile and his heart so fiendish. Its effect on the hearers was great, but very different. Crawley recoiled, not violently, but like a serpent on which water had been poured; but brutus broke into a rapture of admiration, exultation, gratified hate.

“Bless you, bless you!” cried he, with a violence more horrible than his curses, “you warm my heart, you are a pal. What a head-piece you have got! —— you, Smith, have you nothing to say? Isn't this a dodge out of the common?”

Now for the last minute or two Crawley's eyes had been fixed with a haggard expression on a distant corner of the room. He did not move them; he appeared hardly to have the power, but he answered, dropping the words down on the table anywhere.

“Ye-yes! it is very inge-nious, ah!”

mephisto. “We must buy the turpentine directly; there is only one store sells it, and that shuts at nine.”

brutus. “Do you hear, Smith? hand us out the blunt.”

Crawley. “Oh, ugh!” and his eyes seemed fascinated to that spot.

brutus (following Crawley's eye uneasily). “What is the matter?”

Crawley. “Lo-o-o-k th-e-r-e! No! on your right. Oh, his tail is in the fire!”

brutus. “Whose tail? don't be a fool!”

Crawley. “And it doesn't burn!! Oh, it burns blacker in the fire!—Ah, ah! now the eyes have caught fire—diamonds full of hell. They blast! Ah, now the teeth have caught light—red-hot nails. The mouth is as big as the table, gaping wider, wider, wider. Ah! ah! ah!”

brutus. “—— him; I won't stay in the room with such a fellow, he makes my blood run cold. Has he cut his father's throat in a church, or what?”

Crawley (shrieking). “Oh, don't go; oh, my dear friends, don't leave me alone with IT. My dear friends, you sit down right upon it—that sends it away.” And Crawley hid his face, and pointed wildly to whereabouts they were to sit upon the phantom.

brutus. “Come, it is gone now; was forced nearly to squash it first, though, haw! haw! haw!”

Crawley. “Yes, it is gone. Thank Heaven—I'll give up drinking.”

brutus. “So now fork out the blunt for the turps.”

Crawley. “No! I will give no money toward murder—robbery is bad enough. Where shall we go to?” And he rose and went out, muttering something about “a little brandy.”

brutus. “The sneak—to fail us at the pinch. I'll wring his neck round. What is this? five pounds.”

mephisto. “Don't you see the move? he won't give it us, conscience forbids; but, if we are such rogues as take it, no questions asked.”

“The tarnation hypocrite,” roared brutus, with disgust—hypocrisy was the one vice he was innocent of—out of jail, mephistopheles stole Crawley's money, left for that purpose, and went and bought a four-gallon cask of turpentine.

brutus remained and sharpened an old cutlass, the only weapon he had got left. Crawley and mephistopheles returned almost together. Crawley produced a bottle of brandy.

“Now,” said he to mephistopheles, “I don't dispute your ingenuity, my friend, but suppose while we have been talking the men have struck their tent and gone away, nugget and all?”

The pair looked terribly blank—what fools we were not to think of that.

Crawley kept them in pain a moment or two.

“Well, they have not,” said he, “I have been to look.”

“Well done,” cried mephistopheles.

“Well done,” cried brutus, gasping for breath.

“There is their tent all right.”

“How near did you go to it?”

“Near enough to hear their voices muttering.”

“When does the moon rise, to-night?”

“She is rising now.”

“When does she go down?”

“Soon after two o'clock.”

“Will you take a share of the work, Smith?”

“Heaven forbid!”