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Madame Midas

by Fergus Hume · English · Gutenberg #4946 · 607,884 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Madame Midas

Author: Fergus Hume


        
Release date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #4946]
                Most recently updated: November 8, 2016

Language: English

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Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team







MADAME MIDAS

Fergus Hume






PROLOGUE




CAST UP BY THE SEA


A wild bleak-looking coast, with huge water-worn promontories jutting
out into the sea, daring the tempestuous fury of the waves, which dashed
furiously in sheets of seething foam against the iron rocks. Two of
these headlands ran out for a considerable distance, and at the base of
each, ragged cruel-looking rocks stretched still further out into the
ocean until they entirely disappeared beneath the heaving waste of
waters, and only the sudden line of white foam every now and then
streaking the dark green waves betrayed their treacherous presence to
the idle eye. Between these two headlands there was about half a mile of
yellow sandy beach on which the waves rolled with a dull roar, fringing
the wet sands with many coloured wreaths of sea-weed and delicate
shells. At the back the cliffs rose in a kind of semi-circle, black and
precipitous, to the height of about a hundred feet, and flocks of white
seagulls who had their nests therein were constantly circling round, or
flying seaward with steadily expanded wings and discordant cries. At the
top of these inhospitable-looking cliffs a line of pale green betrayed
the presence of vegetation, and from thence it spread inland into
vast-rolling pastures ending far away at the outskirts of the bush,
above which could be seen giant mountains with snow-covered ranges. Over
all this strange contrast of savage arid coast and peaceful upland there
was a glaring red sky--not the delicate evanescent pink of an ordinary
sunset--but a fierce angry crimson which turned the wet sands and dark
expanse of ocean into the colour of blood. Far away westward, where
the sun--a molten ball of fire--was sinking behind the snow-clad peaks,
frowned long lines of gloomy clouds--like prison bars through which the
sinking orb glowed fiercely. Rising from the east to the zenith of the
sky was a huge black cloud bearing a curious resemblance to a gigantic
hand, the long lean fingers of which were stretched threateningly out
as if to grasp the land and drag it back into the lurid sea of blood;
altogether a cruel, weird-looking scene, fantastic, unreal, and bizarre
as one of Dore’s marvellous conceptions. Suddenly on the red waters
there appeared a black speck, rising and falling with the restless
waves, and ever drawing nearer and nearer to the gloomy cliffs and sandy
beach. When within a quarter of a mile of the shore, the speck resolved
itself into a boat, a mere shallop, painted a dingy white, and much
battered by the waves as it tossed lightly on the crimson waters. It had
one mast and a small sail all torn and patched, which by some miracle
held together, and swelling out to the wind drew the boat nearer to the
land. In this frail craft were two men, one of whom was kneeling in the
prow of the boat shading his eyes from the sunlight with his hands and
gazing eagerly at the cliffs, while the other sat in the centre with
bowed head, in an attitude of sullen resignation, holding the straining
sail by a stout rope twisted round his arm. Neither of them spoke a word
till within a short distance of the beach, when the man at the
look-out arose, tall and gaunt, and stretched out his hands to the
inhospitable-looking coast with a harsh, exulting laugh.

‘At last,’ he cried, in a hoarse, strained voice, and in a foreign
tongue; ‘freedom at last.’

The other man made no comment on this outburst of his companion, but
kept his eyes steadfastly on the bottom of the boat, where lay a small
barrel and a bag of mouldy biscuits, the remnants of their provisions on
the voyage.

The man who had spoken evidently did not expect an answer from his
companion, for he did not even turn his head to look at him, but stood
with folded arms gazing eagerly ahead, until, with a sudden rush, the
boat drove up high and dry on the shore, sending him head-over-heels
into the wet sand. He struggled to his feet quickly, and, running up the
beach a little way, turned to see how his companion had fared. The
other had fallen into the sea, but had picked himself up, and was busily
engaged in wringing the water from his coarse clothing. There was a
smooth water-worn boulder on the beach, and, seeing this, the man who
had spoken went up to it and sat down thereon, while his companion,
evidently of a more practical turn of mind, collected the stale biscuits
which had fallen out of the bag, then, taking the barrel carefully on
his shoulder, walked up to where the other was sitting, and threw both
biscuits and barrel at his feet.

He then flung himself wearily on the sand, and picking up a biscuit
began to munch it steadily. The other drew a tin pannikin from the bosom
of his shirt, and nodded his head towards the barrel, upon which the
eater laid down his biscuit, and, taking up the barrel, drew the bung,
and let a few drops of water trickle into the tin dish. The man on the
boulder drank every drop, then threw the pannikin down on the sand,
while his companion, who had exhausted the contents of the barrel,
looked wolfishly at him. The other, however, did not take the slightest
notice of his friend’s lowering looks, but began to eat a biscuit and
look around him. There was a strong contrast between these two waifs of
the sea which the ocean had just thrown up on the desolate coast. The
man on the boulder was a tall, slightly-built young fellow, apparently
about thirty years of age, with leonine masses of reddish-coloured
hair, and a short, stubbly beard of the same tint. His face, pale and
attenuated by famine, looked sharp and clever; and his eyes, forming
a strong contrast to his hair, were quite black, with thin,
delicately-drawn eyebrows above them. They scintillated with a peculiar
light which, though not offensive, yet gave anyone looking at him an
uncomfortable feeling of insecurity. The young man’s hands, though
hardened and discoloured, were yet finely formed, while even the coarse,
heavy boots he wore could not disguise the delicacy of his feet. He was
dressed in a rough blue suit of clothes, all torn and much stained by
sea water, and his head was covered with a red cap of wool-work which
rested lightly on his tangled masses of hair. After a time he tossed
aside the biscuit he was eating, and looked down at his companion with
a cynical smile. The man at his feet was a rough, heavy-looking fellow,
squarely and massively built, with black hair and a heavy beard of the
same sombre hue. His hands were long and sinewy; his feet--which were
bare--large and ungainly: and his whole appearance was that of a man in
a low station of life. No one could have told the colour of his eyes,
for he looked obstinately at the ground; and the expression of his
face was so sullen and forbidding that altogether he appeared to be an
exceedingly unpleasant individual. His companion eyed him for a short
time in a cool, calculating manner, and then rose painfully to his feet.

‘So,’ he said rapidly in French, waving his hand towards the frowning
cliffs, ‘so, my Pierre, we are in the land of promise; though I must
confess’--with a disparaging shrug of the shoulders--‘it certainly
does not look very promising: still, we are on dry land, and that is
something after tossing about so long in that stupid boat, with only a
plank between us and death. Bah!’--with another expressive shrug--‘why
should I call it stupid? It has carried us all the way from New
Caledonia, that hell upon earth, and landed us safely in what may turn
out Paradise. We must not be ungrateful to the bridge that carried us
over--eh, my friend?’

The man addressed as Pierre nodded an assent, then pointed towards the
boat; the other looked up and saw that the tide had risen, and that the
boat was drifting slowly away from the land.

‘It goes,’ he said coolly, ‘back again to its proper owner, I suppose.
Well, let it. We have no further need of it, for, like Caesar, we have
now crossed the Rubicon. We are no longer convicts from a French
prison, my friend, but shipwrecked sailors; you hear?’--with a sudden
scintillation from his black eyes--‘shipwrecked sailors; and I will tell
the story of the wreck. Luckily, I can depend on your discretion, as you
have not even a tongue to contradict, which you wouldn’t do if you had.’

The dumb man rose slowly to his feet, and pointed to the cliffs frowning
above them. The other answered his thought with a careless shrug of the
shoulders.

‘We must climb,’ he said lightly, ‘and let us hope the top will prove
less inhospitable than this place. Where we are I don’t know, except
that this is Australia; there is gold here, my friend, and we must get
our share of it. We will match our Gallic wit against these English
fools, and see who comes off best. You have strength, I have brains;
so we will do great things; but’--laying his hand impressively on the
other’s breast--‘no quarter, no yielding, you see!’

The dumb man nodded violently, and rubbed his ungainly hands together in
delight.

‘You don’t know Balzac, my friend,’ went on the young man in a
conversational tone, ‘or I would tell you that, like Rastignac, war
is declared between ourselves and society; but if you have not the
knowledge you have the will, and that is enough for me. Come, let us
make the first step towards our wealth;’ and without casting a glance
behind him, he turned and walked towards the nearest headland, followed
by the dumb man with bent head and slouching gait.

The rain and wind had been at work on this promontory, and their
combined action had broken off great masses of rock, which lay in rugged
confusion at the base. This offered painful but secure foothold, and
the two adventurers, with much labour--for they were weak with the
privations endured on the voyage from New Caledonia--managed to climb
half way up the cliff, when they stopped to take breath and look around
them. They were now in a perilous position, for, hanging as they were
on a narrow ledge of rock midway between earth and sky, the least slip
would have cost them their lives. The great mass of rock which frowned
above them was nearly perpendicular, yet offered here and there certain
facilities for climbing, though to do so looked like certain death. The
men, however, were quite reckless, and knew if they could get to the
top they would be safe, so they determined to attempt the rest of the
ascent.

‘As we have not the wings of eagles, friend Pierre,’ said the younger
man, glancing around, ‘we must climb where we can find foothold. God
will protect us; if not,’ with a sneer, ‘the Devil always looks after
his own.’

He crept along the narrow ledge and scrambled with great difficulty into
a niche above, holding on by the weeds and sparse grass which grew out
of the crannies of the barren crag. Followed by his companion, he went
steadily up, clinging to projecting rocks--long trails of tough grass
and anything else he could hold on to. Every now and then some seabird
would dash out into their faces with wild cries, and nearly cause them
to lose their foothold in the sudden start. Then the herbage began to
get more luxurious, and the cliff to slope in an easy incline, which
made the latter part of their ascent much easier. At last, after half an
hour’s hard work, they managed to get to the top, and threw themselves
breathlessly on the short dry grass which fringed the rough cliff. Lying
there half fainting with fatigue and hunger, they could hear, as in
a confused dream, the drowsy thunder of the waves below, and the
discordant cries of the sea-gulls circling round their nests, to which
they had not yet returned. The rest did them good, and in a short time
they were able to rise to their feet and survey the situation. In front
was the sea, and at the back the grassy undulating country, dotted here
and there with clumps of trees now becoming faint and indistinct in the
rapidly falling shadows of the night. They could also see horses and
cattle moving in the distant fields, which showed that there must be
some human habitation near, and suddenly from a far distant house which
they had not observed shone a bright light, which became to these weary
waifs of the ocean a star of hope.

They looked at one another in silence, and then the young man turned
towards the ocean again.

‘Behind,’ he said, pointing to the east, ‘lies a French prison and two
ruined lives--yours and mine--but in front,’ swinging round to the rich
fields, ‘there is fortune, food, and freedom. Come, my friend, let us
follow that light, which is our star of hope, and who knows what glory
may await us. The old life is dead, and we start our lives in this
new world with all the bitter experiences of the old to teach us
wisdom--come!’ And without another word he walked slowly down the slope
towards the inland, followed by the dumb man with his head still bent
and his air of sullen resignation.

The sun disappeared behind the snowy ranges--night drew a grey veil over
the sky as the red light died out, and here and there the stars
were shining. The seabirds sought their nests again and ceased their
discordant cries--the boat which had brought the adventurers to shore
drifted slowly out to sea, while the great black hand that rose from
the eastward stretched out threateningly towards the two men tramping
steadily onward through the dewy grass, as though it would have drawn
them back again to the prison from whence they had so miraculously
escaped.




CHAPTER I

THE PACTOLUS CLAIM


In the early days of Australia, when the gold fever was at its height,
and the marvellous Melbourne of to-day was more like an enlarged camp
than anything else, there was a man called Robert Curtis, who arrived
in the new land of Ophir with many others to seek his fortune. Mr Curtis
was of good family, but having been expelled from Oxford for holding
certain unorthodox opinions quite at variance with the accepted
theological tenets of the University, he had added to his crime by
marrying a pretty girl, whose face was her fortune, and who was born,
as the story books say, of poor but honest parents. Poverty and honesty,
however, were not sufficient recommendations in the eyes of Mr Curtis,
senior, to excuse such a match; so he promptly followed the precedent
set by Oxford, and expelled his son from the family circle. That young
gentleman and his wife came out to Australia filled with ambitious
dreams of acquiring a fortune, and then of returning to heap coals of
fire on the heads of those who had turned them out.

These dreams, however, were destined never to be realised, for within a
year after their arrival in Melbourne Mrs Curtis died giving birth to
a little girl, and Robert Curtis found himself once more alone in the
world with the encumbrance of a small child. He, however, was not a man
who wore his heart on his sleeve, and did not show much outward grief,
though, no doubt, he sorrowed deeply enough for the loss of the pretty
girl for whom he had sacrificed so much. At all events, he made up his
mind at once what to do: so, placing his child under the care of an old
lady, he went to Ballarat, and set to work to make his fortune.

While there his luck became proverbial, and he soon found himself a rich
man; but this did not satisfy him, for, being of a far-seeing nature, he
saw the important part Australia would play in the world’s history. So
with the gold won by his pick he bought land everywhere, and especially
in Melbourne, which was even then becoming metropolitan. After fifteen
years of a varied life he returned to Melbourne to settle down, and
found that his daughter had grown up to be a charming young girl, the
very image of his late wife. Curtis built a house, went in for politics,
and soon became a famous man in his adopted country. He settled a large
sum of money on his daughter absolutely, which no one, not even her
future husband, could touch, and introduced her to society.

Miss Curtis became the belle of Melbourne, and her charming face,
together with the more substantial beauties of wealth, soon brought
crowds of suitors around her. Her father, however, determined to find
a husband for her whom he could trust, and was looking for one when he
suddenly died of heart disease, leaving his daughter an orphan and a
wealthy woman.

After Mr Curtis had been buried by the side of his dead wife, the
heiress went home to her richly-furnished house, and after passing a
certain period in mourning, engaged a companion, and once more took her
position in society.

Her suitors--numerous and persistent as those of Penelope--soon returned
to her feet, and she found she could choose a husband from men of all
kinds--rich and poor, handsome and ugly, old and young. One of these,
a penniless young Englishman, called Randolph Villiers, payed her such
marked attention, that in the end Miss Curtis, contrary to the wishes of
her friends, married him.

Mr Villiers had a handsome face and figure, a varied and extensive
wardrobe, and a bad character. He, however, suppressed his real tastes
until he became the husband of Miss Curtis, and holder of the purse--for
such was the love his wife bore him that she unhesitatingly gave him
full control of all her property, excepting that which was settled on
herself by her father, which was, of course, beyond marital control. In
vain her friends urged some settlement should be made before marriage.
Miss Curtis argued that to take any steps to protect her fortune would
show a want of faith in the honesty of the man she loved, so went to the
altar and reversed the marriage service by endowing Mr Randolph Villiers
with all her worldly goods.

The result of this blind confidence justified the warnings of her
friends--for as soon as Villiers found himself in full possession of his
wife’s fortune, he immediately proceeded to spend all the money he
could lay his hands on. He gambled away large sums at his club, betted
extensively on the turf, kept open house, and finally became entangled
with a lady whose looks were much better than her morals, and whose
capacity for spending money so far exceeded his own that in two years
she completely ruined him. Mrs Villiers put up with this conduct for
some time, as she was too proud to acknowledge she had made a mistake
in her choice of a husband; but when Villiers, after spending all her
wealth in riotous living, actually proceeded to ill-treat her in order
to force her to give up the money her father had settled on her, she
rebelled. She tore off her wedding-ring, threw it at his feet, renounced
his name, and went off to Ballarat with her old nurse and the remnants
of her fortune.

Mr Villiers, however, was not displeased at this step; in fact, he was
rather glad to get rid of a wife who could no longer supply him with
money, and whose presence was a constant rebuke. He sold up the house
and furniture, and converted all available property into cash, which
cash he then converted into drink for himself and jewellery for his lady
friend. The end soon came to the fresh supply of money, and his lady
friend went off with his dearest companion, to whose purse she had taken
a sudden liking. Villiers, deserted by all his acquaintances, sank
lower and lower in the social scale, and the once brilliant butterfly
of fashion became a billiard marker, then a tout at races, and finally a
bar loafer with no visible means of support.

Meantime Mrs Villiers was prospering in Ballarat, and gaining the
respect and good opinion of everyone, while her husband was earning the
contempt of not only his former friends but even of the creatures with
whom he now associated. When Mrs Villiers went up to Ballarat after her
short but brilliant life in Melbourne she felt crushed. She had given
all the wealth of her girlish affection to her husband, and had endowed
him with all kinds of chivalrous attributes, only to find out, as many
a woman has done before and since, that her idol had feet of clay. The
sudden shock of the discovery of his baseness altered the whole of
her life, and from being a bright, trustful girl, she became a cold
suspicious woman who disbelieved in everyone and in everything.

But she was of too restless and ambitious a nature to be content with an
idle life, and although the money she still possessed was sufficient to
support her in comfort, yet she felt that she must do something, if
only to keep her thoughts from dwelling on those bitter years of
married life. The most obvious thing to do in Ballarat was to go in for
gold-mining, and chance having thrown in her way a mate of her father’s,
she determined to devote herself to that, being influenced in her
decision by the old digger. This man, by name Archibald McIntosh, was
a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman, who had been in Ballarat when the
diggings were in the height of their fame, and who knew all about the
lie of the country and where the richest leads had been in the old days.
He told Mrs Villiers that her father and himself had worked together on
a lead then known as the Devil’s Lead, which was one of the richest
ever discovered in the district. It had been found by five men, who had
agreed with one another to keep silent as to the richness of the lead,
and were rapidly making their fortunes when the troubles of the Eureka
stockade intervened, and, in the encounter between the miners and the
military, three of the company working the lead were killed, and only
two men were left who knew the whereabouts of the claim and the value
of it. These were McIntosh and Curtis, who were the original holders.
Mr Curtis, went down to Melbourne, and, as previously related, died of
heart disease, so the only man left of the five who had worked the lead
was Archibald McIntosh. He had been too poor to work it himself, and,
having failed to induce any speculator to go in with him to acquire
the land, he had kept silent about it, only staying up at Ballarat and
guarding the claim lest someone else should chance on it. Fortunately
the place where it was situated had not been renowned for gold in the
early days, and it had passed into the hands of a man who used it as
pasture land, quite ignorant of the wealth which lay beneath. When Mrs
Villiers came up to Ballarat, this man wanted to sell the land, as he
was going to Europe; so, acting under the urgent advice of McIntosh, she
sold out of all the investments which she had and purchased the whole
tract of country where the old miner assured her solemnly the Devil’s
Lead was to be found.

Then she built a house near the mine, and taking her old nurse, Selina
Sprotts, and Archibald McIntosh to live with her, sank a shaft in
the place indicated by the latter. She also engaged miners, and gave
McIntosh full control over the mine, while she herself kept the books,
paid the accounts, and proved herself to be a first-class woman of
business. She had now been working the mine for two years, but as yet
had not been fortunate enough to strike the lead. The gutter, however,
proved remunerative enough to keep the mine going, pay all the men,
and support Mrs Villiers herself, so she was quite content to wait till
fortune should smile on her, and the long-looked-for Devil’s Lead turned
up. People who had heard of her taking the land were astonished at
first, and disposed to scoff, but they soon begun to admire the plucky
way in which she fought down her ill-luck for the first year of her
venture. All at once matters changed; she made a lucky speculation in
the share market, and the Pactolus claim began to pay. Mrs Villiers
became mixed up in mining matters, and bought and sold on ‘Change with
such foresight and promptitude of action that she soon began to make a
lot of money. Stockbrokers are not, as a rule, romantic, but one of
the fraternity was so struck with her persistent good fortune that he
christened her Madame Midas, after that Greek King whose touch turned
everything into gold. This name tickled the fancy of others, and in a
short time she was called nothing but Madame Midas all over the country,
which title she accepted complacently enough as a forecast of her
success in finding the Devil’s Lead, which idea had grown into a mania
with her as it already was with her faithful henchman, McIntosh.

When Mr Villiers therefore arrived in Ballarat, he found his wife
universally respected and widely known as Madame Midas, so he went to
see her, expecting to be kept in luxurious ease for the rest of his
life. He soon, however, found himself mistaken, for his wife told him
plainly she would have nothing to do with him, and that if he dared to
show his face at the Pactolus claim she would have him turned off by
her men. He threatened to bring the law into force to make her live with
him, but she laughed in his face, and said she would bring a divorce
suit against him if he did so; and as Mr Villiers’ character could
hardly bear the light of day, he retreated, leaving Madame in full
possession of the field.

He stayed, however, in Ballarat, and took up stockbroking--living a
kind of hand-to-mouth existence, bragging of his former splendour, and
swearing at his wife for what he was pleased to call--her cruelty. Every
now and then he would pay a visit to the Pactolus, and try to see her,
but McIntosh was a vigilant guard, and the miserable creature was always
compelled to go back to his Bohemian life without accomplishing his
object of getting money from the wife he had deserted.

People talked, of course, but Madame did not mind. She had tried married
life, and had been disappointed; her old ideas of belief in human nature
had passed away; in short, the girl who had been the belle of Melbourne
as Miss Curtis and Mrs Villiers had disappeared, and the stern, clever,
cynical woman who managed the Pactolus claim was a new being called
‘Madame Midas’.




CHAPTER II

SLIVERS


Everyone has heard of the oldest inhabitant--that wonderful piece of
antiquity, with white hair, garrulous tongue, and cast-iron memory,--who
was born with the present century--very often before it--and
remembers George III, the Battle of Waterloo, and the invention of the
steam-engine. But in Australia, the oldest inhabitant is localized, and
rechristened an early settler. He remembers Melbourne before Melbourne
was; he distinctly recollects sailing up the Yarra Yarra with Batman,
and talks wildly about the then crystalline purity of its waters--an
assertion which we of to-day feel is open to considerable doubt. His
wealth is unbounded, his memory marvellous, and his acquaintances of
a somewhat mixed character, comprising as they do a series of persons
ranging from a member of Parliament down to a larrikin.

