DENIS DENT
 
 " NAN 
 'l>liriuM, ;. *<:;, /,,; Frank [.rxlir I>ul,lixl,i,,u //..,
 
 DENIS DENT 
 
 BY ERNEST W. HORNUNG 
 
 Author of "The Amateur Cracksman" 
 i," *<Ne Here," etc. 
 
 With a Frontispiece by 
 HARRISON FISHER 
 
 NEW TORK . FREDERICK A. 
 STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 7907, 
 BY FRANK LESLIE PUBLISHING HOUSE 
 
 Copyright, ipoj, 
 BY E. W. HORNUNG 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 This edition published in January, 1904.
 
 To 
 P. M. MARTINEAU, Es<^ J. P. 
 
 DEAR MR. MARTINEAU, 
 
 The little picture of the past attempted 
 in this tale owes more than one touch to your 
 kindness. I only wish that the whole were 
 nearer the mark aimed at, and so worthier 
 to bear your name upon this page. 
 Tours very sincerely, 
 
 E. W. HORNUNG. 
 
 Reform Glut, 
 October 2Jth,
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE SECOND OFFICER i 
 
 II. SAUVE Qui PEUT 10 
 
 III. THE CASTAWAYS . . . .18 
 
 IV. LOST AND FOUND .... 30 
 
 V. A TOUCH OF FEVER ... 37 
 
 VI. NEW CONDITIONS .... 48 
 
 VII. DENIS AND NAN .... 57 
 
 VIII. COLD WATER .... 70 
 
 IX. THE CANVAS CITY .... 79 
 
 X. THIEVES IN THE NIGHT ... 90 
 
 XI. STRANGE BEDFELLOWS . . .102 
 
 XII. EL DORADO . . . . 114 
 
 XIII. THE ENEMY'S CAMP . . .122 
 
 XIV. THE FIRST CLAIM . . . -133 
 XV. A Pious FRAUD . . . . 146 
 
 XVI. A WINDFALL .... 158 
 
 XVII. HATE AND MONEY . . . .168 
 
 XVIII. ROTTEN GULLY . . . .178 
 
 XIX. NEW BLOOD 187 
 
 XX. THE JEWELER'S SHOP . . . 196 
 
 vii
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXI. THE COURIER OF DEATH 
 
 XXII. ATRA CURA 
 
 XXIII. BROKEN OFF 
 
 XXIV. DEATH'S DOOR . 
 XXV. BEAT OF DRUM . 
 
 XXVI. HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 XXVII. THE GREAT GULF 
 
 XXVIII. NEWS OF BATTLE 
 
 XXIX. GUY FAWKES DAY 
 
 XXX. THE SANDBAG BATTERY 
 
 XXXI. TIME'S WHIRLIGIG 
 
 PAGE 
 211 
 
 22O 
 231 
 
 251 
 265 
 277 
 
 289 
 299 
 310 
 319
 
 DENIS DENT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE SECOND OFFICER 
 
 " T AND ahead ! " 
 
 The North Foreland had been made ad- 
 
 JL visedly snug for the night. In the middle 
 watch she was under her three lower topsails and 
 fore topmast staysail only. Not that it blew very 
 hard, but the night was dark and hazy, with a heavy 
 swell. And it was the last night of the voyage. 
 
 At eight bells there had been a cast of the deep- 
 sea lead, with the significant result that the skipper 
 had been the first to turn in ; gradually the excited 
 passengers had followed his example, instead of 
 staying on deck to see the Otway light. The sec- 
 ond mate had said there would be no Otway that 
 night, and what the second said was good enough 
 for most. The saloon skylight had become a clean- 
 edged glimmer in the middle of the poop, the bin- 
 nacle a fallen moon ; not a port-hole twinkled on 
 
 i
 
 2 DENIS DENT 
 
 the rushing ink ; and the surviving topsails, with- 
 out visible stitch or stick aloft or alow, hovered 
 over the ship like gigantic bats. 
 
 Four persons remained upon the poop : the 
 middy of the watch, tantalized by muffled guffaws 
 from the midshipmen's berth in the after-house 
 the man at the wheel, in eclipse above the belt, with 
 the binnacle light upon one weather-beaten hand ; 
 and on the weather side, the second mate in reluc- 
 tant conversation with a big cigar that glowed at 
 intervals into a bearded and spectacled face, the 
 smooth brown one of the young officer sharing the 
 momentary illumination. 
 
 " It 's all very well," said the senior man, in low 
 persistent tones, " but if we do n't have it out now, 
 when are we to ? You know what it will be like 
 to-morrow : we shall land first thing, and you '11 be 
 the busiest man on board. As for the rules of the 
 ship, if an owner can't use his discretion he might 
 as well travel by some other line." 
 
 The young fellow was smiling pleasantly as the 
 other puffed again. 
 
 "Very good, Mr. Merridew! I don't object if 
 the captain does n't ; and of course I must tell you 
 anything you want to know." 
 
 " Anything ! My good young man, if I am to 
 consider this matter for a moment (which I do n't 
 promise) I must at least know everything that you 
 can tell me about yourself first ; for what," con- 
 tinued Mr. Merridew, taking the cigar from his
 
 THE SECOND OFFICER 3 
 
 teeth, " what do you suppose I know about you at 
 this moment ? Absolutely nothing except that you 
 seem to be a first-class sailor, as they tell me you 
 are, and a very nice fellow, as I have found you 
 for myself aboardship; but of your shore-going 
 record, of your position in life at home, and of 
 your people and their position, to speak quite 
 plainly, I know nothing at all." 
 
 Mr. Merridew delivered himself with a certain 
 dispassionate unction, as one who could do the 
 judicial to a turn, and enjoy it. Yet his tone was 
 kindly, and the periods free from wilful offense. 
 
 " You may make your mind easy about my peo- 
 ple. I have none," said the sailor, bitterly. A 
 fatherly hand found his shoulder on the word. 
 
 " My dear fellow ! I am so sorry." 
 
 " You mean relieved." 
 
 " I mean what I say," said Mr. Merridew, remov- 
 ing his hand. 
 
 It was the young man's turn to apologize, which 
 he did with much frankness and more feeling. 
 
 " The truth is, sir, my parents have been dead 
 for years ; and yet they are nearly everything to 
 me still they were all the world until this voyage ! 
 My mother was Irish ; her name would not be new 
 to you, but it will keep. It may not be necessary 
 for you to know it, or anything more about me, 
 and in any case it can't alter me. But I am half- 
 Irish through my mother though you wouldn't 
 think it."
 
 4 DENIS DENT 
 
 " I would think it," remarked Mr. Merridew, 
 blowing at his cigar as at a forge, until the red light 
 found him looking wise through his spectacles, but 
 the officer with one eye on his sails and no percep- 
 tible emotion in the other. 
 
 " My first name," he went on, " is as Irish as you 
 like ; it 's Denis ; and you may say that I 've been 
 living up to it for once ! " 
 
 " Denis ! " repeated Mr. Merridew, with interest. 
 " Well, I know that name, anyhow ; one of our 
 partners Captain Devenish's father he's Denis 
 Devenish, you know." 
 
 " Indeed," said Denis Dent, and there was a 
 strange light in his spare eye. " Well, so much for 
 my mother ; my father was a Yorkshire dalesman, 
 as his father and his father's father were before him. 
 I am the first of them to leave the land." 
 
 " May I ask why ? " 
 
 " It is n't our land any more. My father gave 
 up everything to take my mother abroad, when her 
 life was despaired of in England, and when her peo- 
 ple her own people I can't trust myself to speak 
 of them!" 
 
 And the young fellow turned abruptly aside, while 
 Mr. Merridew puffed and peered at a massive though 
 clean-cut face, whose only Irish feature was a pair 
 of bright brown eyes, bold and resolute, yet quick 
 to laughter, if quicker still to fire. 
 
 The south-easter sang through the unseen rig- 
 ging ; the ship rushed a fathom through the unseen
 
 THE SECOND OFFICER 5 
 
 sea. The second had a look at the compass, and 
 came climbing back to windward with his hands in 
 his pea-jacket pockets. 
 
 " And yet," said Mr. Merridew, flourishing his 
 cigar, " and yet you want to marry my daugh- 
 ter ! " 
 
 " If she will have me, sir," said the sailor, with an 
 uncertainty on that point in becoming contrast to 
 his certainty of himself. 
 
 " But whether / will or not." 
 
 " I never said that, Mr. Merridew. I should be 
 very sorry to take up such a position, I can assure 
 you, sir." 
 
 " You would be sorry, but you would do it," re- 
 torted Mr. Merridew with acumen. " You would 
 do as your father evidently did before you." 
 
 " I hoped we had finished with my parents, sir." 
 
 " But they left you nothing, if I understand 
 aright," rejoined Merridew, changing his ground 
 and his tone with some dexterity. " And you 
 would marry my daughter on the pay of a junior 
 officer in the merchant service." 
 
 " I never said that either. I have my captain's 
 certificate, sir, as it is." 
 
 The new tone was the tone to take. Mr. Mer- 
 ridew went so far as to give his daughter her name. 
 
 " And Nan," said he, " might have ten thousand 
 pounds for her marriage portion. I do n't say she 
 would, but for all you know she might have more. 
 Her husba.nd ought to bring at least as much into
 
 6 DENIS DENT 
 
 settlement, even as a self-respecting man, do n't you 
 think ? And yet you would make her a merchant 
 skipper's wife ! " 
 
 The young man winced, as though for a flash he 
 saw himself wholly in the wrong. Then his face 
 hardened all but the Irish eyes and it was the 
 face of a man who would justify himself with his 
 life's blood. Impulse, initiative, temerity, were in 
 the eyes, indomitable endurance in their solid set- 
 ting. 
 
 " You take it for granted that I will never be 
 anything more ! " he exclaimed. " But, sir, once a 
 sailor is n't always one. I 've got on well at sea. 
 I 'd get on well on land anywhere at anything ! 
 You may smile. I feel it in me. Mr. Merridew, it 
 may seem what you please, but I 'm pretty young 
 even for what I am now. Surely, surely, you would 
 give me time if she would ? " 
 
 It was the Irishman speaking, the Irish blood 
 spurting out in words, and Mr. Merridew distrusted 
 the bulk of that race ; but his cigar glowed again 
 upon a mouth and jaw that came of harder stock, 
 and for the moment his mind was illuminated too. 
 
 Here was this Denis Dent, not one young man, 
 it struck him, but two young men in one, each with 
 a very name of his own. Dents from the Dales, 
 Denis from old Ireland ! Mr. Merridew smiled 
 through his spectacles, pleased with his conceit, not 
 altogether disposed to regard it as such, but incon- 
 tinently interested in a personality to which he had
 
 THE SECOND OFFICER 7 
 
 been so clever as to supply the key. The heart of 
 the discoverer warmed toward his own. There was 
 an attractiveness in Denis, a solid worth in Dent. 
 Denis might win the girl. Dent would deserve her. 
 And Denis Dent might have carried her own father 
 with him, had he been the only young man in the 
 case, or even on the poop of the North Foreland as 
 she drove through the haze on the last night of her 
 voyage. 
 
 But as the pair stood eye to eye, the pregnant 
 pause between them was interrupted by a loud and 
 startling laugh, and a tall figure loomed through 
 the first gray tinge of approaching dawn. It was 
 that of a young man in a tasseled dressing-gown, 
 with an ornate meerschaum pipe pendent between 
 the bushy black whiskers of the day. 
 
 " Well, if that does n't take first prize for cheek ! " 
 cried he, and lurched toward them in his slippers as 
 one who had never found his sea-legs. 
 
 " We are having a private conversation, Ralph," 
 said Mr. Merridew in mild rebuke. 
 
 " A private conversation that you could hear on 
 the forecastle-head ! " jeered Ralph Devenish, who 
 was full of liquor without being drunk. " I suppose 
 he's so proud of it he wants the whole ship to 
 know ! " 
 
 And the meerschaum pointed jerkily at Denis, 
 who stood the heaving deck as a circus rider stands 
 a horse, his hands still deep in his pea-jacket 
 pockets.
 
