It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 128

"I will, Tom, I will. Thank you kindly. Ah! now I see why he came to me and kept licking my hand so the moment he got the hurt. He had more sense than we had; he knew he and I were to part that hour. And I tormented his last minutes sending him into the water and after stones, when the poor thing wanted to be bidding me good-by all the while. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" and George pushed his scarce-tasted dinner from him, and left the tent hurriedly, his eyes thick with tears.

Thus ended this human day so happily begun; and thus the poor dog paid the price of fidelity this Sunday afternoon.

_Siste viator iter_--and part with poor Carlo--for whom there are now no more little pa.s.sing troubles--no more little simple joys. His duty is performed, his race is run. Peace be to him, and to all simple and devoted hearts. Ah me! how rare they are among men!

"What are you doing, Tom, if you please?"

"Laying down a gut line to trip them up when they get into our tent."

"When--who?"

"Those that shot Carlo."

"They won't venture near me.

"Won't they? What was the dog shot for? They will come--and come to their death; to-night, I hope. Let them come! you will hear me cry 'Carlo' in their ears as I put my revolver to their skulls and pull the trigger."

George said nothing, but he clinched his teeth. After a pause he muttered, "We should pray against such thoughts."

Robinson was disappointed, no attack was made; in fact, even if such a thing was meditated, the captain's friends watched his tent night and day, and made such a feat a foolhardy enterprise, full of danger from without and within.

In the course of the next week a good deal of rain fell and filled many of the claims, and caused much inaction and distress among the diggers, and Robinson guarded the tent, and wrote letters and studied Australian politics, with a view to being shortly a member of Congress in these parts. George had his wish at last and cruised about looking for the home of the gold. George recollected to have seen what he described as a river of quartz sixty feet broad, and running between two black rocks.

It ran in his head that gold in ma.s.ses was there locked up, for, argued he, all the nuggets of any size I have seen were more than half quartz.

Robinson had given up debating the point.

George was uneasy and out of spirits at not hearing from Susan for several months, and Robinson was for indulging him in everything.

Poor George! he could not even find his river of quartz. And when he used to come home day after day empty-handed and with this confession, the other's lips used to twitch with the hard struggle not to laugh at him; and he used to see the struggle and be secretly more annoyed than if he had been laughed out at.

One afternoon Tom Robinson, internally despising the whole thing, and perfectly sure in his own mind that there was no river of quartz, but paternal and indulgent to his friend's one weakness, said to him:

"I'll tell you how to find this river of quartz, if it is anywhere except in your own head."

"I shall be much obliged to you. How?"

"Jem has come back to camp and he tells me that Jacky is encamped with a lot more close to the gully he is working--it was on the other side the bush there-and Jacky inquired very kind after you."

"The little viper."

"He grinned from ear to ear, Jem tells me; and says he, 'Me come and see George a good deal soon,' says he."

"If he does, George will tan his black hide for him."

"What makes you hold spite so long against poor Jacky?"

"He is a little sneaking varmint."

"He knows every part of this country, and he would show you 'the home of the gold,'" observed Robinson, restraining his merriment with great difficulty.

This c.o.c.k would not fight, as vulgar wretches say. Jacky had rather mortified George by deserting him upon the first discovery of gold. "Dis a good deal stupid," was that worthy's remark on the second day. "When I hunt tings run, and I run behind and catch dem. You hunt--it not run--yet you not catch it always. Dat a good deal stupid. Before we hunt gold you do many tings, now do one; dat a good deal stupid. Before, you go so (erecting a forefinger); now you always so (crooking it). Dat too stupid." And with this--whir! my lord was off to the woods.

On the head of this came Abner limping in, and told how a savage had been seen creeping after him with a battle-ax, and how he had lain insensible for days, and now was lame for life. George managed to forgive Jacky's unkind desertion, but for creeping after Abner and "spoiling him for life," to use Abner's phrase, he vowed vengeance on that black hide and heart.

Now if the truth must be told, Jacky had come back to the camp with Jem, and would have marched before this into George's tent. But Robinson, knowing how angry George was with him, and not wis.h.i.+ng either Jacky to be licked or George to be tomahawked, insisted on his staying with Jem till he had smoothed down his friend's indignation. Soon after this dialogue Robinson slipped out, and told Jacky to stay with Jem and keep out of George's way for a day or two.

And now the sun began to set red as blood, and the place to sparkle far and wide with the fiery rays emitted from a hundred thousand bottles that lay sown broadcast over the land; and the thunder of the cradles ceased, and the accordions came out all over five miles of gold mine.

Their gentler strains lasted till the sun left the sky; then, just at dusk, came a tremendous discharge of musketry roaring, rattling, and re-echoing among the rocks. This was tens of thousands of diggers discharging their muskets and revolvers previous to reloading them for the night; for, calm as the sun had set to the music of accordions, many a deadly weapon they knew would be wanted to defend life and gold ere that same tranquil sun should rise again.

Thus the tired army slept not at their ease, like other armies, guarded by sentinels and pickets, but every man in danger every night and every hour of it. Each man lay in his clothes with a weapon of death in his hand; Robinson with two, a revolver and a cutla.s.s ground like a razor.

Outside it was all calm and peaceful. No boisterous revelry--all seemed to sleep innocent and calm in the moonlight after the day of herculean toil.

Perhaps if any one eye could have visited the whole enormous camp, the children of theft and of the night might have been seen prowling and crawling from one bit of shade to another. But in the part where our friends lay the moon revealed no human figures but Robinson's patrol, three men, who, with a dark-lantern and armed to the teeth, went their rounds and guarded forty tents, above all the captain's. It was at his tent that guard was relieved every two hours. So all was watched the livelong night.

Two pointed rocks connected at the base faced the captain's tent. The silver rays struck upon their foreheads wet with the vapors of night, and made them like frost seen through phosphorus. It was startling. The soul of silver seemed to be sentinel and eye the secret gold below.

And now a sad, a miserable sound grated on the ear of night. A lugubrious quail doled forth a grating, dismal note at long but measured intervals, offending the ear and depressing the heart. This was the only sound Nature afforded for hours. The neighboring bush, though crammed with the merriest souls that ever made feathers vibrate and dance with song, was like a tomb of black marble; not a sound--only this little raven of a quail tolled her harsh, lugubrious crake.

Those whose musical creed is Time before Sentiment might have put up with this night-bird; for to do her justice she was a perfect timist--one crake in a bar the livelong night; but her tune--ugh! She was the mother of all files that play on iron throughout the globe.

Crake!--crake!--crake! untuning the night.

An eye of red light suddenly opened in the silver stream shows three men standing by a snowy tent. It is the patrol waiting to be relieved. Three more figures emerge from the distant shade and join them. The first three melt into the shade.

Crake!

The other three remain and mutter. Now they start on their rounds. "What is that?" mutters one.

"I'll go and see." Click.

"Well!"

"Oh, it is only that brown donkey that cruises about here. She will break her neck in one of the pits some day."

"Not she. She is not such an a.s.s."

These three melted into the night, going their rounds; and now nothing is left in sight but a thousand cones of snow, and the donkey paddling carefully among the pits.

Craake!

Now the donkey stands a moment still in the moonlight--now he paddles slowly away and disappears on the dark side the captain's tent. What is he doing? He stoops--he lies down--he takes off his head and skin and lays them down.

It is a man! He draws his knife and puts it between his teeth. A pistol is in his hand--he crawls on his stomach--the tent is between him and the patrol. His hand is inside the tent--he finds the opening and winds like a serpent into the tent.

Craake!

CHAPTER LXV.