Ballarat, no doubt, possesses many of these precious pieces of antiquity
hidden in obscure corners, but one especially was known, not only in
the Golden City, but throughout Victoria. His name was Slivers--plain
Slivers, as he said himself--and, from a physical point of view, he
certainly spoke the truth. What his Christian name was no one ever knew;
he called himself Slivers, and so did everyone else, without even an
Esquire or a Mister to it--neither a head nor a tail to add dignity to
the name.

Slivers was as well known in Sturt Street and at ‘The Corner’ as the
town clock, and his tongue very much resembled that timepiece, inasmuch
as it was always going. He was a very early settler; in fact, so
remarkably early that it was currently reported the first white men who
came to Ballarat found Slivers had already taken up his abode there, and
lived in friendly relations with the local blacks. He had achieved this
amicable relationship by the trifling loss of a leg, an arm, and an eye,
all of which portions of his body were taken off the right side, and
consequently gave him rather a lop-sided appearance. But what was left
of Slivers possessed an abundant vitality, and it seemed probable he
would go on living in the same damaged condition for the next twenty
years.

The Ballarat folk were fond of pointing him out as a specimen of the
healthy climate, but this was rather a flight of fancy, as Slivers was
one of those exasperating individuals who, if they lived in a swamp or
a desert, would still continue to feel their digestions good and their
lungs strong.

Slivers was reputed rich, and Arabian-Night-like stories were told of
his boundless wealth, but no one ever knew the exact amount of money he
had, and as Slivers never volunteered any information on the subject, no
one ever did know. He was a small, wizen-looking little man, who usually
wore a suit of clothes a size too large for him, wherein scandal-mongers
averred his body rattled like a dried pea in a pod. His hair was white,
and fringed the lower portion of his yellow little scalp in a most
deceptive fashion. With his hat on Slivers looked sixty; take it off and
his bald head immediately added ten years to his existence. His one eye
was bright and sharp, of a greyish colour, and the loss of the other was
replaced by a greasy black patch, which gave him a sinister appearance.
He was cleaned shaved, and had no teeth, but notwithstanding this want,
his lips gripped the stem of his long pipe in a wonderfully tenacious
and obstinate manner. He carried on the business of a mining agent, and
knowing all about the country and the intricacies of the mines, he was
one of the cleverest speculators in Ballarat.

The office of Slivers was in Sturt Street, in a dirty, tumble-down
cottage wedged between two handsome modern buildings. It was a remnant
of old Ballarat which had survived the rage for new houses and highly
ornamented terraces. Slivers had been offered money for that ricketty
little shanty, but he declined to sell it, averring that as a snail grew
to fit his house his house had grown to fit him.

So there it stood--a dingy shingle roof overgrown with moss--a quaint
little porch and two numerously paned windows on each side. On top of
the porch a sign-board--done by Slivers in the early days, and looking
like it--bore the legend ‘Slivers, mining agent.’ The door did not
shut--something was wrong with it, so it always stood ajar in a
hospitable sort of manner. Entering this, a stranger would find himself
in a dark low-roofed passage, with a door at the end leading to the
kitchen, another on the right leading to the bedroom, and a third on
the left leading to the office, where most of Slivers’ indoor life was
spent. He used to stop here nearly all day doing business, with the
small table before him covered with scrip, and the mantelpiece behind
him covered with specimens of quartz, all labelled with the name of the
place whence they came. The inkstand was dirty, the ink thick and the
pens rusty; yet, in spite of all these disadvantages, Slivers managed
to do well and make money. He used to recommend men to different mines
round about, and whenever a manager wanted men, or new hands wanted
work, they took themselves off to Slivers, and were sure to be satisfied
there. Consequently, his office was nearly always full; either of people
on business or casual acquaintances dropping in to have a drink--Slivers
was generous in the whisky line--or to pump the old man about some
new mine, a thing which no one ever managed to do. When the office was
empty, Slivers would go on sorting the scrip on his table, drinking
his whisky, or talking to Billy. Now Billy was about as well known in
Ballarat as Slivers, and was equally as old and garrulous in his own
way. He was one of those large white yellow-crested cockatoos who, in
their captivity, pass their time like galley-slaves, chained by one leg.
Billy, however, never submitted to the indignity of a chain--he mostly
sat on Slivers’ table or on his shoulder, scratching his poll with his
black claw, or chattering to Slivers in a communicative manner. People
said Billy was Slivers’ evil spirit, and as a matter of fact, there was
something uncanny in the wisdom of the bird. He could converse fluently
on all occasions, and needed no drawing out, inasmuch as he was
always ready to exhibit his powers of conversation. He was not a pious
bird--belonging to Slivers, he could hardly be expected to be--and his
language was redolent of Billingsgate. So Billy being so clever was
quite a character in his way, and, seated on Slivers’ shoulder with his
black bead of an eye watching his master writing with the rusty pen,
they looked a most unholy pair.

The warm sunlight poured through the dingy windows of the office, and
filled the dark room with a sort of sombre glory. The atmosphere of
Slivers’ office was thick and dusty, and the sun made long beams of
light through the heavy air. Slivers had pushed all the scrip and loose
papers away, and was writing a letter in the little clearing caused by
their removal. On the old-fashioned inkstand was a paper full of grains
of gold, and on this the sunlight rested, making it glitter in
the obscurity of the room. Billy, seated on Slivers’ shoulder, was
astonished at this, and, inspired by a spirit of adventure, he climbed
down and waddled clumsily across the table to the inkstand, where he
seized a small nugget in his beak and made off with it. Slivers looked
up from his writing suddenly: so, being detected, Billy stopped and
looked at him, still carrying the nugget in his beak.

‘Drop it,’ said Slivers severely, in his rasping little voice. Billy
pretended not to understand, and after eyeing Slivers for a moment or
two resumed his journey. Slivers stretched out his hand for the ruler,
whereupon Billy, becoming alive to his danger, dropped the nugget, and
flew down off the table with a discordant shriek.

‘Devil! devil! devil!’ screamed this amiable bird, flopping up and down
on the floor. ‘You’re a liar! You’re a liar! Pickles.’

Having delivered himself of this bad language, Billy waddled to his
master’s chair, and climbing up by the aid of his claws and beak, soon
established himself in his old position. Slivers, however, was not
attending to him, as he was leaning back in his chair drumming in an
absent sort of way with his lean fingers on the table. His cork arm hung
down limply, and his one eye was fixed on a letter lying in front of
him. This was a communication from the manager of the Pactolus Mine
requesting Slivers to get him more hands, and Slivers’ thoughts had
wandered away from the letter to the person who wrote it, and from
thence to Madame Midas.

‘She’s a clever woman,’ observed Slivers, at length, in a musing sort of
tone, ‘and she’s got a good thing on in that claim if she only strikes
the Lead.’

‘Devil,’ said Billy once more, in a harsh voice.

‘Exactly,’ answered Slivers, ‘the Devil’s Lead. Oh, Lord! what a fool I
was not to have collared that ground before she did; but that infernal
McIntosh never would tell me where the place was. Never mind, I’ll be
even with him yet; curse him.’

His expression of face was not pleasant as he said this, and he grasped
the letter in front of him in a violent way, as if he were wishing his
long fingers were round the writer’s throat. Tapping with his wooden leg
on the floor, he was about to recommence his musings, when he heard a
step in the passage, and the door of his office being pushed violently
open, a man entered without further ceremony, and flung himself down on
a chair near the window.

‘Fire!’ said Billy, on seeing this abrupt entry; ‘how’s your
mother!--Ballarat and Bendigo--Bendigo and Ballarat.’

The newcomer was a man short and powerfully built, dressed in a
shabby-genteel sort of way, with a massive head covered with black hair,
heavy side whiskers and moustache, and a clean shaved chin, which had
that blue appearance common to very dark men who shave. His mouth--that
is, as much as could be seen of it under the drooping moustache--was
weak and undecided, and his dark eyes so shifty and restless that they
seemed unable to meet a steady gaze, but always looked at some inanimate
object that would not stare them out of countenance.

‘Well, Mr Randolph Villiers,’ croaked Slivers, after contemplating his
visitor for a few moments, ‘how’s business?’

‘Infernally bad,’ retorted Mr Villiers, pulling out a cigar and lighting
it. ‘I’ve lost twenty pounds on those Moscow shares.’

‘More fool you,’ replied Slivers, courteously, swinging round in his
chair so as to face Villiers. ‘I could have told you the mine was no
good; but you will go on your own bad judgment.’

‘It’s like getting blood out of a stone to get tips from you,’ growled
Villiers, with a sulky air. ‘Come now, old boy,’ in a cajoling manner,
‘tell us something good--I’m nearly stone broke, and I must live.’

‘I’m hanged if I see the necessity,’ malignantly returned Slivers,
unconsciously quoting Voltaire; ‘but if you do want to get into a good
thing--’

‘Yes! yes!’ said the other, eagerly bending forward.

‘Get an interest in the Pactolus,’ and the agreeable old gentleman
leaned back and laughed loudly in a raucous manner at his visitor’s
discomfited look.

‘You ass,’ hissed Mr Villiers, between his closed teeth; ‘you know as
well as I do that my infernal wife won’t look at me.’

‘Ho, ho!’ laughed the cockatoo, raising his yellow crest in an angry
manner; ‘devil take her--rather!’

‘I wish he would!’ muttered Villiers, fervently; then with an uneasy
glance at Billy, who sat on the old man’s shoulder complacently ruffling
his feathers, he went on: ‘I wish you’d screw that bird’s neck, Slivers;
he’s too clever by half.’

Slivers paid no attention to this, but, taking Billy off his shoulder,
placed him on the floor, then turned to his visitor and looked at him
fixedly with his bright eye in such a penetrating manner that Villiers
felt it go through him like a gimlet.

‘I hate your wife,’ said Slivers, after a pause.

‘Why the deuce should you?’ retorted Villiers, sulkily. ‘You ain’t
married to her.’

‘I wish I was,’ replied Slivers with a chuckle. ‘A fine woman, my good
sir! Why, if I was married to her I wouldn’t sneak away whenever I saw
her. I’d go up to the Pactolus claim and there I’d stay.’

‘It’s easy enough talking,’ retorted Villiers crossly, ‘but you don’t
know what a fiend she is! Why do you hate her?’

‘Because I do,’ retorted Slivers. ‘I hate her; I hate McIntosh; the
whole biling of them; they’ve got the Pactolus claim, and if they find
the Devil’s Lead they’ll be millionaires.’

‘Well,’ said the other, quite unmoved, ‘all Ballarat knows that much.’

‘But I might have had it!’ shrieked Slivers, getting up in an excited
manner, and stumping up and down the office. ‘I knew Curtis, McIntosh
and the rest were making their pile, but I couldn’t find out where; and
now they’re all dead but McIntosh, and the prize has slipped through my
fingers, devil take them!’

‘Devil take them,’ echoed the cockatoo, who had climbed up again on the
table, and was looking complacently at his master.

‘Why don’t you ruin your wife, you fool?’ said Slivers, turning
vindictively on Villiers. ‘You ain’t going to let her have all the money
while you are starving, are you?’

‘How the deuce am I to do that?’ asked Villiers, sulkily, relighting his
cigar.

‘Get the whip hand of her,’ snarled Slivers, viciously; ‘find out if
she’s in love, and threaten to divorce her if she doesn’t go halves.’

‘There’s no chance of her having any lovers,’ retorted Villiers; ‘she’s
a piece of ice.’

‘Ice melts,’ replied Slivers, quickly. ‘Wait till “Mr Right” comes
along, and then she’ll begin to regret being married to you, and then--’

‘Well?’

‘You’ll have the game in your own hands,’ hissed the wicked old man,
rubbing his hands. ‘Oh!’ he cried, spinning round on his wooden leg,
‘it’s a lovely idea. Wait till we meet “Mr Right”, just wait,’ and he
dropped into his chair quite overcome by the state of excitement he had
worked himself into.

‘If you’ve quite done with those gymnastics, my friend,’ said a soft
voice near the door, ‘perhaps I may enter.’

Both the inmates of the office looked up at this, and saw that two men
were standing at the half-open door--one an extremely handsome young
man of about thirty, dressed in a neat suit of blue serge, and wearing a
large white wide-awake hat, with a bird’s-eye handkerchief twisted round
it. His companion was short and heavily built, dressed somewhat the
same, but with his black hat pulled down over his eyes.

‘Come in,’ growled Slivers, angrily, when he saw his visitors. ‘What the
devil do you want?’

‘Work,’ said the young man, advancing to the table. ‘We are new arrivals
in the country, and were told to come to you to get work.’

‘I don’t keep a factory,’ snarled Slivers, leaning forward.

‘I don’t think I would come to you if you did,’ retorted the stranger,
coolly. ‘You would not be a pleasant master either to look at or to
speak to.’

Villiers laughed at this, and Slivers stared dumbfounded at being spoken
to in such a manner.

‘Devil,’ broke in Billy, rapidly. ‘You’re a liar--devil.’

‘Those, I presume, are your master’s sentiments towards me,’ said the
young man, bowing gravely to the bird. ‘But as soon as he recovers the
use of his tongue, I trust he will tell us if we can get work or not.’

Slivers was just going to snap out a refusal, when he caught sight
of McIntosh’s letter on the table, and this recalled to his mind the
conversation he had with Mr Villiers. Here was a young man handsome
enough to make any woman fall in love with him, and who, moreover, had a
clever tongue in his head. All Slivers’ animosity revived against Madame
Midas as he thought of the Devil’s Lead, and he determined to use this
young man as a tool to ruin her in the eyes of the world. With these
thoughts in his mind, he drew a sheet of paper towards him, and dipping
the rusty pen in the thick ink, prepared to question his visitors as
to what they could do, with a view to sending them out to the Pactolus
claim.

‘Names?’ he asked, grasping his pen firmly in his left hand.

‘Mine,’ said the stranger, bowing, ‘is Gaston Vandeloup, my friend’s
Pierre Lemaire--both French.’

Slivers scrawled this down in the series of black scratches, which did
duty with him for writing.

‘Where do you come from?’ was his next question.

‘The story,’ said M. Vandeloup, with suavity, ‘is too long to repeat at
present; but we came to-day from Melbourne.’

‘What kind of work can you do?’ asked Slivers, sharply.

‘Anything that turns up,’ retorted the Frenchman.

‘I was addressing your companion, sir; not you,’ snarled Slivers,
turning viciously on him.

‘I have to answer for both,’ replied the young man, coolly, slipping
one hand into his pocket and leaning up against the door in a negligent
attitude, ‘my friend is dumb.’

‘Poor devil!’ said Slivers, harshly.

‘But,’ went on Vandeloup, sweetly, ‘his legs, arms, and eyes are all
there.’

Slivers glared at this fresh piece of impertinence, but said nothing. He
wrote a letter to McIntosh, recommending him to take on the two men, and
handed it to Vandeloup, who received it with a bow.

‘The price of your services, Monsieur?’ he asked.

‘Five bob,’ growled Slivers, holding out his one hand.

Vandeloup pulled out two half-crowns and put them in the thin, claw-like
fingers, which instantly closed on them.

‘It’s a mining place you’re going to,’ said Slivers, pocketing the
money; ‘the Pactolus claim. There’s a pretty woman there. Have a drink?’

Vandeloup declined, but his companion, with a grunt, pushed past him,
and filling a tumbler with the whisky, drank it off. Slivers looked
ruefully at the bottle, and then hastily put it away, in case Vandeloup
should change his mind and have some.

Vandeloup put on his hat and went to the door, out of which Pierre had
already preceded him.

‘I trust, gentlemen,’ he said, with a graceful bow, ‘we shall meet
again, and can then discuss the beauty of this lady to whom Mr Slivers
alludes. I have no doubt he is a judge of beauty in others, though he is
so incomplete himself.’

He went out of the door, and then Slivers sprang up and rushed to
Villiers.

‘Do you know who that is?’ he asked, in an excited manner, pulling his
companion to the window.

Villiers looked through the dusty panes, and saw the young Frenchman
walking away, as handsome and gallant a man as he had ever seen,
followed by the slouching figure of his friend.

‘Vandeloup,’ he said, turning to Slivers, who was trembling with
excitement.

‘No, you fool,’ retorted the other, triumphantly. That is “Mr Right”.’




CHAPTER III

MADAME MIDAS AT HOME


Madame Midas was standing on the verandah of her cottage, staring far
away into the distance, where she could see the tall chimney and huge
mound of white earth which marked the whereabouts of the Pactolus claim.
She was a tall voluptuous-looking woman of what is called a Junoesque
type--decidedly plump, with firm white hands and well-formed feet. Her
face was of a whitish tint, more like marble than flesh, and appeared
as if modelled from the antique--with the straight Greek nose, high and
smooth forehead, and full red mouth, with firmly-closed lips. She had
dark and piercing eyes, with heavy arched eyebrows above them, and her
hair, of a bluish-black hue, was drawn smoothly over the forehead, and
coiled in thick wreaths at the top of her small, finely-formed head.
Altogether a striking-looking woman, but with an absence of animation
about her face, which had a calm, serene expression, effectually hiding
any thoughts that might be passing in her mind, and which resembled
nothing so much in its inscrutable look as the motionless calm which the
old Egyptians gave to their sphinxes. She was dressed for coolness in a
loose white dress, tied round her waist with a crimson scarf of
Indian silk; and her beautifully modelled arms, bare to the elbow,
and unadorned by any trinkets, were folded idly in front of her as she
looked out at the landscape, which was mellowed and full of warmth under
the bright yellow glare of the setting sun.

The cottage--for it was nothing else--stood on a slight rise immediately
in front of a dark wood of tall gum-trees, and there was a long row of
them on the right, forming a shelter against the winds, as if the wood
had thrown a protecting arm around the cottage, and wanted to draw it
closer to its warm bosom. The country was of an undulating character,
divided into fields by long rows of gorse hedges, all golden with
blossoms, which gave out a faint, peach-like odour. Some of these
meadows were yellow with corn--some a dull red with sorrel, others left
in their natural condition of bright green grass--while here and there
stood up, white and ghost-like, the stumps of old trees, the last
remnants of the forests, which were slowly retreating before the axe
of the settler. These fields, which had rather a harlequin aspect with
their varied colours, all melted together in the far distance into an
indescribable neutral tint, and ended in the dark haze of the bush,
which grew over all the undulating hills. On the horizon, however,
at intervals, a keen eye could see some tall tree standing boldly up,
outlined clearly against the pale yellow of the sky. There was a white
dusty road or rather a track between two rough fences, with a wide space
of green grass on each side, and here and there could be seen the cattle
wandering idly homeward, lingering every now and then to pull at a
particularly tempting tuft of bush grass growing in the moist
ditches which ran along each side of the highway. Scattered over this
pastoral-looking country were huge mounds of white earth, looking like
heaps of carded wool, and at the end of each of these invariably stood
a tall, ugly skeleton of wood. These marked the positions of the
mines--the towers contained the winding gear, while the white earth was
the clay called mulloch, brought from several hundred feet below the
surface. Near these mounds were rough-looking sheds with tall red
chimneys, which made a pleasant spot of colour against the white of
the clay. On one of these mounds, rather isolated from the others, and
standing by itself in the midst of a wide green paddock, Mrs Villiers’
eyes were fixed, and she soon saw the dark figure of a man coming slowly
down the white mound, along the green field and advancing slowly up the
hill. When she saw him coming, without turning her head or raising her
voice, she called out to someone inside,

‘Archie is coming, Selina--you had better hurry up the tea, for he will
be hungry after such a long day.’

The person inside made no answer save by an extra clatter of some
domestic utensils, and Madame apparently did not expect a reply, for
without saying anything else she walked slowly down the garden path, and
leaned lightly over the gate, waiting for the newcomer, who was indeed
none other than Archibald McIntosh, the manager of the Pactolus.

He was a man of about medium height, rather thin than otherwise, with a
long, narrow-looking head and boldly cut features--clean shaved save for
a frill of white hair which grew on his throat up the sides of his head
to his ears, and which gave him rather a peculiar appearance, as if he
had his jaw bandaged up. His eyes were grey and shrewd-looking, his lips
were firmly compressed--in fact, the whole appearance of his face was
obstinate--the face of a man who would stick to his opinions whatever
anyone else might say to the contrary. He was in a rough miner’s dress,
all splashed with clay, and as he came up to the gate Madame could see
he was holding something in his hand.

‘D’ye no ken what yon may be?’ he said, a smile relaxing his grim
features as he held up a rather large nugget; ‘’tis the third yin this
week!’

Madame Midas took the nugget from him and balanced it carefully in her
hand, with a thoughtful look in her face, as if she was making a mental
calculation.

‘About twenty to twenty-five ounces, I should say,’ she observed in
her soft low voice; ‘the last we had was fifteen, and the one before
twenty--looks promising for the gutter, doesn’t it?’

‘Well, I’ll no say but what it micht mean a deal mair,’ replied
McIntosh, with characteristic Scotch caution, as he followed Madame into
the house; ‘it’s no a verra bad sign, onyhow; I winna say but what we
micht be near the Devil’s Lead.’

‘And if we are?’ said Madame, turning with a smile.

‘Weel, mem, ye’ll have mair siller nor ye’ll ken what to dae wi’, an’
‘tis to be hoped ye’ll no be making a fool of yersel.’

Madame laughed--she was used to McIntosh’s plain speaking, and it in no
wise offended her. In fact, she preferred it very much more than being
flattered, as people’s blame is always genuine, their praise rarely so.
At all events she was not displeased, and looked after him with a smile
in her dark eyes as he disappeared into the back kitchen to make himself
decent for tea. Madame herself sat down in an arm-chair in the bow
window, and watched Selina preparing the meal.

Selina Jane Sprotts, who now acted as servant to Mrs Villiers, was
rather an oddity in her way. She had been Madame’s nurse, and had
followed her up to Ballarat, with the determination of never leaving
her. Selina was a spinster, as her hand had never been sought
in marriage, and her personal appearance was certainly not very
fascinating. Tall and gaunt, she was like a problem from Euclid, all
angles, and the small quantity of grey hair she possessed was screwed
into a hard lump at the back of her head. Her face was reddish in
colour, and her mouth prim and pursed up, as if she was afraid of saying
too much, which she need not have been, as she rarely spoke, and was
as economical of her words as she was of everything else. She was much
given to quoting proverbs, and hurled these prepared little pieces of
wisdom on every side like pellets out of a pop-gun. Conversation which
consists mainly of proverbs is rarely exhilarating; consequently Miss
Sprotts was not troubled to talk much, either by Madame or McIntosh.