 8 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Captain Devenish," said he, " it 's against the 
 rules to speak to the officer of the watch, but you 
 shall speak civilly if you speak at all. Otherwise I 
 advise you to take yourself off the poop before 
 you 're put off." 
 
 " By God ! " snarled Devenish, " but you shall 
 pay for that ! Before one owner to another own- 
 er's son, on the last night of the voyage ! It 's your 
 last in the Line, Mr. Officer of the Watch ! And 
 you dare to lay a hand on me ! Come on. You 
 dare. I know your blustering breed, you damned 
 Jack-in-buttons ! " 
 
 " And I know yours you Devenishes ! I know 
 you too well to soil my hands on any one of 
 you!" 
 
 The concentrated bitterness of this retort had an 
 opposite effect on either hearer ; one it stupefied, 
 the other it flooded with a sudden light; but 
 Devenish was the first to find his tongue, and for 
 the moment there was none more foul before the 
 mast. The deplorable torrent was only stemmed 
 by the startling apparition of a square little man in 
 a still more awful, because a more articulate and 
 more righteous, rage. 
 
 " I '11 teach you to break the rules of my ship ! 
 I '11 teach you to curse my officers, drunk or sober ! 
 Out of my sight, sir, or I '11 have you in irons be- 
 fore you 're a minute older ! " 
 
 " Come, come, Captain Coles," said Mr. Mer- 
 ridew, with dignity ; " there has been more provo-
 
 THE SECOND OFFICER 9 
 
 cation than you imagine; and this, you must 
 remember, is Captain Devenish." 
 
 " I do n't care a dump if it 's Devenish Merridew 
 and Company lumped into one ! " roared the little 
 skipper. " You can have your way ashore, but I 
 mean to have mine at sea; and as for your iron 
 coffin of a ship, I '11 be thankful to come off her 
 alive, let alone sailing in her again. No two com- 
 passes alike, thirty-six hours since we got the 
 sun, the darkest night of the voyage, and Australia 
 anywhere ! Yet this is the night you choose, you 
 owners, to bully and browbeat my officers of the 
 watch ! " 
 
 But it was no longer the darkest night of the 
 voyage, or even night at all. The group stood 
 visible and divisible in a cold gray haze. The 
 lower topsails were no longer detached from the 
 ship ; there was a misty mast to each ; and the 
 ship was running dry-decked through the high 
 smooth, seas. 
 
 It was at this moment that the haze lifted like 
 breath from a mirror ; and a subtle new sound was 
 just beginning to insinuate itself upon the ear when 
 the look-out man drowned it with his roar from the 
 forecastle head.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 SAUVE QUI PEUT 
 
 LAND was indeed ahead, and in the most 
 appalling shape known to seafaring man : at 
 the last moment, the haze had lifted on a 
 line of jagged cliffs, already parallel with the fore- 
 yard, albeit by the muffled thud of the breakers, not 
 quite so near as it looked. 
 
 The North Foreland was blessed with a com- 
 mander who was at his best in an emergency. Lit- 
 tle Coles had turned in when he should have stayed 
 on deck, and was no more prepared for shipwreck 
 than if such disasters were unknown ; but he rose 
 to the occasion like a lark. His sharp voice cracked 
 like a whip from the break of the poop, and all 
 hands, piped from the forecastle, the petty officers' 
 quarters, and the midshipmen's berth, came running 
 as though the words drew blood. 
 
 The spanker was set, with the mizzen and main- 
 topmast staysail, and the helm put down to bring 
 her round ; but there was no racing of the cliffs to 
 port. She stumbled a little in her stride ; the fresh 
 sails flapped ; but there was no getting her on the 
 other tack, though the upper mizzen topsail was 
 pressed into the job.
 
 SAUVE QUI PEUT 11 
 
 The skipper waited a minute with compressed 
 lips and fiery eye ; then a crackle of musketry from 
 his weatherbeaten throat, and both anchors were 
 let go. 
 
 The port anchor had fifty fathoms of cable, the 
 starboard anchor sixty fathoms of chain ; in antici- 
 pation of their holding, the sails were clewed up t 
 and a man sent into the chains with the lead, for 
 she was drifting inshore every moment. But the 
 lead danced on smooth rock, where the anchors 
 trailed as readily as over ice ; the captain had them 
 both up again, but that took longer than letting 
 them go, and meanwhile half the hands were aloft 
 shaking out sail once more. 
 
 Coles was showing his resource at every point, 
 and by this time had his ship actually head to 
 wind; in another minute she might have stood 
 away upon the port tack. But at this juncture 
 time was wasted in an attempt to sheet home the 
 topsails, which failing, the buntlines of the mainsail 
 were let go, the port main tack got on board, and 
 the sheet hauled aft. The men were still upon the 
 rope when the North Foreland struck and spilt them 
 like the winners in a tug-of-war. 
 
 It was the horrible striking of an iron ship: a 
 terrific crash under the mizzen-chains, and there she 
 quivered like a rat in a terrier's teeth. And the 
 devilish seas that had run with her, hunted with 
 her, how they fell on her now, and swept and 
 trampled her from the moment she was down !
 
 12 DENIS DENT 
 
 The scene on deck, if it wanted the infinite horror 
 of pitch darkness, was only a degree less dreadful in 
 a pearly dawn that left no doubt about the situation. 
 Every hatchway spouted crude humanity, shouting, 
 shoving, screaming, scolding, covering a chattering 
 nakedness as it gained the deck, and there struck 
 silent at a glance. For nothing was hid, nothing 
 extenuated, for a single moment, to a single eye. 
 There was no learning the worst by humane de- 
 grees. It was patent at once to the wildest and the 
 calmest gaze. The sanguine soul was no more help 
 to the stunned community than the born pessimist ; 
 there was no chance for the imagination either 
 way. 
 
 They could see, every one of them, the towering 
 cliffs blind sides of houses without an inch of 
 pavement the rollers running up to them un- 
 broken, for the better sport of leaping sky-high at 
 the impact. They could see her settling, see her 
 bumping, see the top-hamper falling about the deck. 
 There was enough to feel and to hear. The eyes 
 might have been spared a little. Some shut them 
 more than once, as when an upper spar came down 
 like an arrow, transfixing a sailor with incredible 
 neatness, and actually sticking upright through man 
 and deck ; but few escaped the sight of blood, and 
 none the dying scream. A worse sight was in 
 store. A steward with the stock of life-belts from 
 the lazaretto touched the captain's arm. And, 
 checked in some hoarse tirade, the valiant Coles
 
 SAUVE QUI PEUT 13 
 
 stood first aghast and then abject in the sight of 
 passengers and crew beaten man and broken reed. 
 
 The better part of valour was the only part he 
 lacked. Not a boat in davits ; the whole fleet 
 docked, inboard, on skids ! And exactly six life- 
 belts to go round a ship's company of over a hun- 
 dred souls ! 
 
 The second mate was clearing away the port life- 
 boat with five of the hands, one blaspheming, an- 
 other in tears, more than one vowing with reason 
 that they would all be drowned, and the young 
 officer himself in a consuming agony of his own. 
 At the break of the poop, almost all this time, 
 stood a slender figure in a pink wrapper, between a 
 bearded man in spectacles and a man with bushy 
 whiskers in incongruous silk and tassels. Dent 
 wondered why he did not lend a hand ; no, on sec- 
 ond thoughts he knew, and cursed the fellow in his 
 heart. He did not mean to leave her side. He 
 meant to have the rescuing of her. Trust a Dev- 
 enish to play his own game ! Denis was too busy 
 to look twice at the trio, but he seemed to see 
 them all the time, and the vision galled him to in- 
 sensate effort. 
 
 " Take your time, take your time," cried the chief 
 officer, all red hook-nose and ginger moustache, an 
 oilskin bonnet fastened under his chin. " The old 
 man 's done his part. He '11 go down in her. The 
 rest hangs on you and me." 
 
 The chief met the responsibility with his own
 
 14 DENIS DENT 
 
 tap of cold profanity, not unaccompanied by shrewd 
 cuft and calculated kick, as he superintended the 
 clearing of the other life-boat. As for the skipper, 
 it seemed that he had recovered his mettle to meet 
 fresh trouble further aft ; they could hear him firing 
 oaths and threatening lead ; but when Denis looked 
 he could not get his eyes past the two men at the 
 break of the poop, for at that moment they were 
 lashing one of the six life-belts about a forlorn little 
 figure in pink. 
 
 The port life-boat was ready first, and the third 
 mate busy marshaling the women and children in a 
 helpless, eager, hesitating, exasperating throng ; but 
 Miss Merridew was still detained by her friends on 
 the poop. The gripes had been cut, and Denis 
 himself had sent the last chock flying with a savage 
 kick. He and his crew of five were in the act of 
 hooking the tackles to the thwarts. The chief mate 
 was shouting a timely word of advice. 
 
 " When you get her launched, and filled, and 
 stand away in her 
 
 But Denis did not hear what he was to do then, 
 for at that instant a green sea lifted the port life- 
 boat clean over the side with all six men. 
 
 Denis's next thought was that the water was 
 warmer than he should have supposed, and his next 
 but one that somebody was bent on braining him ; 
 he was hit about the head, not once but repeatedly ; 
 but as soon as he could see he knew the reason, for 
 a dim glimmer was all there was to see. The boat
 
 SAUVE QUI PEUT 15 
 
 was riding bottom upward. He had come up 
 under her. It was the thwart that had been bela- 
 bouring him. He caught hold of it, pulled as at a 
 horizontal bar, came up like a cork, and easily 
 wormed half his person between thwart and bilge. 
 
 In this position Denis regained breath, immersed 
 to the waist, but with no lack of air, and a bilge- 
 cork handy for fresh supplies, until the real danger 
 occurred to him. The capsized life-boat rode the 
 rollers like a cradle, but at any moment she might 
 shatter herself against the cliffs. It was hardly the 
 work of one for Denis to dive from underneath her 
 at the thought. The cliffs, however, were still far 
 enough away ; of the wreck he could see nothing 
 for the swell ; but it was now broad daylight. 
 
 He went under the boat again, and in about five 
 minutes she righted herself for no apparent reason. 
 Denis was nearly stunned in the process, nor was 
 the advantage otherwise unmixed. The boat had 
 come up- full, and Denis had now to bale for his 
 life. 
 
 So she floated upon the cliffs, until the big seas 
 began to break, when she instantly capsized again. 
 This time he succeeded in scaling the keel, only 
 to be dislodged as his perverse ship righted herself 
 once more. But the tenacity of the Dents was now 
 uppermost in Denis, if indeed he had any other 
 quality left, and he was back in the boat when she 
 eventually struck upon the cliff. The shock hurled 
 him overboard for the last time, yet was so much
 
 16 DENIS DENT 
 
 less terrific than he had anticipated, that he sought 
 and found the reason as he swam clear. A minute 
 ago the boat had been within a few fathoms of the 
 full face of the cliffs ; at the last instant a mouth 
 had opened, and all she had done was to cannon off 
 the perpendicular wall of a strait so narrow as to be 
 practically invisible from without. 
 
 It was comprehensible enough. The tide was 
 setting through this tiny channel. The derelict 
 life-boat was not alone ; packages bobbed between 
 the towering walls ; a table came riding by on its 
 top, three legs still standing, as Denis trod water. 
 And on the table he partly floated and partly swam 
 into a bay which stood to the channel as a flagon 
 to its neck. 
 
 It was semicircular in shape, surrounded by cliffs 
 as lofty and precipitous as those without, but mer- 
 cifully provided with a sandy beach at the upper 
 end. The castaway breathed a hoarse thanksgiving 
 at the saving sight. His smarting eyes had risen 
 involuntarily, and as they rested on the heights, 
 the sun lit up some heath and bracken that over- 
 hung the edge a few feet like a table-cloth : thence 
 downward it was sheer for one or two hundred to 
 the beach below. At the base a couple of caves 
 opened romantically upon the yellow sand, but 
 there was no sun for them yet, or for the dancing 
 waves that bore Denis and his table finally to the land. 
 