Miss Sprotts moved noiselessly about the small room, in a wonderfully
dextrous manner considering her height, and, after laying the table,
placed the teapot on the hob to ‘draw’, thereby disturbing a cat and
a dog who were lying in front of the fire--for there was a fire in the
room in spite of the heat of the day, Selina choosing to consider that
the house was damp. She told Madame she knew it was damp because her
bones ached, and as she was mostly bones she certainly had a good
opportunity of judging.

Annoyed at being disturbed by Miss Sprotts, the dog resigned his
comfortable place with a plaintive growl, but the cat, of a more
irritable temperament, set up and made a sudden scratch at her hand,
drawing blood therefrom.

‘Animals,’ observed Selina, grimly, ‘should keep their place;’ and she
promptly gave the cat a slap on the side of the head, which sent him
over to Madame’s feet, with an angry spit. Madame picked him up and
soothed his ruffled feelings so successfully, that he curled himself up
on her lap and went to sleep.

By-and-bye Archie, who had been making a great splashing in the back
premises, came in looking clean and fresh, with a more obstinate look
about his face than ever. Madame went to the tea-table and sat down,
for she always had her meals with them, a fact of which they were very
proud, and they always treated her with intense respect, though every
now and then they were inclined to domineer. Archie, having seen that
the food on the table was worth thanking God for, asked a blessing in
a peremptory sort of manner, as if he thought Heaven required a deal of
pressing to make it attentive. Then they commenced to eat in silence,
for none of the party were very much given to speech, and no sound was
heard save the rattling of the cups and saucers and the steady ticking
of the clock. The window was open, and a faint breeze came in--cool and
fragrant with the scent of the forest, and perfumed with the peach-like
odour of the gorse blossoms. There was a subdued twilight through all
the room, for the night was coming on, and the gleam of the flickering
flames of the fire danced gaily against the roof and exaggerated all
objects to an immense size. At last Archie pushed back his chair to show
that he had finished, and prepared to talk.

‘I dinna see ony new bodies coming,’ he said, looking at his mistress.
‘They, feckless things, that left were better than none, though they
should hae been skelped for their idleness.’

‘You have written to Slivers?’ said Madame, raising her eyes.

‘That wudden-legged body,’ retorted McIntosh. ‘Deed and I have, but the
auld tyke hasna done onything to getting me what I want. Weel, weel,’ in
a resigned sort of a manner, ‘we micht be waur off than we are, an’ wha
kens but what Providence will send us men by-and-bye?’

Selina looked up at this, saw her opportunity, and let slip an
appropriate proverb.

‘If we go by by-and-bye lane,’ she said sharply, ‘we come to the gate of
never.’

This being undeniable, no one gave her the pleasure of contradicting
her, for Archie knew it was impossible to argue with Selina, so handy
was she with her proverbial wisdom--a kind of domestic Tupper, whose
philosophy was of the most irritating and unanswerable kind. He did
the wisest thing he could under the circumstances, and started a new
subject.

‘I say yon the day.’

‘Yon’ in this case meant Mr Villiers, whose name was tabooed in the
house, and was always spoken of in a half-hinting kind of way. As both
her servants knew all about her unhappy life, Madame did not scruple to
talk to them.

‘How was he looking?’ she asked, smoothing the crumbs off her dress.

‘Brawly,’ replied Archie, rising; ‘he lost money on that Moscow mine,
but he made a fine haul owre the Queen o’ Hearts claim.’

‘The wicked,’ observed Selina, ‘flourish like a green bay tree.’

‘Ou, ay,’ retorted McIntosh, drily; ‘we ken a’ aboot that, Selina--auld
Hornie looks after his ain.’

‘I think he leads a very hand-to-mouth existence,’ said Madame, calmly;
‘however rich he may become, he will always be poor, because he never
was a provident man.’

‘He’s comin’ tae see ye, mem,’ said Archie, grimly, lighting his pipe.

Madame rose to her feet and walked to the window.

‘He’s done that before,’ she said, complacently; ‘the result was not
satisfactory.’

‘Continual dropping wears away a stone,’ said Selina, who was now
clearing away.

‘But not iron,’ replied Madame, placidly; ‘I don’t think his persistence
will gain anything.’

Archie smiled grimly, and then went outside to smoke his pipe, while
Madame sat down by the open window and looked out at the fast-fading
landscape.

Her thoughts were not pleasant. She had hoped to cut herself off from
all the bitterness and sorrow of her past life, but this husband of
hers, like an unquiet spirit, came to trouble her and remind her of
a time she would willingly have forgotten. She looked calm and quiet
enough sitting there with her placid face and smooth brow; but this
woman was like a slumbering volcano, and her passions were all the more
dangerous from being kept in check.

A bat flew high up in the air across the clear glow of the sky,
disappearing into the adjacent bush, and Madame, stretching out her
hand, idly plucked a fresh, dewy rose off the tree which grew round the
window.

‘If I could only get rid of him,’ she thought, toying with the flower;
‘but it is impossible. I can’t do that without money, and money I never
will have till I find that lead. I must bribe him, I suppose. Oh, why
can’t he leave me alone now? Surely he has ruined my life sufficiently
in the past to let me have a few years, if not of pleasure, at least of
forgetfulness.’ And with a petulant gesture she hurled the rose out
of the window, where it struck Archie a soft and fragrant blow on the
cheek.

‘Yes,’ said Madame to herself, as she pulled down the window, ‘I must
get rid of him, and if bribery won’t do--there are other means.’




CHAPTER IV

THE GOOD SAMARITAN


Is there anyone nowadays who reads Cowper--that charming, domestic poet
who wrote ‘The Task’, and invested even furniture with the glamour of
poesy? Alas! to many people Cowper is merely a name, or is known only as
the author of the delightfully quaint ballad of John Gilpin. Yet he
was undoubtedly the Poet Laureate of domesticity, and every householder
should possess a bust or picture of him--placed, not amid the frigid
splendours of the drawing room, but occupying the place of honour in
his own particular den, where everything is old-fashioned, cheery, and
sanctified by long usage. No one wrote so pleasantly about the pleasures
of a comfortable room as Cowper. And was he not right to do so? After
all, every hearth is the altar of the family, whereon the sacred fire
should be kept constantly burning, waxing and waning with the seasons,
but never be permitted to die out altogether. Miss Sprotts, as before
mentioned, was much in favour of a constant fire, because of the alleged
dampness of the house, and Madame Midas did not by any means object, as
she was a perfect salamander for heat. Hence, when the outward door
was closed, the faded red curtains of the window drawn, and the newly
replenished fire blazed brightly in the wide fireplace, the room was
one which even Cowper--sybarite in home comforts as he was--would have
contemplated with delight.

Madame Midas was seated now at the small table in the centre of the
room, poring over a bewildering array of figures, and the soft glow of
the lamp touched her smooth hair and white dress with a subdued light.

Archie sat by the fire, half asleep, and there was a dead silence in the
room, only broken by the rapid scratching of Madame’s pen or the click
of Selina’s needles. At last Mrs Villiers, with a sigh of relief, laid
down her pen, put all her papers together, and tied them neatly with a
bit of string.

‘I’m afraid I’ll have to get a clerk, Archie,’ she said, as she put the
papers away, ‘the office work is getting too much for me.’

‘’Deed, mem, and ‘tis that same I was thinkin’ o’,’ returned Mr
McIntosh, sitting bolt upright in his chair, lest the imputation of
having been asleep should be brought against him. ‘It’s ill wark seein’
ye spoilin’ your bonny eyes owre sic a muckle lot o’ figures as ye hae
there.’

‘Someone must do it,’ said Madame, resuming her seat at the table.

‘Then why not get a body that can dae it?’ retorted Archie; ‘not but
what ye canna figure yersel’, mem, but really ye need a rest, and if I
hear of onyone in toun wha we can trust I’ll bring him here next week.’

‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t,’ said Madame, musingly; ‘the mine is
fairly under way now, and if things go on as they are doing, I must have
someone to assist me.’

At this moment a knock came to the front door, which caused Selina to
drop her work with a sudden start, and rise to her feet.

‘Not you, Selina,’ said Madame, in a quiet voice; ‘let Archie go; it may
be some tramp.’

‘’Deed no, mem,’ replied Archie, obstinately, as he arose from his seat;
‘’tis verra likely a man fra the warks saying he wants to go. There’s
mair talk nor sense aboot them, I’m thinkin’--the yattering parrots.’

Selina resumed her knitting in a most phlegmatic manner, but Madame
listened intently, for she was always haunted by a secret dread of
her husband breaking in on her, and it was partly on this account that
McIntosh stayed in the house. She heard a murmur of voices, and then
Archie returned with two men, who entered the room and stood before
Madame in the light of the lamp.

‘’Tis two men fra that wudden-legged gowk o’ a Slivers,’ said Archie,
respectfully. ‘Ain o’ them has a wee bit letter for ye’--turning to
receive same from the foremost man.

The man, however, did not take notice of Archie’s gesture, but walking
forward to Madame, laid the letter down before her. As he did so, she
caught sight of the delicacy of his hands, and looked up suddenly with a
piercing gaze. He bore the scrutiny coolly, and took a chair in silence,
his companion doing the same, while Madame opened the letter and read
Slivers’ bad writing with a dexterity only acquired by long practice.
Having finished her perusal, she looked up slowly.

‘A broken-down gentleman,’ she said to herself, as she saw the easy
bearing and handsome face of the young man; then looking at his
companion, she saw by his lumpish aspect and coarse hands, that he
occupied a much lower rank of life than his friend.

Monsieur Vandeloup--for it was he--caught her eye as she was
scrutinising them, and his face broke into a smile--a most charming
smile, as Madame observed mentally, though she allowed nothing of her
thoughts to appear on her face.

‘You want work,’ she said, slowly folding up the letter, and placing it
in her pocket; ‘do you understand anything about gold-mining?’

‘Unfortunately, no, Madame,’ said Vandeloup, coolly; ‘but we are willing
to learn.’

Archie grunted in a dissatisfied manner, for he was by no means in
favour of teaching people their business, and, besides, he thought
Vandeloup too much of a gentleman to do good work.

‘You look hardly strong enough for such hard labour,’ said Mrs Villiers,
doubtfully eyeing the slender figure of the young man. ‘Your companion,
I think, will do, but you--’

‘I, Madame, am like the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin,’
replied Vandeloup, gaily; ‘but, unfortunately, I am now compelled by
necessity to work, and though I should prefer to earn my bread in an
easier manner, beggars,’--with a characteristic shrug, which did not
escape Madame’s eye--cannot be choosers.’

‘You are French?’ she asked quickly, in that language.

‘Yes, Madame,’ he replied in the same tongue, ‘both my friend and myself
are from Paris, but we have not been long out here.’

‘Humph,’ Madame leaned her head on her hand and thought, while Vandeloup
looked at her keenly, and remembered what Slivers had said.

‘She is, indeed, a handsome woman,’ he observed, mentally; ‘my lines
will fall in pleasant places, if I remain here.’

Mrs Villiers rather liked the looks of this young man; there was a
certain fascination about him which few women could resist, and Madame,
although steeled to a considerable extent by experience, was yet a
woman. His companion, however, she did not care about--he had a sullen
and lowering countenance, and looked rather dangerous.

‘What is your name?’ she asked the young man.

‘Gaston Vandeloup.’

‘You are a gentleman?’

He bowed, but said nothing.

‘And you?’ asked Madame, sharply turning to the other.

He looked up and touched his mouth.

‘Pardon him not answering, Madame,’ interposed Vandeloup, ‘he has the
misfortune to be dumb.’

‘Dumb?’ echoed Madame, with a glance of commiseration, while Archie
looked startled, and Selina mentally observed that silence was golden.

‘Yes, he has been so from his birth,--at least, so he gives me
to understand,’ said Gaston, with a shrug of his shoulders, which
insinuated a doubt on the subject; ‘but it’s more likely the result
of an accident, for he can hear though he cannot speak. However, he is
strong and willing to work; and I also, if you will kindly give me an
opportunity,’ added he, with a winning smile.

‘You have not many qualifications,’ said Madame, shortly, angry with
herself for so taking to this young man’s suave manner.

‘Probably not,’ retorted Vandeloup, with a cynical smile. ‘I fancy it
will be more a case of charity than anything else, as we are starving.’

Madame started, while Archie murmured ‘Puir deils.’

‘Surely not as bad as that?’ observed Mrs Villiers, in a softer tone.

‘Why not?’ retorted the Frenchman, carelessly. ‘Manna does not fall from
heaven as in the days of Moses. We are strangers in a strange land, and
it is hard to obtain employment. My companion Pierre can work in your
mine, and if you will take me on I can keep your books’--with a sudden
glance at a file of papers on the table.

‘Thank you, I keep my own books,’ replied Madame, shortly. ‘What do you
say to engaging them, Archie?’

‘We ma gie them a try,’ said McIntosh, cautiously. ‘Ye do need a figger
man, as I tauld ye, and the dour deil can wark i’ the claim.’

Madame drew a long breath, and then made up her mind.

‘Very well,’ she said, sharply; ‘you are engaged, M. Vandeloup, as my
clerk, and your companion can work in the mine. As to wages and all
that, we will settle to-morrow, but I think you will find everything
satisfactory.’

‘I am sure of that, Madame,’ returned Vandeloup, with a bow.

‘And now,’ said Madame Midas, graciously, relaxing somewhat now that
business was over, ‘you had better have some supper.’

Pierre’s face lighted up when he heard this invitation, and Vandeloup
bowed politely.

‘You are very kind,’ he said, looking at Mrs Villiers in a friendly
manner; ‘supper is rather a novelty to both of us.’

Selina meanwhile had gone out, and returned with some cold beef and
pickles, a large loaf and a jug of beer. These she placed on the table,
and then retired to her seat again, inwardly rebellious at having two
tramps at the table, but outwardly calm.

Pierre fell upon the victuals before him with the voracity of a starving
animal, and ate and drank in such a savage manner that Madame was
conscious of a kind of curious repugnance, and even Archie was startled
out of his Scotch phlegm.

‘I wadna care aboot keepin’ yon long,’ he muttered to himself; ‘he’s
mair like a cannibal nor a ceevalized body.’

Vandeloup, however, ate very little and soon finished; then filling a
glass with beer, he held it to his lips and bowed again to Madame Midas.

‘To your health, Madame,’ he said, drinking.

Mrs Villiers bowed courteously. This young man pleased her. She was
essentially a woman with social instincts, and the appearance of this
young and polished stranger in the wilds of the Pactolus claim promised
her a little excitement. It was true that every now and then, when she
caught a glimpse from his scintillating eyes, she was conscious of a
rather unpleasant sensation, but this she put down to fancy, as the
young man’s manners were really charming.

When the supper was ended, Pierre pushed back his chair into the shadow
and once more relapsed into his former gloom, but Vandeloup stood up and
looked towards Madame in a hesitating manner.

‘I’m afraid, Madame, we disturb you,’ he murmured vaguely, though in
his heart he wished to stay in this pleasant room and talk to such a
handsome woman; ‘we had best be going.’

‘Not at all,’ answered Madame, graciously, ‘sit down; you and your
friend can sleep in the men’s quarters to-night, and to-morrow we will
see if we can’t provide you with a better resting-place.’

Vandeloup murmured something indistinctly, and then resumed his seat.

‘Meanwhile,’ said Mrs Villiers, leaning back in her chair, and regarding
him fixedly, ‘tell me all about yourselves.’

‘Alas, Madame,’ answered Vandeloup, with a charming smile and
deprecating shrug of his shoulders, ‘there is not much to tell. I was
brought up in Paris, and, getting tired of city life, I came out to
India to see a little of the world; then I went over to Borneo, and was
coming down to Australia, when our vessel was wrecked and all on board
were drowned but myself and this fellow,’ pointing to Pierre, ‘who was
one of the sailors. We managed to get a boat, and after tossing about
for nearly a week we were cast up on the coast of Queensland, and from
thence came to Melbourne. I could not get work there, neither could
my friend, and as we heard of Ballarat we came up here to try to get
employment, and our lines, Madame,’--with another bow--‘have fallen in a
pleasant place.’

‘What a dreadful chapter of accidents,’ said Madame, coolly looking at
him to see if he was speaking the truth, for experience of her husband
had inspired her with an instinctive distrust of men. Vandeloup,
however, bore her scrutiny without moving a muscle of his face, so
Madame at last withdrew her eyes, quite satisfied that his story was
true.

‘Is there no one in Paris to whom you can write?’ she asked, after a
pause.

‘Luckily, there is,’ returned Gaston, ‘and I have already sent a letter,
asking for a remittance, but it takes time to get an answer, and as I
have lost all my books, papers, and money, I must just wait for a few
months, and, as I have to live in the meantime, I am glad to obtain
work.’

‘Still, your consul--’ began Mrs Villiers.

‘Alas, Madame, what can I say--how can I prove to him that I am what
I assert to be? My companion is dumb and cannot speak for me, and,
unluckily, he can neither read nor write. I have no papers to prove
myself, so my consul may think me--what you call--a scamp. No; I will
wait till I receive news from home, and get to my own position again;
besides,’ with a shrug, ‘after all, it is experience.’

‘Experience,’ said Madame, quietly, ‘is a good schoolmaster, but the
fees are somewhat high.’

‘Ah!’ said Vandeloup, with a pleased look, ‘you know Heine, I perceive,
Madame. I did not know he was read out here.’

‘We are not absolute barbarians, M. Vandeloup,’ said Madame, with a
smile, as she arose and held out her hand to the young man; ‘and now
good night, for I am feeling tired, and I will see you to-morrow. Mr
McIntosh will show you where you are to sleep.’

Vandeloup took the hand she held out to him and pressed it to his lips
with a sudden gesture. ‘Madame,’ he said, passionately, ‘you are an
angel, for to-day you have saved the lives of two men.’

Madame snatched her hand away quickly, and a flush of annoyance spread
over her face as she saw how Selina and Archie stared. Vandeloup,
however, did not wait for her answer, but went out, followed by Pierre.
Archie put on his hat and walked out after them, while Madame Midas
stood looking at Selina with a thoughtful expression of countenance.

‘I don’t know if I’ve done a right thing, Selina,’ she said, at length;
‘but as they were starving I could hardly turn them away.’

‘Cast your bread on the waters and it shall come back after many
days--buttered,’ said Selina, giving her own version of the text.

Madame laughed.

‘M. Vandeloup talks well,’ she observed.

‘So did HE,’ replied Selina, with a sniff, referring to Mr Villiers;
‘once bitten, twice shy.’

‘Quite right, Selina,’ replied Mrs Villiers, coolly; ‘but you are going
too fast. I’m not going to fall in love with my servant.’

‘You’re a woman,’ retorted Selina, undauntedly, for she had not much
belief in her own sex.

‘Yes, who has been tricked and betrayed by a man,’ said Madame,
fiercely; ‘and do you think because I succour a starving human being
I am attracted by his handsome face? You ought to know me better than
that, Selina. I have always been true to myself,’ and without another
word she left the room.

Selina stood still for a moment, then deliberately put away her work,
slapped the cat in order to relieve her feelings, and poked the fire
vigorously.

‘I don’t like him,’ she said, emphasizing every word with a poke. ‘He’s
too smooth and handsome, his eyes ain’t true, and his tongue’s too
smart. I hate him.’

Having delivered herself of this opinion, she went to boil some water
for Mr McIntosh, who always had some whisky hot before going to bed.

Selina was right in her estimate of Vandeloup, and, logically argued,
the case stood thus:--

Some animals of a fine organization have an instinct which warns them to
avoid approaching danger.

Woman is one of these finely-organized animals. ERGO--

Let no woman go contrary to her instinct.




CHAPTER V

MAMMON’S TREASURE HOUSE


At the foot of the huge mound of white mulloch which marked the site
of the Pactolus Mine was a long zinc-roofed building, which was divided
into two compartments. In one of these the miners left their clothes,
and put on rough canvas suits before going down, and here also they were
searched on coming up in order to see if they had carried away any gold.
From this room a long, narrow passage led to the top of the shaft, so
that any miner having gold concealed upon him could not throw it away
and pick it up afterwards, but had to go right into the searching room
from the cage, and could not possibly hide a particle without being
found out by the searchers. The other room was the sleeping apartment of
such miners as stayed on the premises, for the majority of the men went
home to their families when their work was done.

There were three shifts of men on the Pactolus during the twenty-four
hours, and each shift worked eight hours at a time--the first going
on at midnight and knocking off at eight in the morning, the second
commencing at eight and ending at four in the afternoon, and the third
starting at four and lasting until midnight again, when the first shift
of men began anew.

Consequently, when M. Vandeloup awoke next morning at six o’clock the
first shift were not yet up, and some of the miners who had to go on
at eight were sleeping heavily in their beds. The sleeping places were
berths, ranging along two sides of the room, and divided into upper and
lower compartments like those on shipboard.

Gaston having roused himself naturally wanted to see where he was, so
rubbing his eyes and yawning he leaned on his elbow and took a leisurely
survey of his position.

He saw a rather large room lighted at regular intervals by three square
windows, and as these were uncurtained, the cold, searching light of
daybreak was slowly stealing through them into the apartment, and all
the dusky objects therein were gradually revealing themselves in the
still light. He could hear the heavy, monotonous breathing of the men,
and the restless turning and tossing of those who could not sleep.

Gaston yawned once or twice, then feeling disinclined for any more
sleep, he softly put on his clothes, so as not to awake Pierre, who
slept in the berth below, and descending from his sleeping-place groped
his way to the door and went out into the cool fragrant morning.

There was a chill wind blowing from the bush, bringing with it a faint
aromatic odour, and on glancing downwards he saw that the grass was wet
with dew. The dawn was burning redly in the east, and the vivid crimson
of the sky put him in mind of that sunset under which he had landed with
his companion on the Queensland coast. Suddenly a broad shaft of yellow
light broke into the pale pink of the sky, and with a burst of splendour
the sun rose slowly into sight from behind the dark bush, and all the
delicate workings of the dawn disappeared in the flood of golden light
which poured over the landscape.

Vandeloup looked idly at all this beauty with an unobservant eye, being
too much occupied with his thoughts to take notice of anything; and it
was only when two magpies near him broke into a joyous duet, in which
each strove to emulate the other’s mellow notes, that he awoke from his
brown study, and began to walk back again to the mine.

‘I must let nothing stand in my way to acquire money,’ he said,
musingly; ‘with it one can rule the world; without it--but how trite
and bald these well-worn maxims seem! Why do I repeat them, parrot-like,
when I see what I have to do so clearly before me? That woman, for
instance--I must begin by making her my friend. Bah! she is that
already; I saw it in her eyes, which she can’t control as she does
her face. Yes, I must make her my friend; my very dear friend--and
then--well, to my mind, the world-pivot is a woman. I will spare no one
in order to attain my ends--I will make myself my own God, and consider
no one but myself, and those who stand in my path must get out of it or
run the chance of being crushed. This,’ with a cynical smile, ‘is what
some would call the devil’s philosophy; at all events, it is good enough
for me.’

He was near the mine by this time, and hearing someone calling to him he
looked up, and saw McIntosh walking towards him. There was a stir in
the men’s quarters now, and he could see the door was open and several
figures were moving briskly about, while a number of others were
crossing the fields. The regular beat of the machinery still continued,
and the smoke was pouring out thick and black from the tall red chimney,
while the wheels were spinning round in the poppet-heads as the mine
slowly disgorged the men who had been working all night.

McIntosh came slowly along with his hands in his pockets and a puzzled
look on his severe face. He could not make up his mind whether to like
or dislike this young man, but Madame Midas had seemed so impressed
that he had half made up his mind to dislike him out of a spirit of
contradiction.

‘Weemen are sae easy pleased, puir feckless bodies,’ he said to himself,
‘a bonny face is a’ they fash their heads aboot, though the same may be
already in the grip of auld Nickyben. Weel, weel, if Madam does fancy
the lad--an’ he’s no bad lookin’, I’ll say that--she may just hae her
ain way, and I’ll keep my e’e on baith.’

He looked grimly at the young man as he came briskly forward with a gay
smile.

‘Ye’re a verra early bird,’ he said, fondling his frill of white hair,
and looking keenly at the tall, slim figure of the Frenchman.

‘Case of “must”, my friend,’ returned Vandeloup, coolly; ‘it’s only rich
men can afford to be in bed, not poor devils like me.’

‘You’re no muckle like ither folk,’ said the suspicious old Scotchman,
with a condemnatory sniff.

‘Of that I am glad,’ retorted Vandeloup, with suavity, as he walked
beside him to the men’s quarters. ‘What a horrible thing to be the
duplicate of half-a-dozen other men. By the way,’ breaking off into a
new subject, ‘Madame Midas is charming.’

‘Aye, aye,’ said Archie, jealously, ‘we ken all aboot they
French-fangled way o’ gieing pretty words, and deil a scrap of truth in
ony o’ them.’

Gaston was about to protest that he said no more than he felt, which was
indeed the truth, but Archie impatiently hurried him off to breakfast at
the office, as he declared himself famishing. They made a hearty meal,
and, having had a smoke and a talk, prepared to go below.

First of all, they arrayed themselves in underground garments--not grave
clothes, though the name is certainly suggestive of the cemetery--which
consisted of canvas trousers, heavy boots, blue blouses of a rough
woollen material, and a sou’wester each. Thus accoutred, they went
along to the foot of the poppet heads, and Archie having opened a door
therein, Vandeloup saw the mouth of the shaft yawning dark and gloomy
at his feet. As he stood there, gazing at the black hole which seemed to
pierce down into the entrails of the earth, he turned round to take one
last look at the sun before descending to the nether world.

This is quite a new experience to me,’ he said, as they stepped into the
wet iron cage, which had ascended to receive them in answer to Archie’s
signal, and now commenced to drop down silently and swiftly into the
pitchy darkness. ‘It puts me in mind of Jules Verne’s romances.’

Archie did not reply, for he was too much occupied in lighting his
candle to answer, and, moreover, knew nothing about romances, and cared
still less. So they went on sliding down noiselessly into the gloom,
while the water, falling from all parts of the shaft, kept splashing
constantly on the top of the cage and running in little streams over
their shoulders.

‘It’s like a nightmare,’ thought the Frenchman, with a nervous shudder,
as he saw the wet walls gleaming in the faint light of the candle.
‘Worthy of Dante’s “Inferno”.’

At last they reached the ground, and found themselves in the main
chamber, from whence the galleries branched off to east and west.

It was upheld on all sides by heavy wooden supports of bluegum and
stringy bark, the scarred surfaces of which made them look like the
hieroglyphic pillars in old Egyptian temples. The walls were dripping
with damp, and the floor of the chamber, though covered with iron
plates, was nearly an inch deep with yellow-looking water, discoloured
by the clay of the mine. Two miners in rough canvas clothes were
waiting here, and every now and then a trolly laden with wash would roll
suddenly out of one of the galleries with a candle fastened in front of
it, and would be pushed into the cage and sent up to the puddlers. Round
the walls candles fastened to spikes were stuck into the woodwork, and
in their yellow glimmer the great drops of water clinging to the roof
and sides of the chamber shone like diamonds.

‘Aladdin’s garden,’ observed Vandeloup, gaily, as he lighted his candle
at that of Archie’s and went towards the eastern gallery, ‘only the
jewels are not substantial enough.’

Archie showed the Frenchman how to carry his candle in the miner’s
manner, so that it could not go out, which consisted in holding it low
down between the forefinger and third finger, so that the hollow palm of
the hand formed a kind of shield; and then Vandeloup, hearing the sound
of falling water close to him, asked what it was, whereupon Archie
explained it was for ventilating purposes. The water fell the whole
height of the mine through a pipe into a bucket, and a few feet above
this another pipe was joined at right angles to the first and stretched
along the gallery near the roof like a never-ending serpent right to the
end of the drive. The air was driven along this by the water, and then,
being released from the pipe, returned back through the gallery, so that
there was a constant current circulating all through the mine.

As they groped their way slowly along, their feet splashed into pools
of yellow clayey water at the sides of the drive, or stumbled over the
rough ground and rugged rails laid down for the trollies. All along the
gallery, at regular intervals, were posts of stringy bark in a vertical
position, while beams of the same were laid horizontally across the top,
but so low that Vandeloup had to stoop constantly to prevent himself
knocking his head against their irregular projections.

Clinging to these side posts were masses of white fungus, which the
miners use to remove discolorations from their hands, and from the roof
also it hung like great drifts of snow, agitated with every breath of
wind as the keen air, damped and chilled by the underground darkness,
rushed past them. Every now and then they would hear a faint rumble in
the distance, and Archie would drag his companion to one side while a
trolly laden with white, wet-looking wash, and impelled by a runner,
would roll past with a roaring and grinding of wheels.

At intervals on each side of the main drive black chasms appeared, which
Archie informed his companion were drives put in to test the wash, and
as these smaller galleries continued branching off, Vandeloup thought
the whole mine resembled nothing so much as a herring-bone.

Being accustomed to the darkness and knowing every inch of the way, the
manager moved forward rapidly, and sometimes Vandeloup lagged so far
behind that all he could see of his guide was the candle he carried,
shining like a pale yellow star in the pitchy darkness. At last McIntosh
went into one of the side galleries, and going up an iron ladder fixed
to the side of the wall, they came to a second gallery thirty feet above
the other, and branching off at right angles.

This was where the wash was to be found, for, as Archie informed
Vandeloup, the main drives of a mine were always put down thirty or
forty feet below the wash, and then they could work up to the higher
levels, the reason of this being that the leads had a downward tendency,
and it was necessary for the main drive to be sunk below, as before
mentioned, in order to get the proper levels and judge the gutters
correctly. At the top of the ladder they found some empty trucks which
had delivered their burden into a kind of shoot, through which it fell
to the lower level, and there another truck was waiting to take it to
the main shaft, from whence it went up to the puddlers.

Archie made Vandeloup get into one of these trucks, and though they were
all wet and covered with clay, he was glad to do so, and be smoothly
carried along, instead of stumbling over the rails and splashing among
the pools of water. Every now and then as they went along there would be
a gush of water from the dripping walls, which was taken along in
pipes to the main chamber, and from thence pumped out of the mine by a
powerful pump, worked by a beam engine, by which means the mine was kept
dry.

At last, after they had gone some considerable distance, they saw the
dim light of a candle, and heard the dull blows of a pick, then found
themselves at the end of the drive, where a miner was working at the
wash. The wash wherein the gold is found was exceedingly well defined,
and represented a stratified appearance, being sandwiched in between a
bed of white pipe-clay and a top layer of brownish earth, interspersed
with gravel. Every blow of the pick sent forth showers of sparks in all
directions, and as fast as the wash was broken down the runner filled up
the trollies with it. After asking the miner about the character of the
wash, and testing some himself in a shovel, Archie left the gallery,
and going back to the shoot, they descended again to the main drive, and
visited several other faces of wash, the journey in each instance being
exactly the same in all respects. Each face had a man working at it,
sometimes two, and a runner who loaded the trucks, and ran them along to
the shoots. In spite of the ventilation, Vandeloup felt as if he was in
a Turkish bath, and the heat was in some places very great. At the end
of one of the drives McIntosh called Vandeloup, and on going towards
him the young man found him seated on a truck with the plan of the
mine before him, as he wanted to show him all the ramifications of the
workings.

The plan looked more like a map of a city than anything else, with
the main drive doing duty as the principal street, and all the little
galleries, branching off in endless confusion, looked like the lanes and
alleys of a populous town.

‘It’s like the catacombs in Rome,’ said Vandeloup to McIntosh, after
he had contemplated the plan for some time; ‘one could easily get lost
here.’

‘He micht,’ returned McIntosh, cautiously, ‘if he didna ken a’ aboot
the lie of the mine--o’er yonder,’ putting one finger on the plan
and pointing with the other to the right of the tunnel; ‘we found a
twenty-ounce nugget yesterday, and ain afore that o’ twenty-five, and
in the first face we were at twa months ago o’er there,’ pointing to the
left, ‘there was yin big ain I ca’d the Villiers nugget, which as ye ken
is Madame’s name.’

‘Oh, yes, I know that,’ said Vandeloup, much interested; ‘do you
christen all your nuggets?’

‘If they’re big enough,’ replied Archie.

‘Then I hope you will find a hundred-ounce lump of gold, and call it the
Vandeloup,’ returned the young man, laughing.

‘There’s mony a true word spoke in jest, laddie,’ said Archie, gravely;
‘when we get to the Deil’s Lead we may find ain o’ that size.’

‘What do you mean by leads?’ asked Vandeloup, considerably puzzled.

Thereupon Archie opened his mouth, and gave the young man a scientific
lecture on mining, the pith of which was as follows:--

‘Did ye no ken,’ said Mr McIntosh, sagaciously, ‘in the auld days--I
winna say but what it micht be as far back as the Fa’ o’ Man, may be a
wee bit farther--the rains washed a’ the gold fra the taps o’ the hills,
where the quartz reefs were, down tae the valleys below, where the
rivers ye ken were flowin’. And as the ages went on, an’ nature, under
the guidance o’ the Almighty, performed her work, the river bed, wiv
a’ its gold, would be covered o’er with anither formation, and then the
river, or anither yin, would flow on a new bed, and the precious metal
would be washed fra the hills in the same way as I tauld ye of, and the
second river bed would be also covered o’er, and sae the same game went
on and is still progressin’. Sae when the first miners came doon tae
this land of Ophir the gold they got by scratchin’ the tap of the earth
was the latest deposit, and when ye gae doon a few hundred feet ye come
on the second river--or rather, I should say, the bed o’ the former
river-and it is there that the gold is tae be found; and these dried-up
rivers we ca’ leads. Noo, laddie, ye ma ken that at present we are in
the bed o’ ain o’ these auld streams three hun’red feet frae the tap o’
the earth, and it’s here we get the gold, and as we gae on we follow the
wandrin’s o’ the river and lose sight o’ it.’

‘Yes,’ said Vandeloup quickly, ‘but you lost this river you call the
Devil’s Lead--how was that?’

‘Weel,’ said Mr McIntosh, deliberately, ‘rivers are varra like human
bein’s in the queer twists they take, and the Deil’s Lead seems to hae
been ain like that. At present we are on the banks o’ it, where we noo
get these nuggets; but ‘tis the bed I want, d’ye ken, the centre, for
its there the gold is; losh, man,’ he went on, excitedly, rising to his
feet and rolling up the plan, ‘ye dinna ken how rich the Deil’s Lead is;
there’s just a fortune in it.’

“I suppose these rivers must stop at a certain depth?”

“Ou, ay,” returned the old Scotchman, “we gae doon an’ doon till we
come on what we ma ca’ the primary rock, and under that there is
nothin’--except,” with a touch of religious enthusiasm, “maybe ‘tis
the bottomless pit, where auld Hornie dwells, as we are tauld in the
Screepture; noo let us gae up again, an’ I’ll show ye the puddlers at
wark.”

Vandeloup had not the least idea what the puddlers were, but desirous of
learning, he followed his guide, who led him into another gallery, which
formed a kind of loop, and joined again with the main drive. As Gaston
stumbled along, he felt a touch on his shoulder, and on turning, saw it
was Pierre, who had been put to work with the other men, and was acting
as one of the runners.

“Ah! you are there, my friend,” said Vandeloup, coolly, looking at the
uncouth figure before him by the feeble glimmer of his candle; “work
away, work away; it’s not very pleasant, but at all events,” in a rapid
whisper, “it’s better than New Caledonia.”

Pierre nodded in a sullen manner, and went back to his work, while
Vandeloup hurried on to catch up to McIntosh, who was now far ahead.

“I wish,” said this pleasant young man to himself, as he stumbled along,
“I wish that the mine would fall in and crush Pierre; he’s such a dead
weight to be hanging round my neck; besides, he has such a gaol-bird
look about him that it’s enough to make the police find out where he
came from; if they do, good-bye to wealth and respectability.”

He found Archie waiting for him at the entrance to the main drive, and
they soon arrived at the bottom of the shaft, got into the cage, and at
last reached the top of the earth again. Vandeloup drew a long breath of
the fresh pure air, but his eyes felt quite painful in the vivid glare
of the sun.

“I don’t envy the gnomes,” he said gaily to Archie as they went on to
the puddlers; “they must have been subject to chronic rheumatism.”

Mr McIntosh, not having an acquaintance with fairy lore, said nothing in
reply, but took Vandeloup to the puddlers, and showed all the process of
getting the gold.

The wash was carried along in the trucks from the top of the shaft
to the puddlers, which were large circular vats into which water was
constantly gushing. The wash dirt being put into these, there was an
iron ring held up by chains, having blunt spikes to it, which was called
a harrow. Two of these being attached to beams laid crosswise were
dragged round and round among the wash by the constant revolution of
the cross-pieces. This soon reduced all the wash dirt to a kind of fine,
creamy-looking syrup, with heavy white stones in it, which were removed
every now and then by the man in charge of the machine. Descending to
the second story of the framework, Vandeloup found himself in a
square chamber, the roof of which was the puddler. In this roof was
a trap-door, and when the wash dirt had been sufficiently mixed the
trap-door was opened, and it was precipitated through on to the floor
of the second chamber. A kind of broad trough, running in a slanting
direction and called a sluice, was on one side, and into this a quantity
of wash was put, and a tap at the top turned on, which caused the
water to wash the dirt down the sluice. Another man at the foot, with
a pitchfork, kept shifting up the stones which were mixed up with the
gravel, and by degrees all the surplus dirt was washed away, leaving
only these stones and a kind of fine black sand, in which the gold being
heavy, had stayed. This sand was carefully gathered up with a brush
and iron trowel into a shallow tin basin, and then an experienced miner
carefully manipulated the same with clear water. What with blowing with
the breath, and allowing the water to flow gently over it, all the
black sand was soon taken away, and the bottom of the tin dish was
then covered with dirty yellow grains of gold interspersed with little
water-worn nuggets. Archie took the gold and carried it down to the
office, where it was first weighed and then put into a little canvas
bag, which would be taken to the bank in Ballarat, and there sold at the
rate of four pounds an ounce or thereabouts.

‘Sae this, ye ken,’ said Archie, when he had finished all his
explanations, ‘is the way ye get gold.’

‘My faith,’ said Vandeloup, carelessly, with a merry laugh, ‘gold is as
hard to get in its natural state as in its artificial.’

“An’ harder,” retorted Archie, “forbye there’s nae sic wicked wark aboot
it.”

“Madame will be rich some day,” remarked Vandeloup, as they left the
office and walked up towards the house.

“Maybe she will,” replied the other, cautiously. “Australia’s a gran’
place for the siller, ye ken. I’m no verra far wrang but what wi’
industry and perseverance ye may mak a wee bit siller yersel’, laddie.”

“It won’t be my fault if I don’t,” returned M. Vandeloup, gaily; “and
Madame Midas,” he added, mentally, “will be an excellent person to
assist me in doing so.”




CHAPTER VI

KITTY


Gaston Vandeloup having passed all his life in cities found that his
existence on the Pactolus claim was likely to be very dreary. Day after
day he arose in the morning, did his office work, ate his meals,
and after a talk with Madame Midas in the evening went to bed at ten
o’clock. Such Arcadian simplicity as this was not likely to suit the
highly cultivated tastes he had acquired in his earlier life. As to the
episode of New Caledonia M. Vandeloup dismissed it completely from
his mind, for this young man never permitted his thoughts to dwell on
disagreeable subjects.

His experiences as a convict had been novel but not pleasant, and he
looked upon the time which had elapsed since he left France in the
convict ship to the day he landed on the coast of Queensland in an open
boat as a bad nightmare, and would willingly have tried to treat it as
such, only the constant sight of his dumb companion, Pierre Lemaire,
reminded him only too vividly of the reality of his trouble. Often and
often did he wish that Pierre would break his neck, or that the mine
would fall in and crush him to death; but nothing of the sort happened,
and Pierre continued to vex his eyes and to follow him about with a
dog-like fidelity which arose--not from any love of the young man,
but--from the fact that he found himself a stranger in a strange land,
and Vandeloup was the only person he knew. With such a millstone round
his neck, the young Frenchman often despaired of being able to get on in
Australia. Meanwhile he surrendered himself to the situation with a kind
of cynical resignation, and looked hopefully forward to the time when a
kind Providence would rid him of his unpleasant friend.

The feelings of Madame Midas towards Vandeloup were curious. She had
been a very impressionable girl, and her ill-fated union with Villiers
had not quite succeeded in deadening all her feelings, though it had
doubtless gone a good way towards doing so. Being of an appreciative
nature, she liked to hear Vandeloup talk of his brilliant life in Paris,
Vienna, London, and other famous cities, which to her were merely names.
For such a young man he had certainly seen a great deal of life, and,
added to this, his skill as a talker was considerable, so that he
frequently held Madame, Selina, and McIntosh spell-bound by his
fairy-like descriptions and eloquent conversation. Of course, he only
talked of the most general subjects to Mrs Villiers, and never by any
chance let slip that he knew the seamy side of life--a side with which
this versatile young gentleman was pretty well acquainted. As a worker,
Gaston was decidedly a success. Being quick at figures and easily taught
anything, he soon mastered all the details of the business connected
with the Pactolus claim, and Madame found that she could leave
everything to him with perfect safety, and could rely on all matters of
business being well and promptly attended to. But she was too clever
a woman to let him manage things himself, or even know how much she
trusted him; and Vandeloup knew that whatever he did those calm dark
eyes were on him, and that the least slip or neglect on his part would
bring Madame Midas to his side with her quiet voice and inflexible will
to put him right again.

Consequently the Frenchman was careful not to digress or to take too
much upon himself, but did his work promptly and carefully, and soon
became quite indispensable to the work of the mine. In addition to this
he had made himself very popular with the men, and as the months rolled
on was looked upon quite as a fixture in the Pactolus claim.

As for Pierre Lemaire, he did his work well, ate and slept, and kept his
eye on his companion in case he should leave him in the lurch; but no
one would have guessed that the two men, so different in appearance,
were bound together by a guilty secret, or were, morally speaking, both
on the same level as convicts from a French prison.

A whole month had elapsed since Madame had engaged M. Vandeloup and his
friend, but as yet the Devil’s Lead had not been found. Madame, however,
was strong in her belief that it would soon be discovered, for her
luck--the luck of Madame Midas--was getting quite a proverb in Ballarat.

One bright morning Vandeloup was in the office running up endless
columns of figures, and Madame, dressed in her underground garments, was
making ready to go below, just having stepped in to see Gaston.

‘By the way, M. Vandeloup,’ she said in English, for it was only in the
evenings they spoke French, ‘I am expecting a young lady this morning,
so you can tell her I have gone down the mine, but will be back in an
hour if she will wait for me.’

‘Certainly, Madame,’ said Vandeloup, looking up with his bright smile;
‘and the young lady’s name?’

‘Kitty Marchurst,’ replied Madame, pausing a moment at the door of the
office; ‘she is the daughter of the Rev. Mark Marchurst, a minister at
Ballarat. I think you will like her, M. Vandeloup,’ she went on, in
a conversational tone; ‘she is a charming girl--only seventeen, and
extremely pretty.’

‘Then I am sure to like her,’ returned Gaston, gaily; ‘I never could
resist the charm of a pretty woman.’

‘Mind,’ said Madame, severely, holding up her finger, ‘you must not turn
my favourite’s head with any of your idle compliments; she has been very
strictly brought up, and the language of gallantry is Greek to her.’

Vandeloup tried to look penitent, and failed utterly.

‘Madame,’ he said, rising from his seat, and gravely bowing, ‘I will
speak of nothing to Mademoiselle Kitty but of the weather and the crops
till you return.’

Madame laughed pleasantly.