 There in an instant he was staggering and stum- 
 bling under the abnormal weight of his dripping
 
 SAUVE QUI PEUT 17 
 
 and exhausted body. A few yards he reeled, then 
 fell prone upon the warm sand, digging in his fin- 
 gers to the knuckles, thinking of no mortal but 
 himself, thanking his God for preserving him as 
 though he had made the voyage alone. Indeed the 
 long voyage on the ship was temporarily blotted 
 out of mind by the little one in the boat. 
 
 And he a lover ! And his love as good as 
 drowned before his eyes ! for not a vestige of the 
 ship had he seen since the original mishap to the 
 port life-boat. It was a terrible reflection to Denis 
 for the rest of his days but at the time he did not 
 think of her did not even picture a certain shade 
 of pink and ask himself what it meant and must 
 mean to him till his dying day. He just lay and 
 held on to the warm sand, foot and finger, because 
 the earth heaved under him as the sea had done for 
 thirteen weeks, and his vitality was very low. 
 
 Consciousness might have left him altogether ; he 
 always wanted to think so, for then he could have 
 forgiven himself; but he was never satisfied on the 
 point. He only knew it was a faint far cry that 
 roused him in the end. But faint as it was, and never 
 so far away, that thin high cry brought the half- 
 dead man to his feet like a gunshot at the ear. 
 
 A bar of sunlight slanted through the narrow 
 heads, and in the sun the blue waves were tipped 
 with gold, and across the gold and the blue a black 
 spar floated with some sodden and discoloured rags. 
 
 But Denis was in no doubt as to their shade.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE CASTAWAYS 
 
 DENIS had been a swimmer all his life ; how 
 he struck out now every swimmer will 
 know, though none so well as the happy 
 few who have themselves saved life. It is good to 
 think that that noblest of human instincts had its secret 
 place even now in this glowing heart ; that Denis 
 Dent would have given himself as unstintedly to the 
 rescue of some unknown person ; yet surely the 
 sacred flame alone could have fired those spent 
 members to the last pitch of redoubled endurance. 
 The white left arm, brown as a glove from the wrist 
 down, flew over as white a shoulder in flashing 
 curves ; the brown head dipped in the blue, to rise 
 spluttering and dripping a good yard further ; but 
 the yards were close on two hundred from shore to 
 spar, and when Denis came up with the latter, 
 it was his love, indeed, but she was already sense- 
 less. 
 
 They had tied her in a life-belt, and lashed the 
 life-belt to a spar ; in time she would have been 
 cast up on the warm sand, dead ! She was not 
 dead yet ; she should not die. Denis took the hem 
 of her dear drenched garment between his teeth, and
 
 THE CASTAWAYS 19 
 
 swam in, if possible, more strenuously than he had 
 swum out, but with the breast stroke, and in twice 
 the time. 
 
 At last she lay where he had lain, only in the 
 sun. Already the sand was gloriously hot to bare 
 knees ; and there was still a faint throbbing in the 
 inanimate wrist, though the eyelids lay leaden in a 
 livid face. Denis caught up his scattered clothes, 
 raced behind a ti-tree thicket, and put them on as 
 hurriedly as he had plucked them off. 
 
 The thicket grew under the cliffs between the 
 two caves, and Denis delayed some seconds to fill 
 his arms with branches before running back to the 
 girl. 
 
 Her pulse seemed stronger. He arranged some 
 of the branches, but left the sun beating on her feet. 
 It was the month of October, and early summer in 
 Australia. 
 
 Sundry packages had already come ashore ; there 
 was the inevitable barrel of salt junk ; there was a 
 box of soap, that Denis spurned, and another box so 
 similar that he left it to the last. Judge therefore 
 of his joy on eventually discovering that here was 
 nothing less than a case of Spanish brandy ! He 
 shrieked the good tidings to the girl. She did not 
 stir. He had to run back to her, and lift that leaden 
 wrist once more, before he could bear to open the 
 box. 
 
 His sailor's knife was worth a thousand pounds 
 to him in that hour ; the great blade made short
 
 20 DENIS DENT 
 
 enough work of the lid, but the heavy haft knocked 
 the neck off a bottle so prettily as to provide a meas- 
 ure with the medicine. Denis filled the inverted neck 
 as he ran, and was soon spilling as much over the 
 marble face as he managed to get between the 
 bloodless lips. Then, for the first time, fear came 
 to him : he retreated a little on his knees. The 
 stuff had caught her breath, her eyelids twitched, 
 and as she coughed the marble flushed to flesh. 
 She did not quite open her eyes. 
 
 " I am so cold," she moaned ; and the white 
 feet were drawn up a very little, but so stiffly, as 
 though the whole body had been dragged with 
 them. 
 
 Denis's blood froze as he remembered some vague 
 saying that the feet die first ; even in the hot sun 
 these looked dead enough ; they also must be 
 brought to life, and the arch enemy repulsed at 
 every point, at any sacrifice. In Denis, or rather in 
 the Denis who was least a Dent, the act would 
 almost outstrip the thought ; this was the Denis who 
 was saving his darling's life without time to realize 
 what she was to him. Quicker than thought he 
 had tipped up the bottle itself, so that the brandy 
 came out in gulps, first over one pale foot and then 
 the other. And now the left, now the right, now 
 with one hand apiece, and anon with both to- 
 gether for one foot, did he chafe and rub, and rub 
 and chafe, until the little lead feet were such pink 
 shells, but so warm, so warm that the tears
 
 THE CASTAWAYS 21 
 
 stood in his eyes. For he had been long enough 
 at it to think a little as he rubbed ; but as yet it was 
 otherwise with her ; she could only lie there with 
 closed eyes, as meek and unashamed as any other 
 dying soul. 
 
 She was not going to die, however, unless Denis 
 dropped dead first. When he could leave her feet he 
 had a turn at her hands, a much shorter journey for 
 the blood, and by the time they began to clasp his 
 feebly there was no more brandy left. Denis went 
 for another bottle, and half the next dose she 
 swallowed properly; the rest she pushed toward 
 him. 
 
 " To please me," she whispered : they were her 
 first words, and it his first drop. 
 
 Now she was lying with her eyes tight shut, but 
 not in sleep. Her lips moved, first in the faintest 
 smile, then in more whispers. 
 
 " I remember everything. I knew you would 
 come to me. I knew it ! " 
 
 He could only say her name. 
 
 " Nan ! Nan ! Nan ! " 
 
 It was as though his heart had broken, it was so 
 full. He had dared to call her his, the other night 
 under the awning ; he never dreamed of doing so 
 now. His conception of honour forbade an endear- 
 ment which she could not repudiate if she would ; 
 his own delicacy deplored the vital offices which had 
 been thrust upon him. He had brought the life's 
 blood back to leaden limbs, but he had brought it
 
 22 DENIS DENT 
 
 back at an expense which he already apprehended 
 dimly. In her right senses she might have chosen 
 death. He had taken on himself to give her life, 
 and now she would live to love or loathe him. 
 
 Gentle birth and hard upbringing had produced 
 in Denis an essential delicacy underneath a some- 
 what bluff exterior ; but he was not self-conscious on 
 either score. Qualm and pang came upon him as 
 part of the situation, almost as his deserts. He was 
 not aware of any fine feeling in the matter. He 
 was full of feeling, but he did not know that it was 
 fine. 
 
 Presently he saw she was asleep, and when he 
 bent to listen she was breathing beautifully ; he just 
 touched one hand, with the strange new awe he had 
 for her, and it was warmer than his own. But now 
 he was in a new difficulty ; he found time to appre- 
 ciate his own exhaustion; a stiff pull of brandy 
 alone kept him from fainting, and he foresaw in 
 alarm how it would be. They would both lie sleep- 
 ing where they were, the almost tropical sun 
 would beat down on them all day, and they might 
 never see another. The nearer cave was not 
 twenty yards away. Denis went to it, and it was 
 lined with far finer sand than outside ; he came back 
 and gazed a moment on the girl. She was very 
 young, and so delicately made ! He knew that he 
 could carry her, feeble though he now felt : if only 
 it did not wake her. He gathered her tenderly in 
 his arms : he carried her to the cave, he put her
 
 THE CASTAWAYS 23 
 
 down on the cool fine sand, and all she did was to 
 smile on him in her sleep. 
 
 If only she would when she awoke ! 
 
 Meanwhile a pillow she must have before Denis 
 would lay his own head anywhere, and he had seen 
 some rushes in the thicket. He cut an armful, and 
 thin bundle by thin bundle he got the lot under her 
 head at last. Then there was the table. He 
 caught sight of it along the beach, and thought 
 what a fine screen it would make for Nan. It 
 kept him up another ten minutes ; but by that 
 time, and thereafter, the sun might stream into 
 the cave, but not a fiery finger would it lay on Nan. 
 So then Denis measured his length at last, outside 
 the screen, as a dog lies across the door. 
 
 On finally awaking (for many times he dropped 
 off again deliciously), his first act was to listen on 
 hands and knees ; and since the sound he could just 
 hear was as peaceful as it was regular, his next 
 was to go outside and stick a rush upright in the 
 sand. Its shadow was a short finger pointing sea- 
 ward, so that he knew it was about noon. The tide 
 had gone down. Denis walked to the edge of the 
 surf, and there stood gazing up at the cliff for many 
 minutes. No ; there was no way up that he saw 
 or could conceive. Yet the little beach was only 
 as the lees in the flagon of a bay. There was as- 
 suredly no way round. 
 
 It is fifty years since the wreck of the North 
 Foreland and the second mate's extraordinary climb,
 
 24 DENIS DENT 
 
 but the scene of each remains an object of interest 
 to visitors at the station on the heights above, while 
 the minor incident is unfailing matter for conjecture, 
 contention, and much open incredulity. It has been 
 handed down that the sailor himself failed to iden- 
 tify the place within an hour of his alleged perform- 
 ance. The tradition is so far true. Denis never 
 pretended to know how he had achieved the super- 
 human : had he been in a condition fully to appre- 
 ciate what he was doing, the chances are that he 
 never would have made the attempt. He did not 
 mean to make it as it was. But with the brandy in 
 him (and little else) he had clambered a few feet to 
 see whether the thing was as impossible as it ap- 
 peared. Of course, it was not; but already it 
 seemed safer to climb a little further than to drop at 
 the risk of broken bones ; and so in a minute he 
 found himself committed to the ascent. The cliff 
 had beetled by insidious degrees ; all at once there 
 was nothing to be seen between his naked feet and 
 the beach far below ; one foot was soon bleeding, 
 and the drops falling clear into the sand. To drop 
 clear himself would have meant certain injury now; 
 as well break neck as leg, thought Denis, for all the 
 use he would be to Nan with either. So on and up 
 he went, now flattened for breath against a favour- 
 able slope, now swinging by the fingers from some 
 ledge that threatened to saw them to the bone, anon 
 testing tuft or twig with his life, yet all with so 
 light a head that the protracted jeopardy was an ex-
 
 THE CASTAWAYS 25 
 
 hilaration almost to the last. According to Denis, 
 it was just at the top, when a bunch of bracken 
 came up so slowly as to enable him to grasp a 
 stronger bunch in time, that his gorge rose with 
 the roots. 
 
 Remains the undisputed fact that between one 
 and two in the afternoon, a lad on the station, 
 whose boundary was these cliffs, saw an eerie figure 
 approaching through the yellow dust of a mob of 
 sheep which he happened to be driving at the time. 
 It was this lad whom the papers mentioned as Mr. 
 James Doherty ; but like Denis he was Irish only 
 by descent, and not for an instant did he imagine 
 that he had seen the devil. He appeared to be a 
 very quick youth, who knew the bush, and a glance 
 convinced him that the ragged wretch had been 
 lost in it and driven to some dreadful extremity ; 
 for his face and hands were all bloody, and even his 
 bare feet incrusted with blood and dust. More- 
 over, his speech was slightly indistinct, as is the 
 case with men who are half-dead with thirst. 
 