‘You are incorrigible, M. Vandeloup,’ she said, as she turned to go.
‘However, don’t forget what I said, for I trust you.’

When Mrs Villiers had gone, closing the office door after her, Gaston
was silent for a few minutes, and then burst out laughing.

‘She trusts me,’ he said, in a mocking tone. ‘In heaven’s name, why? I
never did pretend to be a saint, and I’m certainly not going to be one
because I’m put on my word of honour. Madame,’ with an ironical bow in
the direction of the closed door, ‘since you trust me I will not speak
of love to this bread-and-butter miss, unless she proves more than
ordinarily pretty, in which case,’ shrugging his shoulders, ‘I’m afraid
I must betray your trust, and follow my own judgment.’

He laughed again, and then, going back to his desk, began to add up
his figures. At the second column, however, he paused, and commenced to
sketch faces on the blotting paper.

‘She’s the daughter of a minister,’ he said, musingly. ‘I can guess,
then, what like she is--prim and demure, like a caricature by Cham.
In that case she will be safe from me, for I could never bear an ugly
woman. By the way, I wonder if ugly women think themselves pretty; their
mirrors must lie most obligingly if they do. There was Adele, she was
decidedly plain, not to say ugly, and yet so brilliant in her talk. I
was sorry she died; yes, even though she was the cause of my exile to
New Caledonia. Bah! it is always a woman one has to thank for one’s
misfortunes--curse them; though why I should I don’t know, for they
have always been good friends to me. Ah, well, to return to business,
Mademoiselle Kitty is coming, and I must behave like a bear in case she
should think my intentions are wrong.’

He went to work on the figures again, when suddenly he heard a high
clear voice singing outside. At first he thought it was a bird, but
no bird could execute such trills and shakes, so by the time the voice
arrived at the office door M. Vandeloup came to the conclusion that
the owner of the voice was a woman, and that the woman was Miss Kitty
Marchurst.

He leaned back in his chair and wondered idly if she would knock at the
door or enter without ceremony. The latter course was the one adopted by
Miss Marchurst, for she threw open the door and stood there blushing and
pouting at the embarrassing situation in which she now found herself.

‘I thought I would find Mrs Villiers here,’ she said, in a low, sweet
voice, the peculiar timbre of which sent a thrill through Gaston’s young
blood, as he arose to his feet. Then she looked up, and catching his
dark eyes fixed on her with a good deal of admiration in them, she
looked down and commenced drawing figures on the dusty floor with the
tip of a very dainty shoe.

‘Madame has gone down the mine,’ said M. Vandeloup, politely, ‘but she
desired me to say that she would be back soon, and that you were to wait
here, and I was to entertain you;’ then, with a grave bow, he placed the
only chair in the office at the disposal of his visitor, and leaned
up against the mantelpiece in an attitude of unstudied grace. Miss
Marchurst accepted his offer, and depositing her small person in the
big cane chair, she took furtive glances at him, while Gaston, whose
experience of women was by no means limited, looked at her coolly, in
a manner which would have been rude but for the charming smile which
quivered upon his lips.

Kitty Marchurst was a veritable fairy in size, and her hands and feet
were exquisitely formed, while her figure had all the plumpness and
roundness of a girl of seventeen--which age she was, though she really
did not look more than fourteen. An innocent child-like face, two limpid
blue eyes, a straight little nose, and a charming rose-lipped mouth
were Kitty’s principal attractions, and her hair was really wonderful,
growing all over her head in crisp golden curls. Child-like enough her
face looked in repose, but with the smile came the woman--such a smile,
a laughing merry expression such as the Greeks gave to Hebe. Dressed in
a rough white dress trimmed with pale blue ribbons, and her golden head
surmounted by a sailor hat, with a scarf of the same azure hue tied
around it, Kitty looked really charming, and Vandeloup could hardly
restrain himself from taking her up in his arms and kissing her, so
delightfully fresh and piquant she appeared. Kitty, on her side, had
examined Gaston with a woman’s quickness of taking in details, and she
mentally decided he was the best-looking man she had ever seen, only
she wished he would talk. Shyness was not a part of her nature, so after
waiting a reasonable time for Vandeloup to commence, she determined to
start herself.

‘I’m waiting to be entertained,’ she said, in a hurried voice, raising
her eyes; then afraid of her own temerity, she looked down again.

Gaston smiled a little at Kitty’s outspoken remark, but remembering
Madame’s injunction he rather mischievously determined to carry out her
desires to the letter.

‘It is a very nice day,’ he said, gravely. Kitty looked up and laughed
merrily.

‘I don’t think that’s a very original remark,’ she said coolly,
producing an apple from her pocket. ‘If that’s all you’ve got to say, I
hope Madame won’t be long.’

Vandeloup laughed again at her petulance, and eyed her critically as she
took a bit out of the red side of the apple with her white teeth.

‘You like apples?’ he asked, very much amused by her candour.

‘Pretty well,’ returned Miss Marchurst, eyeing the fruit in a
disparaging manner; ‘peaches are nicer; are Madame’s peaches ripe?’
looking anxiously at him.

‘I think they are,’ rejoined Gaston, gravely.

‘Then we’ll have some for tea,’ decided Kitty, taking another bite out
of her apple.

‘I’m going to stay to tea, you know,’ she went on in a conversational
tone. ‘I always stay to tea when I’m on a visit here, and then
Brown--that’s our man,’ in an explanatory manner, ‘comes and fetches me
home.’

‘Happy Brown!’ murmured Vandeloup, who really meant what he said.

Kitty laughed, and blushed.

‘I’ve heard all about you,’ she said, coolly, nodding to him.

‘Nothing to my disadvantage, I hope,’ anxiously.

‘Oh dear, no: rather the other way,’ returned Miss Marchurst, gaily.
‘They said you were good-looking--and so you are, very good-looking.’

Gaston bowed and laughed, rather amused at the way she spoke, for he was
used to being flattered by women, though hardly in the outspoken way of
this country maiden.

‘She’s been strictly brought up,’ he muttered sarcastically, ‘I can see
that. Eve before the fall in all her innocence.’

‘I don’t like your eyes,’ said Miss Kitty, suddenly.

‘What’s the matter with them?’ with a quizzical glance.

‘They look wicked.’

‘Ah, then they belie the soul within,’ returned Vandeloup, seriously. ‘I
assure you, I’m a very good young man.’

Then I’m sure not to like you,’ said Kitty, gravely shaking her golden
head. ‘Pa’s a minister, you know, and nothing but good young men come to
our house; they’re all so horrid,’ viciously, ‘I hate ‘em.’

Vandeloup laughed so much at this that Kitty rose to her feet and looked
offended.

‘I don’t know what you are laughing at,’ she said, throwing her
half-eaten apple out of the door; ‘but I don’t believe you’re a good
young man. You look awfully bad,’ seriously. ‘Really, I don’t think I
ever saw anyone look so bad.’

‘Suppose you undertake my reformation?’ suggested Vandeloup, eagerly.

‘Oh! I couldn’t; it wouldn’t be right; but,’ brightly, ‘pa will.’

‘I don’t think I’ll trouble him,’ said Gaston, hastily, who by no means
relished the idea. ‘I’m too far gone to be any good.’

She was about to reply when Madame Midas entered, and Kitty flew to her
with a cry of delight.

‘Why, Kitty,’ said Madame, highly pleased, ‘I am so glad to see you, my
dear; but keep off, or I’ll be spoiling your dress.’

‘Yes, so you will,’ said Kitty, retreating to a safe distance; ‘what a
long time you have been.’

‘Have I, dear?’ said Madame, taking off her underground dress; ‘I hope
M. Vandeloup has proved a good substitute.’

‘Madame,’ answered Vandeloup, gaily, as he assisted Mrs Villiers to
doff her muddy garments, ‘we have been talking about the crops and the
weather.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ replied Mrs Villiers, who saw the flush on Kitty’s cheek,
and by no means approved of it; ‘it must have been very entertaining.’

‘Very!’ assented Gaston, going back to his desk.

‘Come along, Kitty,’ said Madame, with a keen glance at her clerk, and
taking Kitty’s arm within her own, ‘let us go to the house, and see if
we can find any peaches.’

‘I hope we’ll find some big ones,’ said Kitty, gluttonously, as she
danced along by the side of Mrs Villiers.

‘Temptation has been placed in my path in a very attractive form,’
said Vandeloup to himself, as he went back to those dreary columns of
figures, ‘and I’m afraid that I will not be able to resist.’

When he came home to tea he found Kitty was as joyous and full of life
as ever, in spite of the long hot afternoon and the restless energy with
which she had been running about. Even Madame Midas felt weary and worn
out by the heat of the day, and was sitting tranquilly by the window;
but Kitty, with bright eyes and restless feet, followed Selina all over
the house, under the pretence of helping her, an infliction which that
sage spinster bore with patient resignation.

After tea it was too hot to light the lamp, and even Selina let the fire
go out, while all the windows and doors were open to let the cool
night wind blow in. Vandeloup sat on the verandah with McIntosh smoking
cigarettes and listening to Madame, who was playing Mendelssohn’s ‘In a
Gondola’, that dreamy melody full of the swing and rhythmic movement of
the waves. Then to please old Archie she played ‘Auld Lang
Syne’--that tender caressing air which is one of the most pathetic and
heart-stirring melodies in the world. Archie leaned forward with bowed
head as the sad melody floated on the air, and his thoughts went back
to the heather-clad Scottish hills. And what was this Madame was now
playing, with its piercing sorrow and sad refrain? Surely ‘Farewell to
Lochaber’, that bitter lament of the exile leaving bonny Scotland far
behind. Vandeloup, who was not attending to the music, but thinking
of Kitty, saw two big tears steal down McIntosh’s severe face, and
marvelled at such a sign of weakness.

‘Sentiment from him?’ he muttered, in a cynical tone; ‘why, I should
have as soon expected blood from a stone.’

Suddenly the sad air ceased, and after a few chords, Kitty commenced to
sing to Madame’s accompaniment. Gaston arose to his feet, and leaned
up against the door, for she was singing Gounod’s charming valse from
‘Mirella’, the bird-like melody of which suited her high clear voice
to perfection. Vandeloup was rather astonished at hearing this innocent
little maiden execute the difficult valse with such ease, and her shake
was as rapid and true as if she had been trained in the best schools of
Europe. He did not know that Kitty had naturally a very flexible voice,
and that Madame had trained her for nearly a year. When the song was
ended Gaston entered the room to express his thanks and astonishment,
both of which Kitty received with bursts of laughter.

‘You have a fortune in your throat, mademoiselle,’ he said, with a bow,
‘and I assure you I have heard all the great singers of to-day from
Patti downwards.’

‘I have only been able to teach her very little,’ said Madame, looking
affectionately at Miss Marchurst, who now stood by the table, blushing
at Vandeloup’s praises, ‘but when we find the Devil’s Lead I am going to
send her home to Italy to study singing.’

‘For the stage?’ asked Vandeloup.

‘That is as it may be,’ replied Madame, enigmatically, ‘but now, M.
Vandeloup, you must sing us something.’

‘Oh, does he sing?’ said Kitty, joyously.

‘Yes, and play too,’ answered Madame, as she vacated her seat at the
piano and put her arm round Kitty, ‘sing us something from the “Grand
Duchess”, Monsieur.’

He shook his head.

‘Too gay for such an hour,’ he said, running his fingers lightly over
the keys; ‘I will give you something from “Faust”.’

He had a pleasant tenor voice, not very strong, but singularly pure and
penetrating, and he sang ‘Salve Dinora’, the exquisite melody of which
touched the heart of Madame Midas with a vague longing for love and
affection, while in Kitty’s breast there was a feeling she had never
felt before. Her joyousness departed, her eyes glanced at the singer in
a half-frightened manner, and she clung closer to Madame Midas as if she
were afraid, as indeed she was.

When Vandeloup finished the song he dashed into a riotous student song
which he had heard many a time in midnight Paris, and finally ended
with singing Alfred de Musset’s merry little chanson, which he thought
especially appropriate to Kitty:--

Bonjour, Suzon, ma fleur des bois, Es-tu toujours la plus jolie, Je
reviens, tel que tu me vois,

D’un grand votage en Italie.

Altogether Kitty had enjoyed her evening immensely, and was quite sorry
when Brown came to take her home. Madame wrapped her up well and put her
in the buggy, but was rather startled to see her flushed cheeks, bright
eyes, and the sudden glances she stole at Vandeloup, who stood handsome
and debonair in the moonlight.

‘I’m afraid I’ve made a mistake,’ she said to herself as the buggy drove
off.

She had, for Kitty had fallen in love with the Frenchman.

And Gaston?

He walked back to the house beside Madame, thinking of Kitty, and
humming the gay refrain of the song he had been singing--

‘Je passe devant ta maison Ouvre ta porte, Bonjour, Suzon.’

Decidedly it was a case of love at first sight on both sides.




CHAPTER VII

MR VILLIERS PAYS A VISIT


Slivers and his friend Villiers were by no means pleased with the
existing state of things. In sending Vandeloup to the Pactolus claim,
they had thought to compromise Madame Midas by placing her in the
society of a young and handsome man, and counting on one of two things
happening--either that Madame would fall in love with the attractive
Frenchman, and seek for a divorce in order to marry him--which divorce
Villiers would of course resist, unless she bribed him by giving him an
interest in the Pactolus--or that Villiers could assume an injured tone
and accuse Vandeloup of being his wife’s lover, and threaten to divorce
her unless she made him her partner in the claim. But they had both
reckoned wrongly, for neither of these things happened, as Madame was
not in love with Vandeloup, and acted with too much circumspection to
give any opportunity for scandal. Consequently, Slivers and Co., not
finding matters going to their satisfaction, met one day at the office
of the senior partner for the purpose of discussing the affair, and
seeing what could be done towards bringing Madame Midas to their way of
thinking.

Villiers was lounging in one of the chairs, dressed in a white linen
suit, and looked rather respectable, though his inflamed face and watery
eyes showed what a drunkard he was. He was sipping a glass of whisky
and water and smoking his pipe, while he watched Slivers stumping up and
down the office, swinging his cork arm vehemently to and fro as was his
custom when excited. Billy sat on the table and eyed his master with a
steady stare, or else hopped about among the papers talking to himself.

‘You thought you were going to do big things when you sent that
jackadandy out to the Pactolus,’ said Villiers, after a pause.

‘At any rate, I did something,’ snarled Slivers, in a rage, ‘which is
more than you did, you whisky barrel.’

‘Look here, don’t you call names,’ growled Mr Villiers, in a sulky tone.
‘I’m a gentleman, remember that.’

‘You were a gentleman, you mean,’ corrected the senior partner, with a
malignant glance of his one eye. ‘What are you now?’

‘A stockbroker,’ retorted the other, taking a sip of whisky.

‘And a damned poor one at that,’ replied the other, sitting on the edge
of the table, which position caused his wooden leg to stick straight
out, a result which he immediately utilized by pointing it threateningly
in the direction of Villiers.

‘Look here,’ said that gentleman, suddenly sitting up in his chair in a
defiant manner, ‘drop these personalities and come to business; what’s
to be done? Vandeloup is firmly established there, but there’s not the
slightest chance of my wife falling in love with him.’

‘Wait,’ said Slivers, stolidly wagging his wooden leg up and down;
‘wait, you blind fool, wait.’

‘Wait for the waggon!’ shrieked Billy, behind, and then supplemented
his remarks by adding, ‘Oh, my precious mother!’ as he climbed up on
Slivers’ shoulder.

‘You always say wait,’ growled Villiers, not paying any attention to
Billy’s interruption; ‘I tell you we can’t wait much longer; they’ll
drop on the Devil’s Lead shortly, and then we’ll be up a tree.’

‘Then, suppose you go out to the Pactolus and see your wife,’ suggested
Slivers.

‘No go,’ returned Villiers, gloomily, ‘she’d break my head.’

‘Bah! you ain’t afraid of a woman, are you?’ snarled Slivers, viciously.

‘No, but I am of McIntosh and the rest of them,’ retorted Villiers.
‘What can one man do against twenty of these devils. Why, they’d kill me
if I went out there; and that infernal wife of mine wouldn’t raise her
little finger to save me.’

‘You’re a devil!’ observed Billy, eyeing Villiers from his perch on
Slivers’ shoulder. ‘Oh, Lord! ha! ha! ha!’ going into fits of laughter;
then drawing himself suddenly up, he ejaculated ‘Pickles!’ and shut up.

‘It’s no good beating about the bush,’ said the wooden-legged man,
getting down from the table. ‘You go out near the claim, and see if you
can catch her; then give it to her hot.’

‘What am I to say?’ asked Villiers, helplessly.

Slivers looked at him with fiery scorn in his one eye.

‘Say!’ he shrieked, waving his cork arm, ‘talk about your darned honour!
Say she’s dragging your noble name through the mud, and say you’ll
divorce her if she don’t give you half a share in the Pactolus; that
will frighten her.’

‘Pickles!’ again ejaculated the parrot.

‘Oh, no, it won’t,’ said Villiers; ‘Brag’s a good dog, but he don’t
bite. I’ve tried that game on before, and it was no go.’

‘Then try it your own way,’ grumbled Slivers, sulkily, going to his seat
and pouring himself out some whisky. ‘I don’t care what you do, as long
as I get into the Pactolus, and once I’m in the devil himself won’t get
me out.’

Villiers thought a moment, then turned to go.

‘I’ll try,’ he said, as he went out of the door, ‘but it’s no go, I tell
you, she’s stone,’ and with a dismal nod he slouched away.

‘Stone, is she?’ cried the old man, pounding furiously on the floor with
his wooden leg, ‘then I’d smash her; I’d crush her; I’d grind her into
little bits, damn her,’ and overcome by his rage, Slivers shook Billy
off his shoulder and took a long drink.

Meanwhile Mr Villiers, dreading lest his courage should give way, went
to the nearest hotel and drank pretty freely so that he might bring
himself into an abnormal condition of bravery. Thus primed, he went
to the railway station, took the train to the Pactolus claim, and on
arriving at the end of his journey had one final glass of whisky to
steady his nerves.

The last straw, however, breaks the camel’s back, and this last drink
reduced Mr Villiers to that mixed state which is known in colonial
phrase as half-cocked. He lurched out of the hotel, and went in the
direction of the Pactolus claim. His only difficulty was that, as a
matter of fact, the solitary mound of white earth which marked the
entrance to the mine, suddenly appeared before his eyes in a double
condition, and he beheld two Pactolus claims, which curious optical
delusion rather confused him, inasmuch as he was undecided to which he
should go.

‘Itsh the drinksh,’ he said at length, stopping in the middle of the
white dusty road, and looking preternaturally solemn; ‘it maksh me see
double: if I see my wife, I’ll see two of her, then’--with a drunken
giggle--‘I’ll be a bigamist.’

This idea so tickled him, that he commenced to laugh, and, finding it
inconvenient to do so on his legs, he sat down to indulge his humour
freely. A laughing jackass perched on the fence at the side of the road
heard Mr Villiers’ hilarity, and, being of a convivial turn of mind
itself, went off into fits of laughter also. On hearing this echo Mr
Villiers tried to get up, in order to punish the man who mocked him,
but, though his intentions were good, his legs were unsteady, and after
one or two ineffectual attempts to rise he gave it up as a bad job. Then
rolling himself a little to one side of the dusty white road, he went
sound asleep, with his head resting on a tuft of green grass. In his
white linen suit he was hardly distinguishable in the fine white dust of
the road, and though the sun blazed hotly down on him and the mosquitos
stung him, yet he slept calmly on, and it was not till nearly four
o’clock in the afternoon that he woke up. He was more sober, but still
not quite steady, being in that disagreeable temper to which some men
are subject when suffering a recovery. Rising to his feet, with a hearty
curse, he picked up his hat and put it on; then, thrusting his hands
into his pockets, he slouched slowly along, bent upon meeting his wife
and picking a quarrel with her.

Unluckily for Madame Midas, she had that day been to Ballarat, and was
just returning. She had gone by train, and was now leaving the station
and walking home to the Pactolus along the road. Being absorbed in
thought, she did not notice the dusty figure in front of her, otherwise
she would have been sure to have recognised her husband, and would have
given him a wide berth by crossing the fields instead of going by the
road. Mr Villiers, therefore, tramped steadily on towards the Pactolus,
and his wife tramped steadily after him, until at last, at the turn of
the road where it entered her property, she overtook him.

A shudder of disgust passed through her frame as she raised her eyes and
saw him, and she made a sudden gesture as though to fall behind and
thus avoid him. It was, however, too late, for Mr Villiers, hearing
footsteps, turned suddenly and saw the woman he had come to see standing
in the middle of the road.

Husband and wife stood gazing at one another for a few moments in
silence, she looking at him with an expression of intense loathing on
her fine face, and he vainly trying to assume a dignified carriage--a
task which his late fit of drunkenness rendered difficult.

At last, his wife, drawing her dress together as though his touch would
have contaminated her, tried to pass, but on seeing this he sprang
forward, before she could change her position, and caught her wrist.

‘Not yet!’ he hissed through his clenched teeth; ‘first you must have a
word with me.’

Madame Midas looked around for aid, but no one was in sight. They were
some distance from the Pactolus, and the heat of the afternoon being
intense, every one was inside. At last Madame saw some man moving
towards them, down the long road which led to the station, and knowing
that Vandeloup had been into town, she prayed in her heart that it might
be he, and so prepared to parley with her husband till he should come
up. Having taken this resolution, she suddenly threw off Villiers’
grasp, and turned towards him with a superb gesture of scorn.

‘What do you want?’ she asked in a low, clear voice, but in a tone of
concentrated passion.

‘Money!’ growled Villiers, insolently planting himself directly in front
of her, ‘and I’m going to have it.’

‘Money!’ she echoed, in a tone of bitter irony; ‘have you not had enough
yet? Have you not squandered every penny I had from my father in your
profligacy and evil companions? What more do you want?’

‘A share in the Pactolus,’ he said, sullenly.

His wife laughed scornfully. ‘A share in the Pactolus!’ she echoed, with
bitter sarcasm, ‘A modest request truly. After squandering my fortune,
dragging me through the mire, and treating me like a slave, this man
expects to be rewarded. Listen to me, Randolph Villiers,’ she said,
fiercely, stepping up to him and seizing his hand, ‘this land we now
stand on is mine--the gold underneath is mine; and if you were to go
on your knees to me and beg for a morsel of bread to save you from
starving, I would not lift one finger to succour you.’

Villiers writhed like a snake under her bitter scorn.

‘I understand,’ he said, in a taunting tone; ‘you want it for your
lover.’

‘My lover? What do you mean?’

‘What I say,’ he retorted boldly, ‘all Ballarat knows the position that
young Frenchman holds in the Pactolus claim.’

Mrs Villiers felt herself grow faint--the accusation was so horrible.
This man, who had embittered her life from the time she married him,
was still her evil genius, and was trying to ruin her in the eyes of the
world. The man she had seen on the road was now nearly up to them, and
with a revulsion of feeling she saw that it was Vandeloup. Recovering
herself with an effort, she turned and faced him steadily.

‘You lied when you spoke just now,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘I will
not lower myself to reply to your accusation; but, as there is a God
above us, if you dare to cross my path again, I will kill you.’

She looked so terrible when she said this that Villiers involuntarily
drew back, but recovering himself in a moment, he sprang forward and
caught her arm.

‘You devil! I’ll make you pay for this,’ and he twisted her arm till
she thought it was broken. ‘You’ll kill me, will you?--you!--you!’ he
shrieked, still twisting her arm and causing her intense pain, ‘you
viper!’

Suddenly, when Madame was almost fainting with pain, she heard a shout,
and knew that Vandeloup had come to the rescue. He had recognised Madame
Midas down the road, and saw that her companion was threatening her; so
he made all possible speed, and arrived just in time.

Madame turned round to see Vandeloup throw her husband into a ditch by
the side of the road, and walk towards her. He was not at all excited,
but seemed as cool and calm as if he had just been shaking hands with Mr
Villiers instead of treating him violently.

‘You had better go home, Madame,’ he said, in his usual cool voice, ‘and
leave me to deal with this--gentleman; you are not hurt?’

‘Only my arm,’ replied Mrs Villiers, in a faint voice; ‘he nearly broke
it. But I can walk home alone.’

‘If you can, do so,’ said Vandeloup, with a doubtful look at her. ‘I
will send him away.’

‘Don’t let him hurt you.’

‘I don’t think there’s much danger,’ replied the young man, with a
glance at his arms, ‘I’m stronger than I look.’

‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ said Madame Midas, giving him her hand; ‘you have
rendered me a great service, and one I will not forget.’

He bent down and kissed her hand, which action was seen by Mr Villiers
as he crawled out of the ditch. When Madame Midas was gone and Vandeloup
could see her walking homeward, he turned to look for Mr Villiers, and
found him seated on the edge of the ditch, all covered with mud and
streaming with water--presenting a most pitiable appearance. He regarded
M. Vandeloup in a most malignant manner, which, however, had no effect
on that young gentleman, who produced a cigarette, and having lighted it
proceeded to talk.

‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you one,’ said Gaston, affably, ‘but I hardly
think you would enjoy it in your present damp condition. If I might
be permitted to suggest anything,’ with a polite smile, ‘a bath and a
change of clothes would be most suitable to you, and you will find
both at Ballarat. I also think,’ said Vandeloup, with an air of one who
thinks deeply, ‘that if you hurry you will catch the next train, which
will save you a rather long walk.’

Mr Villiers glared at his tormentor in speechless anger, and tried to
look dignified, but, covered as he was with mud, his effort was not
successful.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he said at length, in a blustering manner.

‘Under some circumstances,’ said M. Vandeloup, in a smooth voice, ‘I
should have taken you for a mud bank, but as you both speak and smile
I presume you are a man of the lowest type; as you English yourselves
say--a blackguard.’

‘I’ll smash you!’ growled Villiers, stepping forward.

‘I wouldn’t try if I were you,’ retorted Vandeloup, with a disparaging
glance. ‘I am young and strong, almost a total abstainer; you, on the
contrary, are old and flabby, with the shaking nerves of an incurable
drunkard. No, it would be hardly fair for me to touch you.’

‘You dare not lay a finger on me,’ said Villiers, defiantly.

‘Quite right,’ replied Vandeloup, lighting another cigarette, ‘you’re
rather too dirty for close companionship. I really think you’d better
go; Monsieur Sleeves no doubt expects you.’

‘And this is the man that I obtained work for,’ said Mr Villiers,
addressing the air.

‘It’s a very ungrateful world,’ said Vandeloup, calmly, with a shrug of
his shoulders; ‘I never expect anything from it; I’m sorry if you do,
for you are sure to be disappointed.’

Villiers, finding he could make nothing out of the imperturbable
coolness of the young Frenchman, turned to go, but as he went, said
spitefully--

‘You can tell my wife I’ll pay her for this.’

‘Accounts are paid on Saturdays,’ called out M. Vandeloup, gaily; ‘if
you call I will give you a receipt of the same kind as you had to-day.’

Villiers made no response, as he was already out of hearing, and went on
his way to the station with mud on his clothes and rage in his heart.

Vandeloup looked after him for a few minutes with a queer smile on his
lips, then turned on his heel and walked home, humming a song.




CHAPTER VIII

MADAME MIDAS STRIKES ‘ILE’


Aesop knew human nature very well when he wrote his fable of the old
man and his ass, who tried to please everybody and ended up by pleasing
nobody. Bearing this in mind, Madame Midas determined to please herself,
and take no one’s advice but her own with regard to Vandeloup. She knew
if she dismissed him from the mine it would give colour to her husband’s
vile insinuations, so she thought the wisest plan would be to take no
notice of her meeting with him, and let things remain as they were. It
turned out to be the best thing she could have done, for though
Villiers went about Ballarat accusing her of being the young Frenchman’s
mistress, everyone was too well aware of existing circumstances to
believe what he said. They knew that he had squandered his wife’s
fortune, and that she had left him in disgust at his profligacy, so
they declined to believe his accusations against a woman who had
proved herself true steel in withstanding bad fortune. So Mr Villiers’
endeavours to ruin his wife only recoiled on his own head, for the
Ballarat folk argued, and rightly, that whatever she did it was not his
place to cast the first stone at her, seeing that the unsatisfactory
position she was now in was mainly his own work. Villiers, therefore,
gained nothing by his attempt to blacken his wife’s character except
the contempt of everyone, and even the few friends he had gained turned
their backs on him until no one would associate with him but Slivers,
who did so in order to gain his own ends. The company had quarrelled
over the unsuccessful result of Villiers’ visit to the Pactolus, and
Slivers, as senior partner, assisted by Billy, called Villiers all
the names he could lay his tongue to, which abuse Villiers accepted
in silence, not even having the spirit to resent it. But though he was
outwardly sulky and quiet, yet within he cherished a deep hatred against
his wife for the contempt with which he was treated, and inwardly vowed
to pay her out on the first feasible opportunity.

It was now nearly six months since Vandeloup had become clerk at the
Pactolus, and he was getting tired of it, only watching his opportunity
to make a little money and go to Melbourne, where he had not much doubt
as to his success. With a certain sum of money to work on, M. Vandeloup
thought that with his talents and experience of human nature he would
soon be able to make a fortune, particularly as he was quite unfettered
by any scruples, and as long as he made money he did not care how he
gained it. With such an adaptable nature he could hardly help doing
well, but in order to give him the start he required a little capital,
so stayed on at the Pactolus and saved every penny he earned in the hope
of soon accumulating enough to leave. Another thing that kept him there
was his love for Kitty--not a very pure or elevating love certainly,
still it was love for all that, and Vandeloup could not tear himself
away from the place where she resided.

He had called on Kitty’s father, the Rev. Mark Marchurst, who lived
at the top of Black Hill, near Ballarat, and did not like him. Mr
Marchurst, a grave, quiet man, who was the pastor of a particular sect,
calling themselves very modestly ‘The Elect’, was hardly the kind of
individual to attract a brilliant young fellow like Vandeloup, and the
wonder was that he ever had such a charming daughter.

Kitty had fallen deeply in love with Vandeloup, so as he told her he
loved her in return, she thought that some day they would get married.
But nothing was farther from M. Vandeloup’s thoughts than marriage, even
with Kitty, for he knew how foolish it would be for him to marry before
making a position.

‘I don’t want a wife to drag me back,’ he said to himself one day when
Kitty had hinted at matrimony; ‘when I am wealthy it will be time enough
to think of marriage, but it will be long before I am rich, and can I
wait for Bebe all that time? Alas! I do not think so.’

The fact was, the young man was very liberal in his ideas, and
infinitely preferred a mistress to a wife. He had not any evil designs
towards Kitty, but her bright manner and charming face pleased him,
and he simply enjoyed the hours as they passed. She idolised him, and
Gaston, who was accustomed to be petted and caressed by women, accepted
all her affection as his due. Curiously enough, Madame Midas, lynx-eyed
as she was, never suspected the true state of affairs. Vandeloup had
told Kitty that no one was to know of their love for one another, and
though Kitty was dying to tell Madame about it, yet she kept silent
at his request, and acted so indifferently towards him when under Mrs
Villiers’ eye, that any doubts that lady had about the fascinations of
her clerk soon vanished.

As to M. Vandeloup, the situation was an old one for him accustomed
as he had been to carry on with guilty wives under the very noses of
unsuspecting husbands, and on this occasion he acted admirably. He was
very friendly with Kitty in public--evidently looking upon her as a mere
child, although he made no difference in his manner. And this innocent
intrigue gave a piquant flavour to his otherwise dull life.

Meanwhile, the Devil’s Lead was still undiscovered, many people
declaring it was a myth, and that such a lead had never existed. Three
people, however, had a firm belief in its existence, and were certain
it would be found some day--this trio being McIntosh, Madame Midas, and
Slivers.

The Pactolus claim was a sort of Naboth’s vineyard to Slivers, who, in
company with Billy, used to sit in his dingy little office and grind his
teeth as he thought of all the wealth lying beneath those green fields.
He had once even gone so far as to offer to buy a share in the claim
from Madame Midas, but had been promptly refused by that lady--a
circumstance which by no means added to his love for her.

Still the Devil’s Lead was not found, and people were beginning to
disbelieve in its existence, when suddenly indications appeared which
showed that it was near at hand. Nuggets, some large, some small,
began to be constantly discovered, and every day news was brought into
Ballarat about the turning-up of a thirty-ounce or a twenty-ounce nugget
in the Pactolus, when, to crown all, the news came and ran like wildfire
through the city that a three hundred ounce nugget had been unearthed.

There was great excitement over this, as such a large one had not been
found for some time, and when Slivers heard of its discovery he cursed
and swore most horribly; for with his long experience of gold mining,
he knew that the long-looked for Devil’s Lead was near at hand. Billy,
becoming excited with his master, began to swear also; and these
two companions cursed Madame Midas and all that belonged to her most
heartily. If Slivers could only have seen the interior of Madame Midas’s
dining room, by some trick of necromancy, he would certainly not have
been able to do the subject justice in the swearing line.

There were present Madame Midas, Selina, McIntosh, and Vandeloup, and
they were all gathered round the table looking at the famous nugget.
There it lay in the centre of the table, a virgin mass of gold, all
water-worn and polished, hollowed out like a honeycomb, and dotted over
with white pebbles like currants in a plum pudding.

‘I think I’ll send it to Melbourne for exhibition,’ said Mrs Villiers,
touching the nugget very lightly with her fingers.

‘’Deed, mum, and ‘tis worth it,’ replied McIntosh, whose severe face was
relaxed in a grimly pleasant manner; ‘but losh! ‘tis naething tae what
‘ull come oot o’ the Deil’s Lead.’

‘Oh, come, now,’ said Vandeloup, with a disbelieving smile, ‘the Devil’s
Lead won’t consist of nuggets like that.’

‘Maybe no,’ returned the old Scotchman, dryly; ‘but every mickle makes
a muckle, and ye ken the Lead wull hae mony sma’ nuggets, which is mair
paying, to my mind, than yin large ain.’

‘What’s the time?’ asked Madame, rather irrelevantly, turning to Archie.

Mr McIntosh drew out the large silver watch, which was part and parcel
of himself, and answered gravely that it was two o’clock.

‘Then I’ll tell you what,’ said Mrs Villiers, rising; ‘I’ll take it in
with me to Ballarat and show it to Mr Marchurst.’

McIntosh drew down the corners of his mouth, for, as a rigid
Presbyterian, he by no means approved of Marchurst’s heretical opinions,
but of course said nothing as Madame wished it.

‘Can I come with you, Madame?’ said Vandeloup, eagerly, for he never
lost an opportunity of seeing Kitty if he could help it.

‘Certainly,’ replied Madame, graciously; ‘we will start at once.’

Vandeloup was going away to get ready, when McIntosh stopped him.

‘That friend o’ yours is gangin’ awa’ t’ the toun the day,’ he said,
touching Vandeloup lightly on the shoulder.

‘What for?’ asked the Frenchman, carelessly.

‘’Tis to see the play actors, I’m thinkin’,’ returned Archie, dryly.
‘He wants tae stap all nicht i’ the toun, so I’ve let him gae, an’ have
tauld him to pit up at the Wattle Tree Hotel, the landlord o’ which is a
freend o’ mine.’

‘Very kind of you, I’m sure,’ said Vandeloup, with a pleasant smile;
‘but may I ask what play actors you refer to?’

‘I dinna ken anythin’ about sic folk,’ retorted Mr McIntosh, piously,
‘the deil’s ain bairns, wha wull gang into the pit of Tophet.’

‘Aren’t you rather hard on them, Archie?’ said Madame Midas, smiling
quietly. ‘I’m very fond of the theatre myself.’

‘It’s no for me to give ma opeenion about ma betters,’ replied Archie,
ungraciously, as he went out to see after the horse and trap; ‘but I
dinna care aboot sitting in the seat of the scornfu’, or walking in the
ways of the unrighteous,’ and with this parting shot at Vandeloup he
went away.

That young man shrugged his shoulders, and looked at Madame Midas in
such a comical manner that she could not help smiling.

‘You must forgive Archie,’ she said, pausing at the door of her bedroom
for a moment. ‘He has been brought up severely, and it is hard to rid
oneself of the traditions of youth.’

‘Very traditional in this case, I’m afraid,’ answered Gaston, referring
to McIntosh’s age.

‘If you like,’ said Madame, in a kindly tone, ‘you can stay in to-night
yourself, and go to the theatre.’

‘Thank you, Madame,’ replied Gaston, gravely. ‘I will avail myself of
your kind permission.’

‘I’m afraid you will find an Australian provincial company rather a
change after the Parisian theatres,’ said Mrs Villiers, as she vanished
into her room.

Vandeloup smiled, and turned to Selina, who was busy about her household
work.

‘Mademoiselle Selina,’ he said, gaily, ‘I am in want of a proverb to
answer Madame; if I can’t get the best I must be content with what I can
get. Now what piece of wisdom applies?’

Selina, flattered at being applied to, thought a moment, then raised her
head triumphantly--

‘“Half a loaf is better than none,”’ she announced, with a sour smile.

‘Mademoiselle,’ said Vandeloup, gravely regarding her as he stood at the
door, ‘your wisdom is only equalled by your charming appearance,’ and
with an ironical bow he went out.

Selina paused a moment in her occupation of polishing spoons, and looked
after him, doubtful as to whether he was in jest or earnest. Being
unable to decide, she resumed her work with a stifled chuckle, and
consoled herself with a proverb.

‘To be good is better than to be beautiful,’ which saying, as everyone
knows, is most consoling to plain-looking people.

The great nugget was carefully packed in a stout wooden box by Archie,
and placed in the trap by him with such caution that Madame, who was
already seated in it, asked him if he was afraid she would be robbed.

‘It’s always best to be on the richt side, mem,’ said Archie, handing
her the reins; ‘we dinna ken what may happen.’

‘Why, no one knows I am taking this to Ballarat to-day,’ said Madame,
drawing on her gloves.

‘Don’t they?’ thought M. Vandeloup, as he took his seat beside her. ‘She
doesn’t know that I’ve told Pierre.’

And without a single thought for the woman whose confidence he was
betraying, and of whose bread and salt he had partaken, Vandeloup shook
the reins, and the horse started down the road in the direction of
Ballarat, carrying Madame Midas and her nugget.

‘You carry Caesar and his fortunes, M. Vandeloup,’ she said, with a
smile.

‘I do better,’ he answered, gaily, ‘I carry Madame Midas and her luck.’




CHAPTER IX

LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM


Mr Mark Marchurst was a very peculiar man. Brought up in the
Presbyterian religion, he had early displayed his peculiarity by
differing from the elders of the church he belonged to regarding their
doctrine of eternal punishment. They, holding fast to the teachings of
Knox and Calvin, looked upon him in horror for daring to have an opinion
of his own; and as he refused to repent and have blind belief in the
teachings of those grim divines, he was turned out of the bosom of
the church. Drifting to the opposite extreme, he became a convert to
Catholicism; but, after a trial of that ancient faith, found it would
not suit him, so once more took up a neutral position. Therefore, as he
did not find either religion perfectly in accordance with his own views,
he took the law into his own hands and constructed one which was a queer
jumble of Presbyterianism, Catholicism, and Buddhism, of which last
religion he was a great admirer. As anyone with strong views and a
clever tongue will find followers, Mr Marchurst soon gathered a number
of people around him who professed a blind belief in the extraordinary
doctrines he promulgated. Having thus founded a sect he got sufficient
money out of them to build a temple--for so he called the barn-like
edifice he erected--and christened this new society which he had called
into existence ‘The Elect’. About one hundred people were members of his
church, and with their subscriptions, and also having a little money of
his own, he managed to live in a quiet manner in a cottage on the Black
Hill near to his temple. Every Sunday he held forth morning and evening,
expounding his views to his sparse congregation, and was looked upon
by them as a kind of prophet. As a matter of fact, the man had that
peculiar power of fascination which seems to be inseparable from the
prophetic character, and it was his intense enthusiasm and eloquent
tongue that cast a spell over the simple-minded people who believed in
him. But his doctrines were too shallow and unsatisfactory ever to take
root, and it could be easily seen that when Marchurst died ‘The Elect’
would die also,--that is, as a sect, for it was not pervaded by that
intense religious fervour which is the life and soul of a new doctrine.
The fundamental principles of his religion were extremely simple; he
saved his friends and damned his enemies, for so he styled those who
were not of the same mind as himself. If you were a member of ‘The
Elect’, Mr Marchurst assured you that the Golden Gate was wide open for
you, whereas if you belonged to any other denomination you were lost for
ever; so according to this liberal belief, the hundred people who formed
his congregation would all go straight to Heaven, and all the rest of
mankind would go to the devil.

In spite of the selfishness of this theory, which condemned so many
souls to perdition, Marchurst was a kindly natured man, and his religion
was more of an hallucination than anything else. He was very clever at
giving advice, and Madame Midas esteemed him highly on this account.
Though Marchurst had often tried to convert her, she refused to believe
in the shallow sophistries he set forth, and told him she had her own
views on religion, which views she declined to impart to him, though
frequently pressed to do so. The zealot regretted this obstinacy, as,
according to his creed, she was a lost soul, but he liked her too well
personally to quarrel with her on that account, consoling himself with
the reflection that sooner or later, she would seek the fold. He was
more successful with M. Vandeloup, who, having no religion whatever,
allowed Marchurst to think he had converted him, in order to see as much
as he could of Kitty. He used to attend the Sunday services regularly,
and frequently came in during the week ostensibly to talk to Marchurst
about the doctrines of ‘The Elect’, but in reality to see the old man’s
daughter.

On this bright afternoon, when everything was bathed in sunshine, Mr
Marchurst, instead of being outside and enjoying the beauties of Nature,
was mewed up in his dismal little study, with curtains closely drawn
to exclude the light, a cup of strong tea, and the Bible open at ‘The
Lamentations of Jeremiah’. His room was lined with books, but they had
not that friendly look books generally have, but, bound in dingy brown
calf, looked as grim and uninviting as their contents, which were mostly
sermons and cheerful anticipations of the bottomless pit. It was against
Marchurst’s principles to gratify his senses by having nice things
around him, and his whole house was furnished in the same dismal manner.

So far did he carry this idea of mortifying the flesh through the eyes
that he had tried to induce Kitty to wear sad-coloured dresses and
poke bonnets; but in this attempt he failed lamentably, as Kitty
flatly refused to make a guy of herself, and always wore dresses of the
lightest and gayest description.

Marchurst groaned over this display of vanity, but as he could do
nothing with the obdurate Kitty, he allowed her to have her own way, and
made a virtue of necessity by calling her his ‘thorn in the flesh’.

He was a tall thin man, of a bleached appearance, from staying so much
in the dark, and so loosely put together that when he bowed he did
not as much bend as tumble down from a height. In fact, he looked so
carelessly fixed up that when he sat down he made the onlooker feel
quite nervous lest he should subside into a ruin, and scatter his legs,
arms, and head promiscuously all over the place. He had a sad, pale,
eager-looking face, with dreamy eyes, which always seemed to be looking
into the spiritual world. He wore his brown hair long, as he always
maintained a man’s hair was as much his glory as a woman’s was hers,
quoting Samson and Absalom in support of this opinion. His arms were
long and thin, and when he gesticulated in the pulpit on Sundays flew
about like a couple of flails, which gave him a most unhappy resemblance
to a windmill. The ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’ are not the most cheerful
of reading, and Mr Marchurst, imbued with the sadness of the Jewish
prophet, drinking strong tea and sitting in a darkened room, was rapidly
sinking into a very dismal frame of mind, which an outsider would have
termed a fit of the blues. He sat in his straight-backed chair taking
notes of such parts of the ‘Lamentations’ as would tend to depress the
spirits of the ‘Elect’ on Sunday, and teach them to regard life in a
proper and thoroughly miserable manner.

He was roused from his dismal musings by the quick opening of the door
of his study, when Kitty, joyous and gay in her white dress, burst like
a sunbeam into the room.