 This lad Doherty was the first person in Aus- 
 tralia to learn the fate of the North Foreland, and 
 the first to discredit the wild finish of the wild man's 
 talk. 
 
 " Why, there 's stairs right down," he cried. 
 " Over two hundred on 'em, cut in the sandstone." 
 
 " What a silly lie," sighed Denis. 
 
 " Did you sample the caves ? " 
 
 " One of them."
 
 26 DENIS DENT 
 
 "Which one?" 
 
 " The one with the big mouth." 
 
 " Do n't you tell me you never went into the 
 other ! It 's a nat'ral chimbley at the fur end, and 
 the boss had it shoved right through, and steps cut 
 in the sandstone for bathing." 
 
 The sailor's bloodstains were cracking in a ghastly 
 grin. 
 
 " So that won't do, old man," added Mr. Doherty, 
 severely. 
 
 "Will these?" 
 
 And Denis lifted one naked foot after the other ; 
 the left sole showed a purple bruise, the right a 
 gash that still dripped as he held it up. 
 
 Mr. Doherty supposed that he must be the liar, 
 but only allowed himself to look confounded for 
 the moment ; the next, he was emptying his water- 
 bag, from which Denis had already enjoyed a deep 
 pull, over the wounds. The sheep had scattered 
 right and left, but the horse stood apparently fast 
 asleep in the sun. 
 
 " Now up you jump," said Doherty. " He 's as 
 quiet as a cow." 
 
 Denis stared at him. 
 
 " Jump up ? What for ? " 
 
 " You 're within a mile of the homestead. You 
 struck the right track on top." 
 
 " Oh, but I 'm not going on," said Denis hastily. 
 " I must go back to her." 
 
 " With them feet and without your tucker ? "
 
 THE CASTAWAYS 27 
 
 And the lean brown lad stood with his bare arms 
 akimbo, a stained statue in a flannel shirt and mole- 
 skins. 
 
 " At once," said Denis. " I Ve wasted time 
 enough ; and if there are stairs there 's no difficulty. 
 Go you back to the homestead, and tell them to 
 send down everything they can think of for a young 
 lady. Food and clothes ; mind, she has n't had a 
 bite since dinner yesterday." 
 
 The young Australian doffed his wide-awake with 
 a sweep. 
 
 " Why, mister ! " he got out, but that was all. 
 " I 'm sorry I did n't call you ' mister ' before," he 
 added, after the stare of an idolater. " I '11 never 
 leave it out again ! " 
 
 Denis was limping along only a few minutes later 
 when the sound of a gallop made him look round 
 for the rider who had just left him ; and the same 
 horse it was, but a different horseman, for whom the 
 stirrups were grotesquely short. In a few seconds 
 he had bobbed and bounded into a blue-eyed man 
 with fair beard blowing and tanned face filled with 
 humane distress. 
 
 "Get on this horse," he cried, flinging himself 
 off. " If you do n't, I '11 carry you myself ! There 
 let me give you a hand ; my name 's Kitto ; this 
 is my run. Everything 's following in the buggy, 
 but here 's a biscuit to begin on ; the beds will be 
 made and aired by the time we get you both back. 
 But only two of you only two ! "
 
 28 DENIS DENT 
 
 Mr. Kitto had a heart of gold, and wore it on his 
 sleeve ; rarer still was a tact almost incongruous in 
 that desolate spot. Not a question had Denis to 
 answer as the horse ambled under him and the 
 squatter strode alongside. But when they came to 
 the mouth of a long stair tunneled through the soft 
 sandstone, it was Mr. Kitto who looked curiously at 
 the rude steep steps. 
 
 " Nobody has come up here," said he. " We had 
 a dust-storm yesterday before the wind went round, 
 and the sand on these top steps is as it drifted." 
 
 Denis could afford to smile. 
 
 " So you did n't believe it either." 
 
 " What 's that ? I could believe the side of a 
 house of you, my brave fellow ! " cried Mr. Kitto. 
 " I only mean that your companion has n't found 
 her way up in your absence." 
 
 " Ah, if she could ! " sighed Denis. " But she is 
 so weak I am afraid we shall have to carry her up 
 between us." 
 
 The squatter smiled, but said nothing. 
 
 " If only she is no weaker if only she has slept 
 right through ! " Denis went on, and repeated him- 
 self all the way down ; but at the base he button- 
 holed his guide. 
 
 " Do I look very awful, sir ? Is my face as bad 
 as my hands ? Wait a bit, then stay where you 
 are." 
 
 And his injured feet could still dance him down 
 to the water's edge ; but he came stealing back,
 
 THE CASTAWAYS 29 
 
 one index finger to his lips, signing with the other 
 to Mr. Kitto to let him go first ; and the smile on 
 the cleansed face told that good man a tale. 
 
 The mouth of the greater cave was just as Denis 
 had left it. He crept on all fours between the table 
 legs, and listened. There was no sound. He 
 leaped up and looked over. 
 
 The cave was empty.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 LOST AND FOUND 
 
 MR. KITTO saw the ragged figure shoot 
 from the cave as though propelled by 
 some unseen power within ; and for one 
 second he imagined the worst. He was relieved 
 when the shipwrecked sailor raised his voice. 
 
 " Nan ! Nan ! " he yelled. " Miss Merridew ! 
 Miss Merridew ! Nan ! Nan ! Nan ! " 
 
 The squatter, running up, alone interrupted him. 
 
 " She 's gone ! " cried Denis in terrible excite- 
 ment. " Gone clean away God knows where ! 
 Look for yourself, if you like ; with the sun pour- 
 ing in you can see to the very end. Do you think 
 I would miss her if it were ten times the size? 
 See, there 's where I left her lying ; that was all the 
 pillow I coui J give her ; you can almost see the 
 shape of her head ! " 
 
 And the hoarse voice broke piteously ; but such 
 a firm, kind hand had him by the arm, that Denis 
 bit his lips and blinked the tears back to their 
 source. 
 
 " Come, now," said Kitto, " there 's nothing won- 
 derful in this ; the only wonder is that we did n't 
 expect it. Why should she have slept so much
 
 LOST AND FOUND 31 
 
 longer than you ? She had done far less ; and they 
 are tougher than you think. She would wake up 
 and find you flown " 
 
 " Poor Nan ! Poor Nan ! " 
 
 " And having the vitality she must have, to say 
 nothing of the pluck, you would n't expect her to 
 sit still and wait, would you ? " 
 
 " I suppose not," said Denis, gloomily. " I only 
 know I would have died to save her what she must 
 have gone through alone alone." 
 
 " You have done your best to die for her," re- 
 torted Mr. Kitto, with his kind smile. " Were her 
 people on board with her ? " 
 
 " Her father, yes ; she has no one else." 
 
 " Then you may have to live for her," the older 
 man said gravely. " So do n't commit any more of 
 your follies, and above all do n't make yourself ill 
 without a cause. She is probably trying to find her 
 own way to the station, and it's safe to be the 
 wrong way." 
 
 " But you said no one had been up those stairs." 
 
 Mr. Kitto stood confounded in the sun. 
 
 " She may be about the beach somewhere," he 
 said hurriedly. " After all, it 's not so little that 
 you take in every cranny at a glance. Come and 
 let 's look. There are all sorts of holes and corners 
 under the cliffs," he added as they went, " where my 
 children play hide-and-seek at picnics. It 's our 
 favourite place for them ; in fact, that 's why I cut 
 those steps. No harm could come to her here."
 
 32 DENIS DENT 
 
 But his voice had lost something of its cheery 
 confidence, and in spite of him it lost more as they 
 sought together, but sought in vain. As for Denis, 
 there was an end to his lamentations ; he was past 
 that stage ; but his dumb eyes plumbed the pit. 
 
 " Can you cooey ? " asked the squatter. " No, 
 you 're too hoarse ; do n't try. But I can, like a 
 blackfellow, thank God ! " And he arched his sun- 
 burned hands about his mouth. 
 
 " Cooooooooo eeeey ! " 
 
 It was long enough and loud to reach the one 
 top-gallant mast of the North Foreland that they 
 descried between the heads, at a certain stage of 
 their wanderings, standing out of the waves for a 
 monument to those beneath : had a single sailor 
 been clinging to it, he must have heard so penetrat- 
 ing and so sustained a call : but from the lost one 
 on shore, as from the drowned multitude without 
 the gateway of sparking blue, not a sound, not a 
 sign. 
 
 Doherty and another arrived with blankets, 
 clothes, coffee, mutton, damper, billy-can, every- 
 thing that kind thought could send, with a sweet 
 message from her who sent them ; but this fell on 
 deaf ears. Denis would touch nothing till she whom 
 he had lost was found again ; so the squatter thrust 
 him down into the sand, and between them they 
 forced him to make a meal. And being at last in 
 a more reasonable frame, he would have ended by 
 putting on the shoes which he had cast off in the
 
 LOST AND FOUND 33 
 
 morning, and forgotten or despised ever since ; but 
 now his feet were so swollen, he could not get them 
 on. But as for letting them send him back to the 
 station in the buggy, and leaving the search to 
 them, as Mr. Kitto had now the temerity to sug- 
 gest, it was as much as Denis could do to hear him 
 out civilly. 
 
 The survivor went his own way after this, and it 
 led him first to the summit of the cliffs, to see for 
 himself whether there was no trace up there ; for 
 he had been incredulous on that point all along ; 
 but now so many had been up and down that he 
 had still only one man's word for the absence of 
 foot-marks in the beginning, and he roamed far 
 afield in vigilant circles. He had been lost himself 
 but for a fire they made on top of the cliff; and 
 when he came shambling back to the brink, down 
 below there was quite a galaxy of lanterns moving 
 in different directions, a constellation of creeping 
 stars. So they had not found her yet ; and now it 
 was black night. 
 
 In the utter heart-break of the hour, and the last 
 stage of physical distress, Denis had half a mind to 
 fling himself over and be done with it all ; but only 
 half a mind, and not a hundredth part of the heart. 
 Instead, as he went down gingerly in the dusk, one 
 painful step at a time, he reviled himself from top 
 to bottom for the unnecessary climb which is not 
 wholly credited to this day. It was already at the 
 root of everything in the climber's mind. Had he
 
 34 DENIS DENT 
 
 only explored the smaller cavern, he had been back 
 with succour in one hour instead of three. 
 
 Mr. Kitto meanwhile had made up his mind. 
 " We shall never find her alive," he whispered to 
 his overseer, who arrived upon the scene a little 
 before Denis's return. " But for that poor fellow's 
 sake we must keep up the pretence a bit longer. I 
 can see there was something between them ; and 
 when we find her body it will probably kill him ; 
 and after all every soul will have been lost. Did 
 you know the bodies were beginning to come 
 ashore? There's a little chap I take to be the 
 skipper : last to leave and first to land." 
 
 " But you are n't looking for this girl among 
 them ? " the overseer exclaimed aghast. 
 
 " Not yet ; but it will come to that," whispered 
 Kitto. " I cooeyed till I was hoarse ; that 's why I 
 can't raise my voice above a whisper now ; and all 
 the rest of us are in the same box. Mark my 
 words, it 's a case of suicide, and a fearful case : the 
 poor thing was so terrified at her position when she 
 awoke and found herself deserted on this desert 
 coast, that it drove her clean out of her mind. I 
 almost hope he won't live to realize it was that 
 though he 's the sort we want in this colony if he 
 gave up the sea." 
 
 " Was there no tracking her ? " 
 
 " Scarcely a yard from the mouth of the cave, 
 and he does n't know I did that ; the sand is so 
 heavy outside. But the tracks I did find pointed
 
 LOST AND FOUND 35 
 
 straight to the sea. I grant you there were not 
 enough of them to mean anything in them- 
 selves." 
 
 They chanced to be passing close to the ti-tree 
 clump as they conversed. Suddenly the overseer 
 stood still. 
 
 " You 've looked in there, I suppose ? " 
 
 " In there ? What would be the good ? It 's 
 not above a dozen yards thick, though so dense ; if 
 she were alive in there she 'd have heard us long 
 ago ; if she 's dead she 's in the sea. Why do you 
 ask?" 
 