“I wish, Katherine,” said her father, in a severe voice, “I wish you
would not enter so noisily and disturb my meditations.”

“You’ll have to put your meditations aside for a bit,” said Kitty,
disrespectfully, crossing to the window and pulling aside the curtains,
“for Madame Midas and M. Vandeloup have come to see you.”

A flood of golden light streamed into the dusky room, and Marchurst put
his hand to his eyes for a moment, as they were dazzled by the sudden
glare.

“They’ve got something to show you, papa,” said Kitty, going back to the
door: “a big nugget--such a size--as large as your head.”

Her father put his hand mechanically to his head to judge of the size,
and was about to answer when Madame Midas, calm, cool, and handsome,
entered the room, followed by Vandeloup, carrying a wooden box
containing the nugget. It was by no means light, and Vandeloup was quite
thankful when he placed it on the table.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Mr Marchurst,” said Madame, sitting down
and casting a glance at the scattered papers, the cup of tea, and the
open Bible, “but I couldn’t help gratifying my vanity by bringing the
new nugget for you to see.”

“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” responded Mr Marchurst, politely,
giving way suddenly in the middle as if he had a hinge in his back,
which was his idea of a bow. “I hope this,” laying his hand on the box,
“may be the forerunner of many such.”

“Oh, it will,” said Vandeloup, cheerfully, “if we can only find the
Devil’s Lead.”

“An unholy name,” groaned Marchurst sadly, shaking his head. “Why did
you not call it something else?”

“Simply because I didn’t name it,” replied Madame Midas, bluntly; “but
if the lead is rich, the name doesn’t matter much.”

“Of course not,” broke in Kitty, impatiently, being anxious to see the
nugget. “Do open the box; I’m dying to see it.”

“Katherine! Katherine!” said Marchurst, reprovingly, as Vandeloup opened
the box, “how you do exaggerate--ah!” he broke off his exhortation
suddenly, for the box was open, and the great mass of gold was
glittering in its depths. ‘Wonderful!’

‘What a size!’ cried Kitty, clapping her hands as Vandeloup lifted it
out and placed it on the table; ‘how much is it worth?’

‘About twelve hundred pounds,’ said Madame, quietly, though her heart
throbbed with pride as she looked at her nugget; ‘it weighs three
hundred ounces.’

‘Wonderful!’ reiterated the old man, passing his thin hand lightly over
the rough surface; ‘verily the Lord hath hidden great treasure in the
entrails of the earth, and the Pactolus would seem to be a land of Ophir
when it yields such wealth as this.’

The nugget was duly admired by everyone, and then Brown and Jane, who
formed the household of Marchurst, were called in to look at it. They
both expressed such astonishment and wonder, that Marchurst felt himself
compelled to admonish them against prizing the treasures of earth above
those of heaven. Vandeloup, afraid that they were in for a sermon,
beckoned quietly to Kitty, and they both stealthily left the room, while
Marchurst, with Brown, Jane, and Madame for an audience, and the nugget
for a text, delivered a short discourse.

Kitty put on a great straw hat, underneath which her piquant face
blushed and grew pink beneath the fond gaze of her lover as they left
the house together and strolled up to the Black Hill.

Black Hill no doubt at one time deserved its name, being then covered
with dark trees and representing a black appearance at a distance; but
at present, owing to the mines which have been worked there, the whole
place is covered with dazzling white clay, or mulloch, which now renders
the title singularly inappropriate. On the top of the hill there is a
kind of irregular gully or pass, which extends from one side of the
hill to the other, and was cut in the early days for mining purposes.
Anything more extraordinary can hardly be imagined than this chasm, for
the sides, which tower up on either side to the height of some fifty or
sixty feet, are all pure white, and at the top break into all sorts of
fantastic forms. The white surface of the rocks are all stained with
colours which alternate in shades of dark brown, bright red and delicate
pink. Great masses of rock have tumbled down on each side, often coming
so close together as to almost block up the path. Here and there in the
white walls can be seen the dark entrances of disused shafts; and one,
at the lowest level of the gully, pierces through the hill and comes
out on the other side. There is an old engine-house near the end of the
gully, with its red brick chimney standing up gaunt and silent beside
it, and the ugly tower of the winding gear adjacent. All the machinery
in the engine-house, with the huge wheels and intricate mechanism,
is silent now--for many years have elapsed since this old shaft was
abandoned by the Black Hill Gold Mining Company.

At the lower end of the pass there is an engine-house in full working
order, and a great plateau of slate-coloured mulloch runs out for some
yards, and then there is a steep sloping bank formed by the falling
earth. In the moonlight this wonderful white gully looks weird and
bizarre; and even as Vandeloup and Kitty stood at the top looking down
into its dusty depths in the bright sunshine, it looks fantastic and
picturesque.

Seated on the highest point of the hill, under the shadow of a great
rock, the two lovers had a wonderful view of Ballarat. Here and there
they could see the galvanized iron roofs of the houses gleaming like
silver in the sunlight from amid the thick foliage of the trees with
which the city is studded. Indeed, Ballarat might well be called the
City of Trees, for seen from the Black Hill it looks more like a huge
park with a sprinkling of houses in it than anything else. The green
foliage rolls over it like the waves of the ocean, and the houses rise
up like isolated habitations. Now and then a red brick building, or the
slender white spire of a church gave a touch of colour to the landscape,
and contrasted pleasantly with the bluish-white roofs and green trees.
Scattered all through the town were the huge mounds of earth marking
the mining-shafts of various colours, from dark brown to pure white, and
beside them, with the utmost regularity, were the skeleton towers of
the poppet heads, the tall red chimneys, and the squat, low forms of the
engine-houses. On the right, high up, could be seen the blue waters
of Lake Wendouree flashing like a mirror in the sunlight. The city was
completely encircled by the dark forests, which stretched far away,
having a reddish tinge over their trees, ending in a sharply defined
line against the clear sky; while, on the left arose Mount Warreneip
like an undulating mound and, further along, Mount Bunniyong, with the
same appearance.

All this wonderful panorama, however, was so familiar to Kitty and her
lover that they did not trouble themselves to look much at it; but the
girl sat down under the big rock, and Vandeloup flung himself lazily at
her feet.

‘Bebe,’ said Vandeloup, who had given her this pet name, ‘how long is
this sort of life going to last?’

Kitty looked down at him with a vague feeling of terror at her heart.
She had never known any life but the simple one she was now leading, and
could not imagine it coming to an end.

‘I’m getting tired of it,’ said Vandeloup, lying back on the grass,
and, putting his hands under his head, stared idly at the blue sky.
‘Unfortunately, human life is so short nowadays that we cannot afford to
waste a moment of it. I am not suited for a lotus-eating existence, and
I think I shall go to Melbourne.’

‘And leave me?’ cried Kitty, in dismay, never having contemplated such a
thing as likely to happen.

‘That depends on yourself, Bebe,’ said her lover, quickly rolling over
and looking steadily at her, with his chin resting on his hands; ‘will
you come with me?’

‘As your wife?’ murmured Kitty, whose innocent mind never dreamt of any
other form of companionship.

Vandeloup turned away his face to conceal the sneering smile that crept
over it. His wife, indeed! as if he were going to encumber himself with
marriage before he had made a fortune, and even then it was questionable
as to whether he would surrender the freedom of bachelorhood for the
ties of matrimony.

‘Of course,’ he said, in a reassuring tone, still keeping his face
turned away, ‘we will get married in Melbourne as soon as we arrive.’

‘Why can’t papa marry us,’ pouted Kitty, in an aggrieved tone.

‘My dear child,’ said the Frenchman, getting on his knees and coming
close to her, ‘in the first place, your father would not consent to the
match, as I am poor and unknown, and not by any means the man he would
choose for you; and in the second place, being a Catholic,’--here M.
Vandeloup looked duly religious--‘I must be married by one of my own
priests.’

‘Then why not in Ballarat?’ objected Kitty, still unconvinced.

‘Because your father would never consent,’ he whispered, putting his arm
round her waist; ‘we must run away quietly, and when we are married can
ask his pardon and,’ with a sardonic sneer, ‘his blessing.’

A delicious thrill passed through Kitty when she heard this. A real
elopement with a handsome lover--just like the heroines in the story
books. It was delightfully romantic, and yet there seemed to be
something wrong about it. She was like a timid bather, longing to
plunge into the water, yet hesitating through a vague fear. With a quick
catching of the breath she turned to Vandeloup, and saw him with his
burning scintillating eyes fastened on her face.

‘Don’t look like that,’ she said, with a touch of virginal fear, pushing
him away, ‘you frighten me.’

‘Frighten you, Bebe?’ he said, in a caressing tone; ‘my heart’s idol,
you are cruel to speak like that; you must come with me, for I cannot
and will not leave you behind.’

‘When do you go?’ asked Kitty, who was now trembling violently.

‘Ah!’ M. Vandeloup was puzzled what to say, as he had no very decided
plan of action. He had not sufficient money saved to justify him in
leaving the Pactolus--still there were always possibilities, and Fortune
was fond of playing wild pranks. At the same time there was nothing
tangible in view likely to make him rich, so, as these thoughts rapidly
passed through his mind, he resolved to temporize.

‘I can’t tell you, Bebe,’ he said, in a caressing tone, smoothing her
curly hair. ‘I want you to think over what I have said, and when I do
go, perhaps in a month or so, you will be ready to come with me. No,’ he
said, as Kitty was about to answer, ‘I don’t want you to reply now, take
time to consider, little one,’ and with a smile on his lips he bent over
and kissed her tenderly.

They sat silently together for some time, each intent on their own
thoughts, and then Vandeloup suddenly looked up.

‘Will Madame stay to dinner with you, Bebe?’ he asked.

Kitty nodded.

‘She always does,’ she answered; ‘you will come too.’

Vandeloup shook his head.

‘I am going down to Ballarat to the Wattle Tree Hotel to see my friend
Pierre,’ he said, in a preoccupied manner, ‘and will have something to
eat there. Then I will come up again about eight o’clock, in time to see
Madame off.’

‘Aren’t you going back with her?’ asked Kitty, in surprise, as they rose
to their feet.

‘No,’ he replied, dusting his knees with his hand, ‘I stay all night
in Ballarat, with Madame’s kind permission, to see the theatre. Now,
good-bye at present, Bebe,’ kissing her, ‘I will be back at eight
o’clock, so you can excuse me to Madame till then.’

He ran gaily down the hill waving his hat, and Kitty stood looking after
him with pride in her heart. He was a lover any girl might have been
proud of, but Kitty would not have been so satisfied with him had she
known what his real thoughts were.

‘Marry!’ he said to himself, with a laugh, as he walked gaily along;
‘hardly! When we get to Melbourne, my sweet Bebe, I will find some way
to keep you off that idea--and when we grow tired of one another, we can
separate without the trouble or expense of a divorce.’

And this heartless, cynical man of the world was the keeper into whose
hands innocent Kitty was about to commit the whole of her future life.

After all, the fabled Sirens have their equivalent in the male sex, and
Homer’s description symbolizes a cruel truth.



CHAPTER X

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL


The Wattle Tree Hotel, to which Mr McIntosh had directed Pierre, was a
quiet little public-house in a quiet street. It was far away from the
main thoroughfares of the city, and a stranger had to go up any number
of quiet streets to get to it, and turn and twist round corners and down
narrow lanes until it became a perfect miracle how he ever found the
hotel at all.

To a casual spectator it would seem that a tavern so difficult of access
would not be very good for business, but Simon Twexby, the landlord,
knew better. It had its regular customers, who came there day after day,
and sat in the little back parlour and talked and chatted over their
drinks. The Wattle Tree was such a quiet haven of rest, and kept such
good liquor, that once a man discovered it he always came back again; so
Mr Twexby did a very comfortable trade.

Rumour said he had made a lot of money out of gold-mining, and that he
kept the hotel more for amusement than anything else; but, however this
might be, the trade of the Wattle Tree brought him in a very decent
income, and Mr Twexby could afford to take things easy--which he
certainly did.

Anyone going into the bar could see old Simon--a stolid, fat man, with
a sleepy-looking face, always in his shirt sleeves, and wearing a white
apron, sitting in a chair at the end, while his daughter, a sharp,
red-nosed damsel, who was thirty-five years of age, and confessed to
twenty-two, served out the drinks. Mrs Twexby had long ago departed this
life, leaving behind her the sharp, red-nosed damsel to be her father’s
comfort. As a matter of fact, she was just the opposite, and Simon often
wished that his daughter had departed to a better world in company with
her mother. Thin, tight-laced, with a shrill voice and an acidulated
temper, Miss Twexby was still a spinster, and not even the fact of her
being an heiress could tempt any of the Ballarat youth to lead her to
the altar. Consequently Miss Twexby’s temper was not a golden one, and
she ruled the hotel and its inmates--her father included--with a rod of
iron.

Mr Villiers was a frequent customer at the Wattle Tree, and was in the
back parlour drinking brandy and water and talking to old Twexby on the
day that Pierre arrived. The dumb man came into the bar out of the dusty
road, and, leaning over the counter, pushed a letter under Miss Twexby’s
nose.

‘Bills?’ queried that damsel, sharply.

Pierre, of course, did not answer, but touched his lips with his hand to
indicate he was dumb. Miss Twexby, however, read the action another way.

‘You want a drink,’ she said, with a scornful toss of her head. ‘Where’s
your money?’

Pierre pointed out the letter, and although it was directed to her
father, Miss Twexby, who managed everything, opened it and found it was
from McIntosh, saying that the bearer, Pierre Lemaire, was to have a bed
for the night, meals, drinks, and whatever else he required, and that
he--McIntosh--would be responsible for the money. He furthermore added
that the bearer was dumb.

‘Oh, so you’re dumb, are you,’ said Miss Twexby, folding up the letter
and looking complacently at Pierre. ‘I wish there were a few more men
the same way; then, perhaps, we’d have less chat.’

This being undeniable, the fair Martha--for that was the name of the
Twexby heiress--without waiting for any assent, walking into the back
parlour, read the letter to her father, and waited instructions, for she
always referred to Simon as the head of the house, though as a matter of
fact she never did what she was told save when it tallied with her own
wishes.

‘It will be all right, Martha, I suppose,’ said Simon sleepily.

Martha asserted with decision that it would be all right, or she would
know the reason why; then marching out again to the bar, she drew a pot
of beer for Pierre--without asking him what he would have--and ordered
him to sit down and be quiet, which last remark was rather unnecessary,
considering that the man was dumb. Then she sat down behind her bar
and resumed her perusal of a novel called ‘The Duke’s Duchesses, or
The Milliner’s Mystery,’ which contained a ducal hero with bigamistic
proclivities, and a virtuous milliner whom the aforesaid duke
persecuted. All of which was very entertaining and improbable, and gave
Miss Twexby much pleasure, judging from the sympathetic sighs she was
heaving.

Meanwhile, Villiers having heard the name of Pierre Lemaire, and knowing
he was engaged in the Pactolus claim, came round to see him and try
to find out all about the nugget. Pierre was sulky at first, and sat
drinking his beer sullenly, with his old black hat drawn down so far
over his eyes that only his bushy black beard was visible, but Mr
Villiers’ suavity, together with the present of half-a-crown, had a
marked effect on him. As he was dumb, Mr Villiers was somewhat perplexed
how to carry on a conversation with him, but he ultimately drew forth a
piece of paper, and sketched a rough presentation of a nugget thereon,
which he showed to Pierre. The Frenchman, however, did not comprehend
until Villiers produced a sovereign from his pocket, and pointed first
to the gold, and then to the drawing, upon which Pierre nodded his head
several times in order to show that he understood. Villiers then drew a
picture of the Pactolus claim, and asked Pierre in French if the nugget
was still there, as he showed him the sketch. Pierre shook his head,
and, taking the pencil in his hand, drew a rough representation of a
horse and cart, and put a square box in the latter to show the nugget
was on a journey.

‘Hullo!’ said Villiers to himself, ‘it’s not at her own house, and she’s
driving somewhere with it, I wonder where to?’

Pierre--who not being able to write, was in the habit of drawing
pictures to express his thoughts--nudged his elbow and showed him a
sketch of a man in a box waving his arms.

‘Auctioneer?’ hazarded Mr Villiers, looking at this keenly. Pierre
stared at him blankly; his comprehension of English was none of the
best, so he did not know what auctioneer meant. However, he saw that
Villiers did not understand, so he rapidly sketched an altar with a
priest standing before it blessing the people.

‘Oh, a priest, eh?--a minister?’ said Villiers, nodding his head to show
he understood. ‘She’s taken the nugget to show it to a minister! Wonder
who it is?’

This was speedily answered by Pierre, who, throwing down the pencil and
paper, dragged him outside on to the road, and pointed to the white top
of the Black Hill. Mr Villiers instantly comprehended.

‘Marchurst, by God!’ he said in English, smiting his leg with his open
hand. ‘Is Madame there now?’ he added in French, turning to Pierre.

The dumb man nodded and slouched slowly back into the hotel. Villiers
stood out in the blazing sunshine, thinking.

‘She’s got the nugget with her in the trap,’ he said to himself; ‘and
she’s taken it to show Marchurst. Well, she’s sure to stop there to tea,
and won’t start for home till about nine o’clock: it will be pretty dark
by then. She’ll be by herself, and if I--’ here he stopped and looked
round cautiously, and then, without another word, set off down the
street at a run.

The fact was, Mr Villiers had come to the conclusion that as his wife
would not give him money willingly, the best thing to be done would be
to take it by force, and accordingly he had made up his mind to rob her
of the nugget that night if possible. Of course there was a risk, for
he knew his wife was a determined woman; still, while she was driving in
the darkness down the hill, if he took her by surprise he would be able
to stun her with a blow and get possession of the nugget. Then he could
hide it in one of the old shafts of the Black Hill Company until he
required it. As to the possibility of his wife knowing him, there would
be no chance of that in the darkness, so he could escape any unpleasant
inquiries, then take the nugget to Melbourne and get it melted down
secretly. He would be able to make nearly twelve hundred pounds out
of it, so the game would certainly be worth the candle. Full of this
brilliant idea of making a good sum at one stroke, Mr Villiers went
home, had something to eat, and taking with him a good stout stick, the
nob of which was loaded with lead, he started for the Black Hill with
the intent of watching Marchurst’s house until his wife left there, and
then following her down the hill and possessing himself of the nugget.

The afternoon wore drowsily along, and the great heat made everybody
inclined to sleep. Pierre had demanded by signs to be shown his bedroom,
and having been conducted thereto by a crushed-looking waiter, who
drifted aimlessly before him, threw himself on the bed and went fast
asleep.

Old Simon, in the dimly-lit back parlour, was already snoring, and only
Miss Twexby, amid the glitter of the glasses in the bar and the glare
of the sunshine through the open door, was wide awake. Customers came
in for foaming tankards of beer, and sometimes a little girl, with a jug
hidden under her apron, would appear, with a request that it might be
filled for ‘mother’, who was ironing. Indeed, the number of women who
were ironing that afternoon, and wanted to quench their thirst, was
something wonderful; but Miss Twexby seemed to know all about it as she
put a frothy head on each jug, and received the silver in exchange.
At last, however, even Martha the wide-awake was yielding to the
somniferous heat of the day when a young man entered the bar and made
her sit up with great alacrity, beaming all over her hard wooden face.

This was none other than M. Vandeloup, who had come down to see Pierre.
Dressed in flannels, with a blue scarf tied carelessly round his waist,
a blue necktie knotted loosely round his throat under the collar of his
shirt, and wearing a straw hat on his fair head, he looked wonderfully
cool and handsome, and as he leaned over the counter composedly smoking
a cigarette, Miss Twexby thought that the hero of her novel must have
stepped bodily out of the book. Gaston stared complacently at her while
he pulled at his fair moustache, and thought how horribly plain-looking
she was, and what a contrast to his charming Bebe.

‘I’ll take something cool to drink,’ he said, with a yawn, ‘and also a
chair, if you have no objection,’ suiting the action to the word; ‘whew!
how warm it is.’

‘What would you like to drink, sir?’ asked the fair Martha, putting on
her brightest smile, which seemed rather out of place on her features;
‘brandy and soda?’

‘Thank you, I’ll have a lemon squash if you will kindly make me one,’ he
said, carelessly, and as Martha flew to obey his order, he added, ‘you
might put a little curacoa in it.’

‘It’s very hot, ain’t it,’ observed Miss Twexby, affably, as she cut up
the lemon; ‘par’s gone to sleep in the other room,’ jerking her head in
the direction of the parlour, ‘but Mr Villiers went out in all the heat,
and it ain’t no wonder if he gets a sunstroke.’

‘Oh, was Mr Villiers here?’ asked Gaston, idly, not that he cared much
about that gentleman’s movements, but merely for something to say.

‘Lor, yes, sir,’ giggled Martha, ‘he’s one of our regulars, sir.’

‘I can understand that, Mademoiselle,’ said Vandeloup, bowing as he took
the drink from her hand.

Miss Twexby giggled again, and her nose grew a shade redder at the
pleasure of being bantered by this handsome young man.

‘You’re a furriner,’ she said, shortly; ‘I knew you were,’ she went on
triumphantly as he nodded, ‘you talk well enough, but there’s something
wrong about the way you pronounces your words.’

Vandeloup hardly thought Miss Twexby a mistress of Queen’s English, but
he did not attempt to contradict her.

‘I must get you to give me a few lessons,’ he replied, gallantly,
setting down the empty glass; ‘and what has Mr Villiers gone out into
the heat for?’

‘It’s more nor I can tell,’ said Martha, emphatically, nodding her head
till the short curls dangling over her ears vibrated as if they were
made of wire. ‘He spoke to the dumb man and drew pictures for him, and
then off he goes.’

The dumb man! Gaston pricked up his ears at this, and, wondering what
Villiers wanted to talk to Pierre about, he determined to find out.

‘That dumb man is one of our miners from the Pactolus,’ he said,
lighting another cigarette; ‘I wish to speak to him--has he gone out
also?’

‘No, he ain’t,’ returned Miss Twexby, decisively; ‘he’s gone to lie
down; d’ye want to see him; I’ll send for him--’ with her hand on the
bell-rope.

‘No, thank you,’ said Vandeloup, stopping her, ‘I’ll go up to his room
if you will show me the way.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Martha, preparing to leave the bar, but first
ringing the bell so that the crushed-looking waiter might come and
attend to possible customers; ‘he’s on the ground floor, and there ain’t
no stairs to climb--now what are you looking at, sir?’ with another
gratified giggle, as she caught Vandeloup staring at her.

But he was not looking at her somewhat mature charms, but at a bunch of
pale blue flowers, among which were some white blossoms she wore in the
front of her dress.

‘What are these?’ he asked, touching the white blossoms lightly with his
finger.

‘I do declare it’s that nasty hemlock!’ said Martha, in surprise,
pulling the white flowers out of the bunch; ‘and I never knew it was
there. Pah!’ and she threw the blossom down with a gesture of disgust.
‘How they smell!’

Gaston picked up one of the flowers, and crushed it between his fingers,
upon which it gave out a peculiar mousy odour eminently disagreeable. It
was hemlock sure enough, and he wondered how such a plant had come into
Australia.

‘Does it grow in your garden?’ he asked Martha.

That damsel intimated it did, and offered to show him the plant, so that
he could believe his own eyes.

Vandeloup assented eagerly, and they were soon in the flower garden at
the back of the house, which was blazing with vivid colours, in the hot
glare of the sunshine.

‘There you are,’ said Miss Twexby, pointing to a corner of the garden
near the fence where the plant was growing; ‘par brought a lot of seeds
from home, and that beastly thing got mixed up with them. Par keeps it
growing, though, ‘cause no one else has got it. It’s quite a curiosity.’

Vandeloup bent down and examined the plant, with its large, round,
smooth, purple-spotted stem--its smooth, shining green leaves, and the
tiny white flowers with their disagreeable odour.

‘Yes, it is hemlock,’ he said, half to himself; ‘I did not know it could
be grown here. Some day, Mademoiselle,’ he said, turning to Miss Twexby
and walking back to the house with her, ‘I will ask you to let me have
some of the roots of that plant to make an experiment with.’

‘As much as you like,’ said the fair Martha, amiably; ‘it’s a nasty
smelling thing. What are you going to make out of it?’

‘Nothing particular,’ returned Vandeloup, with a yawn, as they entered
the house and stopped at the door of Pierre’s room. ‘I’m a bit of a
chemist, and amuse myself with these things.’

‘You are clever,’ observed Martha, admiringly; ‘but here’s that man’s
room--we didn’t give him the best’--apologetically--‘as miners are so
rough.’

‘Mademoiselle,’ said Vandeloup, eagerly, as she turned to go, ‘I see
there are a few blossoms of hemlock left in your flower there,’ touching
it with his finger; ‘will you give them to me?’

Martha Twexby stared; surely this was the long-expected come at
last--she had secured a lover; and such a lover--handsome, young, and
gallant,--the very hero of her dreams. She almost fainted in delighted
surprise, and unfastening the flowers with trembling fingers, gave them
to Gaston. He placed them in a button-hole of his flannel coat, then
before she could scream, or even draw back in time, this audacious young
man put his arm round her and kissed her virginal lips. Miss Twexby was
so taken by surprise, that she could offer no resistance, and by the
time she had recovered herself, Gaston had disappeared into Pierre’s
room and closed the door after him.

‘Well,’ she said to herself, as she returned to the bar, ‘if that isn’t
a case of love at first sight, my name ain’t Martha Twexby,’ and she sat
down in the bar with her nerves all of a flutter, as she afterwards told
a female friend who dropped in sometimes for a friendly cup of tea.

Gaston closed the door after him, and found himself in a moderately
large room, with one window looking on to the garden, and having a
dressing-table with a mirror in front of it. There were two beds, one on
each side, and on the farthest of these Pierre was sleeping heavily, not
even Gaston’s entrance having roused him. Going over to him, Vandeloup
touched him slightly, and with a spring the dumb man sat up in bed as if
he expected to be arrested, and was all on the alert to escape.

‘It’s only I, my friend,’ said Gaston, in French, crossing over to the
other bed and sitting on it. ‘Come here; I wish to speak to you.’

Pierre rose from his sleeping place, and, stumbling across the room,
stood before Gaston with downcast eyes, his shaggy hair all tossed and
tumbled by the contact with the pillow. Gaston himself coolly relit his
cigarette, which had gone out, threw his straw hat on the bed, and then,
curling one leg inside the other, looked long and keenly at Pierre.

‘You saw Madame’s husband to-day?’ he said sharply, still eyeing the
slouching figure before him, that seemed so restless under his steady
gaze.

Pierre nodded and shuffled his large feet.

‘Did he want to know about his wife?’

Another nod.

‘I thought so; and about the new nugget also, I presume?’

Still another nod.

‘Humph,’ thoughtfully. ‘He’d like to get a share of it, I’ve no doubt.’

The dumb man nodded violently; then, crossing over to his own bed,
he placed the pillow in the centre of it, and falling on his knees,
imitated the action of miners in working at the wash. Then he arose to
his feet and pointed to the pillow.

‘I see,’ said M. Vandeloup, who had been watching this pantomime with
considerable interest; ‘that pillow is the nugget of which our friend
wants a share.’

Pierre assented; then, snatching up the pillow, he ran with it to the
end of the room.

‘Oh,’ said Gaston, after a moment’s thought, ‘so he’s going to run away
with it. A very good idea; but how does he propose to get it?’

Pierre dropped his pillow and pointed in the direction of the Black
Hill.

‘Does he know it’s up there?’ asked Vandeloup; ‘you told him, I
suppose?’ As Pierre nodded, ‘Humph! I think I can see what Mr Villiers
intends to do--rob his wife as she goes home tonight.’

Pierre nodded in a half doubtful manner.

‘You’re not quite sure,’ interrupted M. Vandeloup, ‘but I am. He won’t
stop at anything to get money. You stay all night in town?’

The dumb man assented.

‘So do I,’ replied Vandeloup; ‘it’s a happy coincidence, because I see
a chance of our getting that nugget.’ Pierre’s dull eyes brightened, and
he rubbed his hands together in a pleased manner.

‘Sit down,’ said Vandeloup, in a peremptory tone, pointing to the floor.
‘I wish to tell you what I think.’

Pierre obediently dropped on to the floor, where he squatted like a huge
misshapen toad, while Vandeloup, after going to the door to see that
it was closed, returned to the bed, sat down again, and, having lighted
another cigarette, began to speak. All this precaution was somewhat
needless, as he was talking rapidly in French, but then M. Vandeloup
knew that walls have ears and possibly might understand foreign
languages.

‘I need hardly remind you,’ said Vandeloup, in a pleasant voice, ‘that
when we landed in Australia I told you that there was war between
ourselves and society, and that, at any cost, we must try to make money;
so far, we have only been able to earn an honest livelihood--a way of
getting rich which you must admit is remarkably slow. Here, however, is
a chance of making, if not a fortune, at least a good sum of money at
one stroke. This M. Villiers is going to rob his wife, and his plan
will no doubt be this: he will lie in wait for her, and when she drives
slowly down the hill, he will spring on to the trap and perhaps attempt
to kill her; at all events, he will seize the box containing the nugget,
and try to make off with it. How he intends to manage it I cannot tell
you--it must be left to the chapter of accidents; but,’ in a lower
voice, bending forward, ‘when he does get the nugget we must obtain it
from him.’

Pierre looked up and drew his hand across his throat.

‘Not necessarily,’ returned Vandeloup, coolly; ‘I know your adage, “dead
men tell no tales,” but it is a mistake--they do, and to kill him is
dangerous. No, if we stun him we can go off with the nugget, and then
make our way to Melbourne, where we can get rid of it quietly. As
to Madame Midas, if her husband allows her to live--which I think is
unlikely--I will make our excuses to her for leaving the mine. Now, I’m
going up to M. Marchurst’s house, so you can meet me at the top of the
hill, at eight o’clock tonight. Madame will probably start at half-past
eight or nine, so that will give us plenty of time to see what M.
Villiers is going to do.’

They both rose to their feet. Then Vandeloup put on his hat, and, going
to the glass, arranged his tie in as cool and nonchalant a manner as
if he had been merely planning the details for a picnic instead of a
possible crime. While admiring himself in the glass he caught sight of
the bunch of flowers given to him by Miss Twexby, and, taking them from
his coat, he turned round to Pierre, who stood watching him in his usual
sullen manner.

‘Do you see these?’ he asked, touching the white blossoms with the
cigarette he held between his fingers.

Pierre intimated that he did.

‘From the plant of these, my friend,’ said Vandeloup, looking at them
critically, ‘I can prepare a vegetable poison as deadly as any of Caesar
Borgia’s. It is a powerful narcotic, and leaves hardly any trace. Having
been a medical student, you know,’ he went on, conversationally, ‘I made
quite a study of toxicology, and the juice of this plant,’ touching the
white flower, ‘has done me good service, although it was the cause of my
exile to New Caledonia. Well,’ with a shrug of the shoulders as he
put the flowers back in his coat, ‘it is always something to have in
reserve; I did not know that I could get this plant here, my friend. But
now that I have I will prepare a little of this poison,--it will always
be useful in emergencies.’

Pierre looked steadily at the young man, and then slipping his hand
behind his back he drew forth from the waistband of his trousers a
long, sharp, cruel-looking knife, which for safety had a leather sheath.
Drawing this off, the dumb man ran his thumb along the keen edge, and
held the knife out towards Vandeloup, who refused it with a cynical
smile.

‘You don’t believe in this, I can see,’ he said, touching the dainty
bunch of flowers as Pierre put the knife in its sheath again and
returned it to its hiding-place. ‘I’m afraid your ideas are still
crude--you believe in the good old-fashioned style of blood-letting.
Quite a mistake, I assure you; poison is much more artistic and neat
in its work, and to my mind involves less risk. You see, my Pierre,’ he
continued, lazily watching the blue wreaths of smoke from his cigarette
curl round his head, ‘crime must improve with civilization; and since
the Cain and Abel epoch we have refined the art of murder in a most
wonderful manner--decidedly we are becoming more civilized; and now, my
friend,’ in a kind tone, laying his slender white hand on the shoulder
of the dumb man, ‘you must really take a little rest, for I have
no doubt but what you will need all your strength tonight should M.
Villiers prove obstinate. Of course,’ with a shrug, ‘if he does not
succeed in getting the nugget, our time will be simply wasted, and
then,’ with a gay smile, touching the flowers, ‘I will see what I can do
in the artistic line.’

Pierre lay down again on the bed, and turning his face to the wall fell
fast asleep, while M. Vandeloup, humming a merry tune, walked gaily out
of the room to the bar, and asked Miss Twexby for another drink.

‘Brandy and soda this time, please,’ he said, lazily lighting another
cigarette; ‘this heat is so enervating, and I’m going to walk up to
Black Hill. By the way, Mademoiselle,’ he went on, as she opened the
soda water, ‘as I see there are two beds in my friend’s room I will stay
here all night.’

‘You shall have the best room,’ said Martha, decisively, as she handed
him the brandy and soda.

‘You are too kind,’ replied M. Vandeloup, coolly, as he took the drink
from her, ‘but I prefer to stay with my silent friend. He was one of the
sailors in the ship when I was wrecked, as you have no doubt heard, and
looks upon me as a sort of fetish.’

Miss Twexby knew all about the wreck, and thought it was beautiful that
he should condescend to be so friendly with a common sailor. Vandeloup
received all her speeches with a polite smile, then set down his empty
glass and prepared to leave.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he said, touching the flowers, ‘you see I still have
them--they will remind me of you,’ and raising his hat he strolled idly
out of the hotel, and went off in the direction of the Black Hill.

Miss Twexby ran to the door, and shading her eyes with her hands from
the blinding glare of the sun, she watched him lounging along the
street, tall, slender, and handsome.

‘He’s just lovely,’ she said to herself, as she returned to the bar ‘but
his eyes are so wicked; I don’t think he’s a good young man.’

What would she have said if she had heard the conversation in the
bedroom?




CHAPTER XI

THEODORE WOPPLES, ACTOR


Mr Villiers walked in a leisurely manner along the lower part of the
town, with the intent of going up to his destination through the old
mining gully. He took this route for two reasons--first, because the
afternoon was hot, and it was easier climbing up that way than going
by the ordinary road; and, second, on his journey through the chasm he
would be able to mark some place where he could hide the nugget. With
his stick under his arm, Mr Villiers trudged merrily along in a happy
humour, as if he was bent on pleasure instead of robbery. And after
all, as he said to himself, it could not be called a genuine robbery,
as everything belonging to his wife was his by right of the marriage
service, and he was only going to have his own again. With this
comfortable thought he climbed slowly up the broken tortuous path which
led to the Black Hill, and every now and then would pause to rest, and
admire the view.

It was now nearly six o’clock, and the sun was sinking amid a blaze of
splendour. The whole of the western sky was a sea of shimmering gold,
and this, intensified near the horizon to almost blinding brightness,
faded off towards the zenith of the sky into a delicate green, and
thence melted imperceptibly into a cold blue.

Villiers, however, being of the earth, earthy, could not be troubled
looking very long at such a common-place sight as a sunset; the same
thing occurred every evening, and he had more important things to do
than to waste his time gratifying his artistic eye. Arriving on the
plateau of earth just in front of the gully, he was soon entering the
narrow gorge, and tramped steadily along in deep thought, with bent
head and wrinkled brows. The way being narrow, and Villiers being
preoccupied, it was not surprising that as a man was coming down in
the opposite direction, also preoccupied, they should run against one
another. When this took place it gave Mr Villiers rather a start, as it
suggested a possible witness to the deed he contemplated, a thing for
which he was by no means anxious.

‘Really, sir,’ said the stranger, in a rich, rolling voice, and in a
dignified tone, ‘I think you might look where you are going. From what
I saw of you, your eyes were not fixed on the stars, and thus to cause
your unwatched feet to stumble; in fact,’ said the speaker, looking up
to the sky, ‘I see no stars whereon you could fix your gaze.’

This somewhat strange mode of remonstrance was delivered in a solemn
manner, with appropriate gestures, and tickled Mr Villiers so much that
he leaned up against a great rock abutting on the path, and laughed long
and loudly.

‘That is right, sir,’ said the stranger, approvingly; ‘laughter is
to the soul what food is to the body. I think, sir,’ in a Johnsonian
manner, ‘the thought is a happy one.’

Villiers assented with a nod, and examined the speaker attentively.
He was a man of medium height, rather portly than otherwise, with a
clean-shaved face, clearly-cut features, and two merry grey eyes, which
twinkled like stars as they rested on Villiers. His hair was greyish,
and inclined to curl, but could not follow its natural inclination owing
to the unsparing use of the barber’s shears. He wore a coat and trousers
of white flannel, but no waistcoat; canvas shoes were on his feet, and
a juvenile straw hat was perched on his iron-grey hair, the rim of
which encircled his head like a halo of glory. He had small, well-shaped
hands, one of which grasped a light cane, and the other a white silk
pocket handkerchief, with which he frequently wiped his brow. He seemed
very hot, and, leaning on the opposite side of the path against a rock,
fanned himself first with his handkerchief and then with his hat, all
the time looking at Mr Villiers with a beaming smile. At last he took a
silver-mounted flask from his pocket and offered it to Villiers, with a
pleasant bow.

‘It’s very hot, you know,’ he said, in his rich voice, as Villiers
accepted the flask.

‘What, this?’ asked Villiers, indicating the flask, as he slowly
unscrewed the top.

‘No; the day, my boy, the day. Ha! ha! ha!’ said the lively stranger,
going off into fits of laughter, which vibrated like small thunder amid
the high rocks surrounding them. ‘Good line for a comedy, I think. Ha!
ha!--gad, I’ll make a note of it,’ and diving into one of the pockets of
his coat, he produced therefrom an old letter, on the back of which he
inscribed the witticism with the stump of a pencil.

Meanwhile Villiers, thinking the flask contained brandy, or at least
whisky, took a long drink of it, but found to his horror it was merely a
weak solution of sherry and water.

‘Oh, my poor stomach,’ he gasped, taking the flask from his lips.

‘Colic?’ inquired the stranger with a pleasant smile, as he put back the
letter and pencil, ‘hot water fomentations are what you need. Wonderful
cure. Will bring you to life again though you were at your last gasp.
Ha!’ struck with a sudden idea, ‘“His Last Gasp”, good title for a
melodrama--mustn’t forget that,’ and out came the letter and the pencil
again.

Mr Villiers explained in a somewhat gruff tone that it was not colic,
but that his medical attendant allowed him to drink nothing but whisky.

‘To be taken twenty times a day, I presume,’ observed the stranger, with
a wink; ‘no offence meant, sir,’ as Villiers showed a disposition to
resent this, ‘merely a repartee. Good for a comedy, I fancy; what do you
think?’

‘I think,’ said Mr Villiers, handing him back the flask, ‘that you’re
very eccentric.’

‘Eccentric?’ replied the other, in an airy tone, ‘not at all, sir. I’m
merely a civilized being with the veneer off. I am not hidden under an
artificial coat of manner. No, I laugh--ha! ha! I skip, ha! ha!’ with a
light trip on one foot. ‘I cry,’ in a dismal tone. ‘In fact, I am a man
in his natural state--civilized sufficiently, but not over civilized.’

‘What’s your name?’ asked Mr Villiers, wondering whether the portly
gentleman was mad.

For reply the stranger dived into another pocket, and, bringing to light
a long bill-poster, held it up before Mr Villiers.

‘Read! mark! and inwardly digest!’ he said in a muffled tone behind the
bill.

This document set forth in red, black, and blue letters, that the
celebrated Wopples Family, consisting of twelve star artistes, were
now in Ballarat, and would that night appear at the Academy of Music in
their new and original farcical comedy, called ‘The Cruet-Stand’. Act I:
Pepper! Act II: Mustard! Act III: Vinegar.

‘You, then,’ said Villiers, after he had perused this document, ‘are Mr
Wopples?’

‘Theodore Wopples, at your service,’ said that gentleman, rolling up the
bill, then putting it into his pocket, he produced therefrom a batch of
tickets. ‘One of these,’ handing a ticket to Villiers, ‘will admit you
to the stalls tonight, where you will see myself and the children in
“The Cruet-Stand”.’

‘Rather a peculiar title, isn’t it?’ said Villiers, taking the ticket.

‘The play is still more peculiar, sir,’ replied Mr Wopples, restoring
the bulky packet of tickets to his pocket, ‘dealing as it does with
the adventures of a youth who hides his father’s will in a cruet stand,
which is afterwards annexed by a comic bailiff.’

‘But isn’t it rather a curious thing to hide a will in a cruet stand?’
asked Villiers, smiling at the oddity of the idea.

‘Therein, sir, lies the peculiarity of the play,’ said Mr Wopples,
grandly. ‘Of course the characters find out in Act I that the will is
in the cruet stand; in Act II, while pursuing it, they get mixed up
with the bailiff’s mother-in-law; and in Act III,’ finished Mr Wopples,
exultingly, ‘they run it to earth in a pawnshop. Oh, I assure you it is
a most original play.’

‘Very,’ assented the other, dryly; ‘the author must be a man of
genius--who wrote it?’

‘It’s a translation from the German, sir,’ said Mr Wopples, taking a
drink of sherry and water, ‘and was originally produced in London as
“The Pickle Bottle”, the will being hidden with the family onions. In
Melbourne it was the success of the year under the same title. I,’ with
an air of genius, ‘called it “The Cruet Stand”.’

‘Then how did you get a hold of it,’ asked Villiers.

‘My wife, sir,’ said the actor, rolling out the words in his deep voice.
‘A wonderful woman, sir; paid a visit to Melbourne, and there, sir,
seated at the back of the pit between a coal-heaver and an apple-woman,
she copied the whole thing down.’

‘But isn’t that rather mean?’

‘Certainly not,’ retorted Wopples, haughtily; ‘the opulent Melbourne
managers refuse to let me have their new pieces, so I have to take the
law into my own hands. I’ll get all the latest London successes in the
same way. We play “Ours” under the title of “The Hero’s Return, or the
Soldier’s Bride”: we have done the “Silver King” as “The Living Dead”,
which was an immense success.’

Villiers thought that under such a contradictory title it would rather
pique the curiosity of the public.

‘To-morrow night,’ pursued Mr Wopples, ‘we act “Called Back”, but it is
billed as “The Blind Detective”; thus,’ said the actor, with virtuous
scorn, ‘do we evade the grasping avarice of the Melbourne managers, who
would make us pay fees for them.’

‘By the way,’ said Mr Wopples, breaking off suddenly in a light and airy
manner, ‘as I came down here I saw a lovely girl--a veritable fairy,
sir--with golden hair, and a bright smile that haunts me still. I
exchanged a few remarks with her regarding the beauty of the day, and
thus allegorically referred to the beauty of herself--a charming flight
of fancy, I think, sir.’

‘It must have been Kitty Marchurst,’ said Villiers, not attending to the
latter portion of Mr Wopples’ remarks.

‘Ah, indeed,’ said Mr Wopples, lightly, ‘how beautiful is the name of
Kitty; it suggests poetry immediately--for instance:

Kitty, ah Kitty, You are so pretty, Charming and witty, That ‘twere a
pity I sung not this ditty In praise of my Kitty.

On the spur of the moment, sir, I assure you; does it not remind you of
Herrick?’

Mr Villiers bluntly said it did not.

‘Ah! perhaps it’s more like Shakespeare?’ observed the actor, quite
unabashed. ‘You think so?’

Mr Villiers was doubtful, and displayed such anxiety to get away that Mr
Wopples held out his hand to say goodbye.

‘You’ll excuse me, I know,’ said Mr Wopples, in an apologetic tone,
‘but the show commences at eight, and it is now half-past six. I trust I
shall see you tonight.’

‘It’s very kind of you to give me this ticket,’ said Villiers, in whom
the gentlemanly instinct still survived.

‘Not at all; not at all,’ retorted Mr Wopples, with a wink. ‘Business,
my boy, business. Always have a good house first night, so must go into
the highways and byways for an audience. Ha! Biblical illustr

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