 " I thought I heard something. That was all." 
 
 They moved on a few yards. 
 
 " I say, Mr. Kitto, I do hear something ! Listen, 
 sir listen to that ! " 
 
 They heard the voice distinctly, faint and feeble 
 though it was. 
 
 " I am dying ! " it moaned. " Ok, Denis, where 
 are you?" 
 
 Mr. Kitto almost choked. 
 
 " Thank God but if she does die ! " he croaked 
 and whispered in one breath. " We 're coming ! 
 We 're coming, my dear, dear young lady ! But," 
 in his whisper, " who 's that hobbling toward us 
 dot-and-carry-one ? It 's Dent, man, it 's Dent him- 
 self; go and tell him like a good fellow only do n't 
 raise too much hope." And deeply agitated, the 
 squatter thrust his lantern among the outer branches 
 of the thicket.
 
 36 DENIS DENT 
 
 In an instant came the faint voice, immeasurably 
 stronger, and poignant with a nameless agony : 
 
 " Take it away ! Oh, take it way, or I must die 
 I must ! " 
 
 Kitto flung his lantern far behind him : he had 
 seen a terrified face among the branches, a burning 
 face that told him all. 
 
 " And you have been here all day ! " he cried, 
 but chiefly to himself, in the inward glare of his en- 
 lightenment. " And I cooeying till I could cooey no 
 more!" 
 
 " I thought it was savages," the voice in the 
 clump faltered unconvincingly. " I I never heard 
 it before " 
 
 " We have everything ready for you," continued 
 Kitto, cheerily : " hot coffee, plenty to eat, dry 
 clothes, and our best bed when we get you to it. 
 Here, take this to go on with." His coat came off 
 with the words, and was thrust through the branches 
 until he felt she had it. " Now I '11 get you the 
 rest," he said, and was hurrying off. 
 
 " Wait ! Wait ! " she called to him, and even 
 more strongly than in her last alarm. " Where 's 
 Denis Denis Dent? He was the second officer, 
 and he saved me, he alone. I must speak to him 
 first ... to thank him . . . while I can ! " 
 
 And her voice broke for him, as his had broken 
 for her, but with more reason than Nan Merridew 
 could dream ; for Denis was lying close at hand on 
 the beach, with the station overseer stooping over him.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 A TOUCH OF FEVER 
 
 DENIS awoke between clean sheets in the 
 widest berth and the largest cabin he had 
 ever occupied : it was a matter of moments 
 to realize that he was really on land, for the bed 
 still heaved a little as the beach had done yesterday, 
 or whenever it was he had been washed ashore. 
 He felt as though he had been asleep a week ; he 
 could not have imagined so delightful a lassitude of 
 limb and spirit. It was a small room without pre- 
 tense of paper upon its weather-board walls, but 
 the toilet cover on Denis's left was as snowy as the 
 sheet under his chin, and a sunlit blind flapped 
 soothingly behind it. Silence reigned, but it was 
 the peculiarly drowsy hush of hot weather, only 
 the deeper for its innumerable tiny sounds : one 
 could have heard that it was hot. But there was so 
 little on him, that little was so light, and so sweet 
 a draught blew through the room, that in his own 
 person Denis felt deliciously cool. 
 
 He tried to remember how he had come there, 
 but the final stages were a painful farrago. He be- 
 held a bandage on either hand, and could feel one 
 on head and foot ; but they led him too far back.
 
 38 DENIS DENT 
 
 He had an impression of the stars as he lay upon 
 the beach, and another of interminable steps with 
 a handbreadth of starry sky at the top, but there was 
 something far more important that he was seeking 
 in his mind without avail. He certainly had not 
 found it when the blind was pushed aside by a sun- 
 burned face, which vanished instantly, to reappear 
 with its appertaining shirt and moleskins in the 
 doorway opposite. 
 
 " Awake at last, mister ! " 
 
 " Only just," said Denis, feebly, but with his first 
 smile, and the lad entered staring curiously. 
 
 " You could n't look like that whilst we was 
 seekin' her," said he, drily. " Why, what 's wrong 
 now?" 
 
 Denis had shot upright in bed. 
 
 " Did n't we find her ? " he cried. " Yes, yes, of 
 course we did ! I remember now. I 'm so grateful 
 to you ; that 's exactly what I was trying to remem- 
 ber. Well? Well? And how is she ?" 
 
 " Right as the mail, mister, so they all say ; but I 
 have n't seen her yet." 
 
 " You 're sure they say so ? " 
 
 " Sure as my name 's Jimmy Dockerty." 
 
 Denis fell back with a whispered thanksgiving. 
 
 " What did you say your name was ? " he asked 
 presently. 
 
 " Dockerty," replied the boy. " Christian name 
 of Jim." 
 
 " Well, Jim, I do n't forget you. It was you I
 
 A TOUCH OF FEVER 39 
 
 clapped eyes on first, and I 'm almost as glad to 
 see you again. Where am I exactly ? " 
 
 " Merinderie Station : the barricks." 
 
 " The what ? " 
 
 " Where the parlour men camp," explained Mr. 
 Doherty, darkly. " You 've got the tooter's room ; 
 he has his schoolroom next door." 
 
 " It 's very quiet." 
 
 " They Ve all cleared out for the day, apuppus ; 
 and you ain't in the house, you see, though nice 
 and handy. But I '11 have to go over to the house, 
 to tell 'em you 've waked up. There was something 
 ready for you the moment you did. But, I say 
 mister ! " And the boy stood wistfully beside the bed. 
 
 " Well, Jim ? " 
 
 " Ask for me to come back and set along of you ! 
 Say you feel lonely like, and ask for me to look 
 arter you, mister. You need n't take no notice of 
 me, and no more won't I say nothink, if you do n't 
 want." 
 
 " But I shall want, Jimmy. I shall want you to 
 tell me heaps of things. Go and say so for me, by 
 all means ; and bring me anything they like to send, 
 though a cup of tea is all I fancy." 
 
 But when a chop was sent in characteristic con- 
 junction it was eaten with its slice of damper, and 
 so heartily as to exclude immediate conversation. 
 
 " One thing at a time," said Denis, " and the next 
 thing is a wash ; but I do n't mean to get up yet a 
 bit."
 
 40 DENIS DENT 
 
 " I would n't," said the boy, removing the tray 
 and flourishing a towel. " The young lady, there 
 ain't any signs of 'er either ; I '11 give you the word 
 when there is." 
 
 Meanwhile the subject nearest Denis's heart was 
 the one on which he could extract least informa- 
 tion. Doherty did not warm to it as he did to 
 other topics. And yet Denis could not help liking 
 the lad ; in the first place, the lad was openly 
 enamoured of him, and the present Denis far too 
 languid a hero to object very strenuously to his 
 worship. There was nothing slavish about it; 
 hardly a word was employed in its expression ; 
 but in the pauses the boy's eyes would remain 
 upon the man's, and once he said he had been to 
 see the place, and continued gazing at Denis and 
 his bandages with redoubled reverence. It ap- 
 peared that many bodies had been washed ashore, 
 and Mr. Kitto with nearly all his men was down 
 there now. Mrs. Kitto was at the other bedside, 
 and had sent word that she preferred not to leave 
 it in case her patient, who had been asleep many 
 hours, should wake and miss her. Doherty sud- 
 denly remembered the message; it drove Denis 
 back into yesterday's inferno, and he lay with such 
 a pained face that the boy darted in with his own 
 details. It was four o'clock in the afternoon : Denis 
 had slept nineteen hours, but Miss Merridew was 
 beating him. And they were the only survivors ; 
 not another soul had been saved.
 
 A TOUCH OF FEVER 41 
 
 Denis thought of the hundred souls on board, 
 above all of Nan's father, her all in this world, 
 to whose loss she would awake now any moment. 
 And that was a thought which brought tears to the 
 second mate's eyes, yet it was one with several 
 facets, and presently his eyes were shining in quite 
 a different way ; then he caught himself, and little 
 Jim saw the marine bronze deepen on the heroic 
 cheek. But at last it was Jim's turn, for Denis 
 turned to him as though impatient of himself. 
 
 " Now let 's hear about you," he said. " How 
 long have you been in Australia, Jim ? " 
 
 " Only since I was born, and a bit before, and 
 ever after, amen ! " said Mr. Doherty ; and the teeth 
 displayed by his grin were certainly worthy of an 
 aboriginal. 
 
 "And how long is that?" asked Denis, smiling, 
 too. 
 
 " I do n't know. They say as I am a good seven- 
 teen, but I do n't look it, do I ? " 
 
 " What ! Do n't know your own age ? " 
 
 " Not to a year or two." 
 
 " Did n't your parents tell you ? " 
 
 " I never had none, mister." 
 
 And Mr. Doherty grinned again. 
 
 " You do n't remember, them ? " 
 
 " That 's what I mean. They were I do n't 
 mind tellin' you, mister, though I 'd rather bite my 
 tongue out than tell another soul on the place " 
 and little Jim came sidling from his seat at the
 
 42 DENIS DENT 
 
 foot of the bed to an easy distance from Denis's 
 ear, a dead secret in his astute young face. " But 
 you '11 think no worse of a cove," he went on, 
 whispering, " and you won't split either ; so it 's a 
 bit of a relief to tell you they was both old 
 hands." 
 
 " Old hands ? " 
 
 " Lags ! " 
 
 Now Denis understood. " Of course I do n't 
 think the less of you," he said, gently ; " we are 
 what we make ourselves, at any rate there 's no 
 credit in anything else we may be. I, for in- 
 stance " 
 
 But Denis had strength enough left to control 
 his tongue, and his parents' memory was too sacred 
 for association with that of transported felons, 
 however little there might be to chose between 
 their sons. 
 
 " It might be worse," the lad went on, with an 
 elderly air the more pathetic for its unconscious 
 humour : " they was married at Parramatta factory, 
 and my mother let me know it when I was as high 
 as this bed; it's the one thing I recollect her 
 by, keepin' on tellin' me that ; but 'im I never see 
 as I remember. Parramatta factory," he continued, 
 lifting his shrewd eyes once more, " was the place 
 where they kep' the women prisoners, up on the 
 Sydney side in the convict days ; you could go and 
 take your pick as long as you married her." The 
 boy's stare grew into a contemplative grin, and
 
 A TOUCH OF FEVER 43 
 
 Denis prepared for a familiarity. " There '11 be 
 need for you to go there," said Mr. Doherty. 
 
 Denis was not offended ; either he was too stricken 
 to be readily ruffled, or the young monkey had a 
 way with him. He only rolled his head on the pil- 
 low, and questioned whether such an establishment 
 existed still. 
 
 " It does n't," rejoined Jim ; " but even if it did, 
 eh ? You 're all right, you see, so you can go on 
 shaking your head till you loosen it ! / seen, 
 whether or no, last night when you could n't." 
 
 " I do n't want to know what you saw," cried 
 Denis, vehemently enough ; and lay quite agitated 
 between the sheets. 
 
 " I suppose," the imp pursued, with a precocious 
 union of tact and tenacity, " you '11 go and get mar- 
 ried straight away, and never let us see or hear from 
 you again." 
 
 Denis set his teeth, not because the boy jarred, 
 but at the gulf between this fancy picture and the 
 possibilities of the case as it now stood. It was 
 characteristic of him that for the first time they 
 seemed impossibilities. He had saved her life, and 
 now they were alone in the world, he and she : how 
 could he trade on such things, how avoid the sus- 
 picion of trying to trade on them ? If only an- 
 other had saved her ! If only others had been 
 saved ! 
 
 " Do n't speak of it," he groaned. " I am far too 
 poor."
 
 44 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Too poor, are you ? " 
 
 The boy had brightened. 
 
 " And she is too rich." 
 
 " Then what more do you want, mister ? " 
 
 " What more ? It should be the opposite way ; 
 we should both be one thing or the other. Any- 
 thing but as we are ! " 
 
 There was a brief intermezzo of the tiny summer 
 noises. The blind flapped ; a mosquito sang an 
 ominous solo in the sick man's ear ; from without 
 came the faint hacking of an axe at the wood-heap. 
 Denis looked up at last, and there sat Jim with a 
 startlingly wise face upon his narrow young shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 " Do you know what I should do, if I was you, 
 mister ? " 
 
 "Well, what?" 
 
 " If I felt same as you," said Mr. Doherty, " I 'd 
 make a fortune. same as hers." 
 
 Denis smiled tolerantly ; the urchin amused him. 
 
 " Well, and how would you do that ? " 
 
 " I should go up to Ballarat, and peg out my 
 claim, as sure as my name 's Jimmy Dockerty ! " 
 
 " It would have to be a lucky one," said Denis, 
 dryly, though not until he had paused to think. 
 
 " Then it would n't be the only one," retorted 
 Doherty, with the readiness of their common race. 
 
 Denis could not help dallying with the idea. 
 
 " Have they been doing such good business up 
 there, then ? "
 
 A TOUCH OF FEVER 45 
 
 " Good ! Why, have n't you heard ? There 's 
 never been such doings as they 've had on Ballarat 
 this year. I thought it was all over the world," the 
 boy added, with shining eyes. 
 
 " It may be," said Denis, " but I 've been at sea 
 since June, and it is n't exactly in a sailor's line." 
 
 " Is n't it ! " laughed Jimmy. " You wait till you 
 see the empty ships in Hobson's Bay ! Some of 'em 
 been stuck there since the last day of January, when 
 the fun began. Do you mean to say you never 
 heard of the big finds in Canadian Gully ? " 
 
 " You tell me, Jimmy. I want to hear." 
 
 Denis was leaning on an elbow. Jimmy had 
 long been on his feet. 
 
 " There were some coves had a claim in Canadian 
 Gully, on Ballarat," the boy began, a wild light in 
 his face, a light that Denis had never seen before. 
 " They were doing well, but not too well, and they 
 offered to sell the hole for a matter of three hun- 
 dred. Then one of them went down and came up 
 with a nugget weighing sixty-six ounces ! " 
 
 " At how much the ounce ? " 
 
 " About four guineas." 
 
 " Well, that was n't quite the three hundred." 
 
 " Stop a bit ! " cried Doherty, a perfect fever in 
 his eyes, a fever as new to Denis as the light upon 
 the lad's face. " That was only the beginning of it. 
 Of course they would n't sell after that. And be- 
 fore night they 'd got a nugget of a hundred and 
 twenty pounds. Troy weight whatever that is
 
 46 DENIS DENT 
 
 perhaps you can turn it into the other pounds, for 
 I can't." 
 
 Denis sat forward, pressing the lint upon his fore- 
 head with his hands. When at length he looked 
 up there was the same light beneath the bandages, 
 the same fever in the still blood-shot eyes, as Denis 
 himself had remarked in the face and eyes of his 
 companion. 
 
 " Six thousand pounds ! " he whispered almost 
 aghast. 
 
 " Six thousand golden sovereigns ! " shouted the 
 lad, capering about the room. " Think of that, 
 mister, think of that ! I had it read to me out of 
 the papers. I got it off by heart. It was one big, 
 solid, yellow lump of gold, and they had to carry it 
 between them slung to a pole. It was n't the only 
 one, neither; as they went tunneling on it stuck 
 out of the sides, like bunches of grapes at twenty 
 pound a berry ! There was only four on 'em in 
 the party ; they made their fortunes in less than no 
 time; and two on 'em was new chums, same as 
 you 'd be if you went up and and " 
 
 " And what, boy ? " 
 
 " And took me along with you ! " 
 
 Denis only wondered that the little brown face, 
 thrust so near him in its eagerness, did not burst 
 into actual flame ; it never occurred to him that his 
 own was perhaps presenting the like phenomenon. 
 
 " You talk as though you 'd been there already, 
 Jimmy," said he.
 
 A TOUCH OF FEVER 47 
 
 " But I have n't. I 'd only give my two ears to 
 go. The boss won't let me. He says I 'm too 
 young ; and he 's been such a jolly good boss to 
 me, I have n't the heart to go agin him, especially 
 when he 's promised me my kit if I wait till the Noo 
 Year. But I b'lieve he 'd give 'em me to-morrow, 
 mister, if I was going up with you ! " 
 
 It was a strange talk for Denis on the day after 
 his deliverance, in the bed where they had laid him 
 more dead than alive, but the manner of its ending 
 was the strangest part of all. In the fever that was 
 so new to Denis, that he had a touch of it before he 
 dreamed there was such a disease, he not only forgot 
 the perils through which he had passed, but his 
 every sense turned blunt by comparison with the 
 intensely keen edge put so suddenly on certain of 
 his desires. He had not heard the voices outside ; 
 neither had Doherty ; and the feet upon the thresh- 
 old fell upon four equally deaf ears. It was not 
 until Mr. Kitto opened the door, and entered first, 
 that the one looked round and the other up. 
 
 " Here," said the squatter, " is a gentleman whom 
 I know you will be heartily thankful to see again." 
 
 The gentleman stood forward with outstretched 
 hands and a quivering lip. 
 
 It was John Merridew.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 NEW CONDITIONS 
 
 THE following were the facts, as Denis 
 grasped them by degrees. 
 Not many minutes had elapsed between 
 the mishap to the port life-boat and the resolution 
 of the North Foreland into so much wood and iron 
 at the bottom of the sea, with a single top-gallant 
 mast standing out to mark the place. But during 
 those few minutes the minor disaster had caused 
 another. 
 
 The loss of the first boat augured ill for the rest ; 
 and, indeed, only the chief officer's lived to salute 
 the sun ; but before it was launched, Miss Merridew 
 had been swept overboard through the little faith 
 of her own friends, who had lashed her life-belt to a 
 fallen spar, only to give a gratuitous handle to the 
 next great wave. 
 
 It was Captain Coles whose last remembered act 
 had been to prevent one or both gentlemen from 
 diving after her to their death some said with his 
 revolver at their heads ; and, as if because neither 
 seemed to care any longer for his life, these were 
 the two male passengers to be saved. They were 
 dragged into the mate's boat. The boat was sue-
 
 NEW CONDITIONS 49 
 
 cessfully launched by a mixture of good manage- 
 ment and better luck. But it was entirely to the 
 mate's credit that she immediately stood out to sea, 
 and so continued until picked up by a coasting 
 vessel, which landed the party in Melbourne before 
 night. The post-haste journey to the landward 
 scene of the wreck, all that night and nearly all 
 next day (it was a matter of a hundred miles up 
 and across country), was only such as any father 
 would have undertaken in the circumstances, and 
 most men in Ralph Devenish's position would have 
 taken with him. 
 
 But Captain Devenish did not accompany Mr. 
 Merridew to the little outbuilding in which Denis 
 lay; nor did Jim Doherty, or his master, remain 
 even so long as to see the older man take the band- 
 aged hands, tenderly, tremulously, in both of his. 
 
 The interview which followed was an affecting 
 one ; but Denis had done too much, too recently, to 
 take a very emotional view of his exploits. In his 
 heart he took little credit for them. It was not he 
 who had saved Nan Merridew's life, but a merciful 
 God who had merely used him as His tool ; and 
 while, perhaps, more thankful than he now knew 
 for that supreme preferment, the prostrate man was 
 almost morbidly alive to its disadvantages. Thus, 
 when Mr. Merridew led the conversation back al- 
 most to the point at which their last had been inter- 
 rupted, it was Denis who created the awkward si- 
 lence. He was touched by the uncontrolled revela-
 
 50 DENIS DENT 
 
 tion of a hard man's soft side, by the contrast 
 between the exceedingly deliberate and rather irri- 
 tating voice that he remembered on the poop, and 
 the voice that still broke with very tenderness. But 
 his own voice was so much the more dispassionate, 
 and apparently perverse. 
 
 " I unsay every word," said Mr. Merridew, for 
 the second time, and more pointedly than ever ; for, 
 even in his really generous emotion, he could 
 not help feeling that it was unsaying a great 
 deal. 
 
 Denis nodded from his pillow, but only to signify 
 that he heard. " You are very kind," he answered 
 at length, with no ironic intent ; " too kind, I al- 
 most think. You might live to regret it." 
 
 " No, no ; never, never ! Now I know what you 
 are." 
 
 " I am a junior officer in the merchant service 
 with a captain's certificate." 
 
 Mr. Merridew was genuinely pained. " Dent," 
 said he, " I take back my words twice over, and 
 still you throw them in my teeth ! Surely you 
 must see that everything is altered now ? " 
 
 " But it might have happened to anybody else," 
 urged Denis, with gentle tenacity. " You should 
 look at it in that way, Mr. Merridew. Suppose it 
 had been one of the stewards ; for all you knew, or 
 seemed prepared to believe, I was no more eligible 
 than they, the night before last. I have been in- 
 finitely lucky no, blessed, blessed! but that's all.
 
 NEW CONDITIONS 51 
 
 It does n't give me ten thousand pounds to put to 
 hers." 
 
 Mr. Merridew jumped up from the bedside. It 
 was partly with temper that he was trembling now. 
 
 " Have you changed your mind already, Mr. 
 Dent, or is all this so much affectation on your 
 part ? Did you mean what you said to me that 
 night before we struck or did you not ? " 
 
 " Every word of it," answered Denis, in a whis- 
 per that brought the other back to his former posi- 
 tion on the bed, only now he was peering into eyes 
 averted from his own. 
 
 " You do love her, do n't you, Dent ? I can see 
 it I can see it whatever you may say ! " 
 
 Denis could only nod. His weakness had come 
 upon him very suddenly. But by an effort he was 
 able to prevent it from rising to his eyes. And 
 soon he was sufficient master of himself to attend 
 to what Mr. Merridew was saying with so strange 
 an eagerness of voice and manner. 
 
 " You must come back with us. That 's what 
 you must do. Melbourne's a perfect pandemo- 
 nium : street upon street of tents, teeming with the 
 very sweepings of the earth, and ship upon ship 
 without a man on board. But there 's a fine clip- 
 per, the Memnon by name, lying ready for sea at 
 Geelong, and we'll all go home in her together. 
 She 's bound to be under-officered, and I suppose 
 you would be happier so than as a passenger ; but 
 let this voyage be your last. You said you were as
 
 52 DENIS DENT 
 
 good a man ashore as at sea, if my memory serves 
 me as well as yours. Well, now I can believe you, 
 and in you, as I shall show you as I shall very 
 soon show you ! I have no one to follow me in 
 the firm, Denis that 's your name, is n't it ? and 
 you do n't mind my calling you by it, do you ? 
 But if you became my son, Denis . . . can't 
 you see . . . can't you see ? " 
 
 The man's tongue had run away with him, as 
 the unlikeliest tongues will, under strong emotional 
 strain : so we prattle of our newly dead, magnifying 
 the good that we belittled in their lives. But here 
 the strain was far greater ; for she who had been 
 dead was alive again ; and this, this was her saviour, 
 for whom nothing, not even the girl herself, was 
 now too good. 
 
 " There is one thing you have forgotten," said 
 Denis, without withdrawing his hand from the nerv- 
 ous grasp that now hurt considerably. " I had not 
 got my answer the other night. And how can I 
 press her for it now ? Do n't answer yourself, sir, 
 till you have thought it over, if I may ask that 
 much of you, alone ; and then I know you will 
 agree with me. She ought not to be allowed to 
 give me her answer now. And I I ought to go 
 away without seeing her again until I have really 
 
 shown myself " He could not finish. His 
 
 weakness and his sincerity were equally apparent : 
 deeply moved, the elder man took his leave, with 
 but one more syllable, and that to promise Denis,
 
 NEW CONDITIONS 53 
 
 from the door, not to repeat a word of their con- 
 versation to Nan. 
 
 But Denis had not said all that it was in him to 
 say, for in the first place he had not the heart, and in 
 the next he was not too proud of his latest resolve ; 
 but it was a resolve no less, and already it might 
 have been the resolve of his life. 
 
 " This is not the real man," he lay saying to him- 
 self. " The real man had his say on the poop and 
 the sounder man of the two. I won't take advan- 
 tage of either of them. Let me make that money. 
 I can, and I will. Then she shall give me her an- 
 swer not before." 
 
 And yet he had an uneasy conscience about his 
 new resolve, plausible as it became in words ; but 
 the qualm only hardened it within him ; and he lay 
 in the twilight with set teeth and dogged jaw, quite 
 a different Denis from the one who had leaned for- 
 ward to listen to Jimmy Doherty, but every inch 
 a Dent. 
 
 Doherty came stealing back with the face of a 
 conspirator ; his worldly wisdom did not as yet in- 
 clude a recognition of the difficulty of picking up 
 broken threads, even when they are threads of gold. 
 Denis would not promise to speak to Mr. Kitto, 
 would hear no more, indeed, of Ballarat ; all he 
 seemed to care to know now was what Captain 
 Devenish was doing with himself. 
 
 " Him with the whiskers ? " said Jimmy. " I 
 can't sight that gent ! "
 
 54 DENIS DENT 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Beg yer pardon, mister, but I do n't like him. 
 He speaks to you like as if you was a blessed dingo. 
 That sort o' thing do n't do out here ; we ain't used 
 to it." And young Australia shook a sage old 
 head. 
 
 " But what 's he doing with himself, Jimmy ? " 
 
 " Oh, lookin' at the papers an' things, an' 
 yawnin' an' smokin' about the place." 
 
 " And Mr. Merridew ? " 
 
 " With the young lady. She ain't a-goin' to 
 show up to-night, the young lady ain't ; and you 
 can take that as gospel for I had it from the 
 missus herself." 
 
 The boy's eyes were uncomfortably keen and 
 penetrating. Denis got rid of him, and lay think- 
 ing until it was nearly dusk. Then they brought 
 him his first solid meal ; and presently Mrs. Kitto 
 paid a visit to a giant so refreshed that nothing 
 would persuade him to keep his bed without a break. 
 He must have a breath of air : he was quite him- 
 self. So early evening brought him forth in a pair 
 of Mr. Kitto's slippers. 
 
 The very first person he saw was Ralph Devenish, 
 reading by lamplight in one of the many rude ve- 
 randas which faced and flanked one another under 
 the bright Australian stars. Denis went limping up 
 to him with outstretched hand. 
 
 " I am glad to set eyes on you, Devenish," he said 
 gravely.
 
 NEW CONDITIONS 55 
 
 " Really ? " drawled the other, with light incre- 
 dulity; but he could hardly refuse the bandaged 
 hand. 
 
 " Ralph Devenish," pursued Denis, chilled but 
 undeterred, " I make no apology for the sudden 
 familiarity, partly because we 've both been so near 
 our death, and partly because we 're cousins. My 
 mother was a Devenish ; you may open your eyes, 
 but I would drop them if I came of the stock that 
 treated her as her own people did ! I never meant 
 to tell you, for there can be no love to lose between 
 your name and mine, but I blurted it out in a rage 
 just before we struck. I want to say that I 'm 
 heartily ashamed of the expressions I made use of 
 then ; that I apologize for them, and take them 
 back." 
 
 " My good fellow," replied Devenish, with en- 
 gaging candour, " I do n't recollect one of them ; the 
 fact is, I was a little drunk. As to our relationship, 
 that 's very interesting, I 'm sure ; but it 's odd how 
 one does run up against relations, in the last places 
 you 'd expect, too. I can't say I remember your 
 name, though ; never heard it before, to my knowl- 
 edge. If there's been anything painful between 
 your people and mine, don't tell me any more 
 about it, like a good feller." 
 
 " I won't," said Denis, secretly boiling over, 
 though for no good reason that he could have 
 given. It certainly was not because Devenish con- 
 tinued occupying the only chair, leaving the lame
 
 56 DENIS DENT 
 
 man to stand. Denis was glad to have so whole a 
 view of him as the lamplight and the easy chair 
 afforded. Save for the patent fact that his clothes 
 had not been made for him, the whiskered captain 
 looked as he had looked on board, a subtle cross 
 between the jauntily debonair and the nobly bored. 
 As Denis watched he produced the same meer- 
 schaum that he had smoked all the voyage, a Turk's 
 head beautifully coloured, with a curved amber 
 mouthpiece, and proceeded to fill it from the same 
 silken pouch. 
 
 " Another soul saved, you see ! " said Ralph 
 Devenish, as he tapped his Turk affectionately ; it 
 was the acme of sly callousness, even if intended so 
 to appear. Denis turned away in disgust, but 
 turned back for a moment in his stride. 
 
 " Are you going home with the Merridews ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I do n't know," said Devenish. " Are you ? " 
 
 " I do n't know," echoed Denis. " But I think 
 not." 
 
 " Really ? " drawled Devenish. " Well, as a 
 year's leave do n't last forever, I 'm not so sure." 
 
 And as Denis saw the last of him under the 
 lamp, he had not yet resumed the filling of the 
 Turk's head.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DENIS AND NAN 
 
 MISS MERRIDEW continued prostrate, 
 yet so exempt from bodily mischief that 
 her case began to baffle all except the 
 other woman, who had charge of it. 
 
 Mr. Merridew allowed himself to be dissuaded 
 from obtaining indifferent medical advice at exor- 
 bitant cost, but his anxiety increased with his per- 
 plexity, and was only allayed by his instinctive con- 
 fidence in Mrs. Kitto. That lady proved as prac- 
 tical and understanding as she was good and kind. 
 Yet even Mrs. Kitto was puzzled just at first. They 
 had to deal with one singularly reserved who 
 could lie for hours without closing an eye or utter- 
 ing a word and the father's way was to force her 
 to say something, at the pain of his own passionate 
 distress. But Mrs. Kitto would bring in her sew- 
 ing, of which she seemed to have a great deal, and 
 sit over it, also by the hour, in a quietude as grate- 
 ful as her sparing speech. She was very observant, 
 however, and the one thing that puzzled her only 
 did so in the beginning. This was the anomaly 
 presented by a patient whose face was often in a 
 burning fever while her head and hand kept per- 
 fectly cool.
 
 58 DENIS DENT 
 
 The wreck was never mentioned in the sick-room, 
 nor did Nan guess that an inquest on the bodies 
 was held within a few yards of where she lay. Yet 
 it was she who eventually broke the ice. 
 
 " Is Mr. Dent still here ? " she asked, but in a 
 tone so magnificently offhand that a less astute 
 person than Mrs. Kitto would have detected its 
 anxiety as soon. 
 
 " He was this morning," replied Mrs. Kitto, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Do you mean that he is n't now ? " the girl de- 
 manded, half-rising on an elbow. 
 
 " No. I think I should have heard of it if he 
 had thought of leaving us to-day." 
 
 Nan Merridew fell back upon her pillow. 
 
 " I wish he would go on board," she said petu- 
 lantly, " if he is going." 
 
 " On board ? " queried Mrs. Kitto ; and she set 
 down her work. 
 
 " Is n't he to be one of the officers on the ship 
 we are all going home by ? " 
 
 " I did n't know of it," said Mrs. Kitto, with 
 equal embarrassment and surprise. 
 
 " But he is," declared the girl, with all an invalid's 
 impatience. " I understood that from papa the day 
 he came ; he had spoken to the agents, or he was 
 going to speak to them, and Denis I mean Mr. 
 Dent was to have the best berth they could give 
 him. I do wish he would go on board. I I al- 
 most wish he had n't saved my life ! "
 
 DENIS AND NAN 59 
 
 And she tossed her face to the wall, for it was 
 burning as it had burned so often since her deliver- 
 ance. 
 
 " It 's meeting him again," said Mrs. Kitto to her- 
 self; "and she does care for him, or she would 
 mind less." It made it all the harder to ask aloud, 
 " Did your father say he had succeeded, dear ? " 
 
 " We have never mentioned Mr. Dent again," 
 said Nan to that, quite haughtily. 
 
 " Because I do n't think he 's sailing in the Mem- 
 non at all," continued Mrs. Kitto, gently. " I think 
 he's going to the diggings instead." 
 
 " Going where ? " the girl asked after a pause. 
 The first sentence was all that she had heard. 
 
 " To Ballarat or Bendigo to make his fortune." 
 
 " I hope he '11 succeed," said Nan, after a pause ; 
 but her voice was a sweet bell jangled, and an hour 
 went before she turned her face from the wall. It 
 was still red, but there was a subtle difference in the 
 shade. And in the hazel eyes, which were the 
 most obvious of Miss Merridew's natural attractions, 
 there was a crude, new light. 
 
 " I am going to get up," said she. 
 
 Mrs. Kitto proved not unprepared for the an- 
 nouncement ; it appeared that all her needlework 
 had been for Nan, and now it was as though the 
 last stitch had just been put into everything. It 
 was all a surprise to the girl, who had not given 
 the matter a thought. She was to get a fresh outfit 
 at Geelong, before the ship sailed, but Mrs. Kitto
 
 60 DENIS DENT 
 
 insisted on sending her so far equipped by herself. 
 And the dress which the kind soul had been so 
 busy altering was almost the last remnant of her 
 own trousseau, and some years behind the fashion. 
 
 In point of fact it was what used to be called a 
 " double robe " of lavender cashmere ; and it was 
 trimmed with braid of the same colour, but the braid 
 was a shade darker than the rest, and its criss-cross 
 pattern as unlovely in its way as the voluminous 
 skirts it was intended to adorn. But the fabric was 
 soft and fine, and the delicate tint happened to suit 
 Nan Merridew, who had a singularly clear and pale 
 skin, and dark gold ringlets almost the colour of 
 her eyes. For she was of the type dear to the pre- 
 Raphaelites, with rather more flesh and blood, and 
 a much more conspicuous spirit of her own, perhaps 
 a little too conspicuous when Nan reappeared in the 
 sunlight, with quite another light in her eyes, on the 
 fourth day after the wreck. 
 
 It was near the close of a radiant afternoon, and 
 Mr. Merridew was absent for the day ; but Captain 
 Devenish had been seen strolling toward the cliffs, 
 and Nan thought that she would stroll after him in 
 spite of the direction. No one must think of ac- 
 companying her ; she would so enjoy finding the 
 way for herself. To this Mrs. Kitto pretended to 
 make no objection, but expressed a belief that Mr. 
 Dent was with Captain Devenish, thinking she had 
 named the last deterrent. On the contrary, it only 
 decided Nan to go quickly ; and go she did with
 
 DENIS AND NAN 61 
 
 that peculiar light stronger than ever in her 
 eyes. 
 
 Now the way led through a belt of young pines, 
 by which the station was almost surrounded, and in 
 the middle of them Nan met a man in moleskins 
 and a red shirt. Him she was approaching with 
 downcast eyes, as one who must regard her curi- 
 ously, when his voice thrilled her at close quarters. 
 
 " Nan ! And you 'd have passed me without a 
 word ! " 
 
 Denis was standing in her path, a common wide- 
 awake drooping from one hand, the other reaching 
 out for hers. 
 
 " I did n't recognize you," she said, scarcely 
 touching his hand. "And I was looking for Cap- 
 tain Devenish can you tell me where he is ? " 
 
 " He has gone down to bathe," replied Denis 
 with some reluctance. To bathe where a ship's 
 company had been drowned that week ! No won- 
 der Nan winced. " Can't you spare me a few min- 
 utes instead?" he added as she was about to 
 turn. 
 
 " Oh, yes, if you wish it." 
 
 " Of course I wish it ! " exclaimed Denis. His 
 shoulders looked very square under the coarse red 
 flannel ; but they were heaving, too. 
 
 Nan was her own mistress on the spot. " I 
 could n't know," said she. " You see, you never 
 sent me any message not one word." 
 
 " I shall tell you why."
 
 62 DENIS DENT 
 
 " And then I understood you were going to the 
 diggings." 
 
 " So I am," said Denis. His voice was preter- 
 naturally deep and vibrant. She looked up at him 
 with the odd light in her eyes. 
 
 " And why have n't you gone yet?" 
 
 " I wanted to see you first." 
 
 " That was very kind." 
 
 " To tell you why I was going at all to tell you 
 everything, Nan, if you will let me if you are n't 
 determined to misunderstand me before I open my 
 mouth ! " 
 
 Their eyes were together now, his dark with pas- 
 sion, in hers a certain softening of the unlovely 
 light that hurt him more than her tone : and her 
 eyes were the first to fall, to wander, to espy a 
 stump among the pines. 
 
 " I must sit down," she faltered. " It 's my first 
 appearance, and I tire directly. But I 'm not too 
 tired to listen to you I want to." 
 
 Yet already a change had come over her, and 
 either she was physically weaker or else softer at 
 heart than she had been but a minute before. At 
 all events she took his arm to the stump, which was 
 one of several in a little clearing lit and checkered 
 by the slanting sun. And she sat there almost 
 meekly in his sight, while Denis planted a foot upon 
 one of the other stumps and said what he had to 
 say with bare arms folded across a moleskinned 
 knee.
 
 DENIS AND NAN 63 
 
 " In the first place," he began, " I saved your 
 life." 
 
 Nan's smouldering spirit was in flames upon the 
 word, and her face caught its fire. 
 
 " And you remind me of it ! " she cried in red 
 scorn. " Is it the sort of thing one forgets ? Is it 
 a thing to thank you for like any common service, 
 and are you the one to put the words in my 
 mouth ? " 
 
 Denis did not wince. 
 
 " I am wrong," he said, quietly. " In the first 
 place, I asked you to marry me ; it was only in the 
 second place, and before you had time to give me 
 an answer, that I was so unfortunate as to save your 
 life." 
 
 " Unfortunate ! " 
 
 " Most unfortunate to be the one to save you, 
 Nan, because if it had been any one else it would 
 have made no difference between us; as it is it 
 makes all the difference in the world." 
 
 " I do n't understand," she said, trembling be- 
 cause she was beginning to understand so well. " I 
 only know how brave you were how brave ! " 
 
 And she raised her sweet face without restraint, 
 for now she was thinking of nothing but his 
 bravery. 
 
 " Most men are that at a pinch," said Denis, with 
 a twitch of his red shirt : " but I was luckier than 
 most. I won't make too light of it. I can swim. 
 But you do n't suppose I was the only strong swim-
 
 64 DENIS DENT 
 
 mer on board. And which of the rest, I should 
 like to know, would n't have made as good use of 
 my chance ? " 
 
 " But it was n't only the swimming ! " the giri 
 cried without thinking, to break off with her bent 
 face in its besetting fever. 
 
 " If you mean the climbing," he continued 
 equably, " there was still less merit in that, for it 
 was absurdly unnecessary, as you probably know, 
 besides which I was full of Spanish brandy at the 
 time. Not that I 'm ashamed of that," added Denis 
 with the absolute candour of the dales. " I believe 
 that brandy was the saving of us both ; but it was 
 another piece of pure luck." 
 
 Nan said nothing for a minute. She was trying 
 to see his hands, and he showed her with a shrug 
 the only ringer that was still in rags. His wounds 
 had not been serious ; he was scarcely walking 
 lame ; the scratches had skinned over on his face. 
 She could look in it again, steadfastly, simply ; she 
 was even beginning to like it better between a wide- 
 awake and an open throat than in the spruce cap 
 and collar of the voyage. Her own scarlet she had 
 conquered in a tithe of the time it had often taken 
 her in secret : it was not so dreadful to be with him 
 after all. And if he loved her nothing mattered : 
 not even her long agony in the ti-tree thicket. 
 Yet he had hurt her by belittling himself, and by 
 something else of which his last words reminded 
 Nan.
 
 DENIS AND NAN 65 
 
 " But you do n't look on it as luck. You are n't 
 a bit glad you saved my life ! " And her eyes fell 
 once more, if this time not involuntarily. 
 
 " Glad ! " he cried out. " Gladness is no word for 
 my feeling about that for what I feel every mo- 
 ment of every hour." 
 
 " Yet you wish it had been some one else." 
 
 "I do n't!" 
 
 " But you said you did, Denis." 
 
 " Well, and I have felt it, too, when I could n't 
 send you a single message could n't make a single 
 sign for fear you should think for fear you should 
 misunderstand ! 
 
 Nan had not raised her eyes again; his tone 
 made it difficult now. He was leaning toward her, 
 almost bending over her, and yet his foot clung to 
 the pine-stump as though by conscious effort of the 
 will, and his face was a fight between set jaw and 
 yearning eyes. But Nan could not see his face; 
 she could only see the sunlight and the shadows in 
 the lavender skirts that spread about her as she sat, 
 and a few inches of hard yellow ground beyond. 
 She was beginning to believe in his love, to under- 
 stand his position before he explained it to her, to 
 see the end of her own doubts. His halting voice 
 was more eloquent than many words. 
 
 And yet for words she was constrained to probe. 
 
 " So you determined to go up to the diggings ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " And to leave me ? "
 
 66 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Nan, I must." 
 
 His voice reconciled her more and more. 
 
 " Must you, Denis ? " 
 
 " To make some money, Nan dear ! And I will 
 make it I will I will ! " 
 
 She felt that he would. His voice only stirred 
 her now. 
 
 " And then ? " she asked. 
 
 " And then," he cried, " and then I sha' n't mind 
 pressing you for an answer to what I dared to ask 
 you on the North Foreland'' 
 
 There was a silence in the little clearing among 
 the young pines. Only near at hand the hum of 
 insects, and in the distance a cloud of cockatoos 
 shrieking the sun into the sea, and the sea itself 
 faintly booming upon the base of the sandstone 
 cliffs. Before either spoke there was indeed one 
 other sound, but it fell on ears doubly deaf ; for 
 Nan had flung back her dark-gold ringlets in a way 
 of hers, and from the bold pose of her head none 
 could have imagined the warm bloom upon her 
 cheeks, or the tender film that dimmed the hazel 
 eyes. 
 
 " Suppose I prefer to give you your answer 
 first?" 
 
 " Nan ! Nan ! I would have you think it over, 
 and over, and over again ! " 
 
 f But suppose I refused you after all ? " 
 
 " I would sooner that than be accepted in haste 
 and and repented of you know ! "
 
 DENIS AND NAN 67 
 
 It was as though he was maintaining his balance 
 for a bet, and near the end of his endurance even 
 so. Nan watched him with a smile touched by the 
 last beams of the setting sun, but as she rose the 
 red glory beat full upon her. 
 
 " Very well ! " said she. " Then if you won't 
 come to me for your answer, I must bring it to 
 you." 
 
 Night falls like an assassin in that country, but 
 the purple tints were only beginning when in his 
 very ear she implored him not to leave her any 
 more, and he held her closer, but said he must. It 
 would not be for long. Others were growing rich 
 in a day ; he would make one more. He knew it ; 
 something told him ; and again, something else told 
 her. 
 
 Yet she was vexed with herself for her impulsive 
 appeal against a decision to which she had felt rec- 
 onciled but the moment before; and vexed with 
 him for scarcely listening to her appeal, unpremedi- 
 tated as it was, unreasonable as it might be. He 
 might have wavered ; she would not have had him 
 yield. His resolution was fine, heroic; she only 
 wondered whether it was quite human, and wonder- 
 ing, lost the thread of his defense. 
 
 " Think, think ! " he urged. " Think what it 
 would be for me to go home in this ship and marry 
 you as I am, on my poor captain's certificate and 
 nothing else ; and then, only think, if I followed in 
 a few months with a few thousand of my own be-
 
 68 DENIS DENT 
 
 hind me ! You may say I ought to have thought 
 of this before. But I did. I told your father so a 
 few minutes before the wreck. I wanted you to 
 wait for me I was selfish enough for that from the 
 beginning ! " 
 
 The disparaging epithet pricked Nan to interrupt 
 him and take it on herself. But Denis persisted 
 without a smile. 
 
 " Darling, I am selfish about it still ; for if I am 
 not worth waiting for, I am not worth having ; but 
 if you can wait only a few months not a day more 
 than a year I will come to you as I should come 
 if it is to be but come I will, rich or poor, if I am 
 alive! Nan, darling, I have everything to gain, 
 only these few months to lose ; but I will gain all 
 the world in them. I will, I will, I will ! " 
 
 She could not but be infected with his confidence, 
 his enthusiasm, and his ideal. There in the dusk 
 were the eager Irish eyes glistening and burning 
 into hers, but there also was the strong north- 
 country jaw set for success as the needle to the 
 pole. And yet and yet she was weeping on his 
 shoulder as the purple turned to deepest blue. 
 
 " I could have helped you, dearest," came her 
 broken whispers. " But no, not here. It 's an 
 awful country. It will break my heart to think of 
 you in it. I thought, if you loved me . . . 
 after all we have been through . . . you would 
 never, never leave me again ! But, dearest, I do 
 believe in you, and I will wait, for you know best."
 
 DENIS AND NAN 69 
 
 So after all it was a brave face, bright as her will 
 could make it, though still wet with tears, that she 
 held away from him, for Denis to look upon it for 
 the first time as his own. But it was a very terrible 
 face that hovered over the same spot but a minute 
 later, when Ralph Devenish came crashing through 
 the young pines to curse the very ground where 
 they had stood, and the sea that had not swallowed 
 one or both.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 COLD WATER 
 
 THE Merridews sailed for England about 
 the middle of October. They had been 
 less than a fortnight on dry land; and it 
 was with a heavy and uneasy heart that Denis 
 watched their new vessel to a speck from the high- 
 est point commanding Corio Bay. 
 
 With all his candour, there were one or two 
 things that he could not hide from himself, but that 
 he had hidden from the girl to whom he was now 
 engaged. He was a very young man. He loved 
 adventure for its own sake, and though he had been 
 through much, he felt to the very bone that he was 
 only on the threshold of an exciting and successful 
 career. There could scarcely have been a more 
 sanguine temperament, or a character with more 
 right to one. But the young man's confidence in 
 himself was neither blind nor overweening, and in 
 his heart he was under no illusion as to his own 
 motives. It grieved his soul to see the ship sailing 
 away with all he loved on earth, yet he knew how 
 bitterly he would have felt sailing in her, with never 
 a sight of Bendigo or of Ballarat. Then he was 
 inordinately independent. It was in the blood. He
 
 COLD WATER 71 
 
 must make his own way. And here he was frank, 
 yet not so frank as to tell his Nan that her father 
 had definitely offered to put him in a position to 
 make his way quietly at home ; and the father was 
 not so incontinent. 
 
 A little incident had contributed to Denis's de- 
 pression ; and he was not one to make much of 
 little incidents. But the first person he had en- 
 countered on the Memnon, when he had gone on 
 board to see the last of them, was another survivor 
 of the North Foreland- a diseased being named 
 Jewson, who had shipped in her as chief steward, 
 only to be disrated for an incompetent sot before 
 the voyage was a month old. The disrating had 
 been largely due to the second officer, who did not 
 hesitate to ask the fellow in what capacity he saw 
 him now. 
 
 " Captain Devenish's servant," was the answer, 
 with a grin that maddened Denis, but it was the 
 fact that rankled. He had said no more. It was 
 too late ; and the man had been saved, he deserved 
 a fresh start ; but that Devenish, of all people, 
 should give him one, in that vessel of all vessels ! 
 It was a sign of more than Denis had time to 
 realize until Corio Bay lay blue and bare at his feet, 
 and the tiny sail on the horizon had vanished for- 
 ever from his view. 
 
 He sat in the sun with his face hidden in his 
 hands. His heart had filled with prayer, his eyes 
 with tears ; he dug his knuckles into them, and
 
 72 DENIS DENT 
 
 missed the bloodstone signet-ring that he had worn 
 since his father's death. There had been no time 
 for an engagement ring, but Nan was to wear this 
 one until they met again. And she had given him 
 one of hers a ruby, a diamond, and a sapphire 
 that jammed in the middle of his little finger nail ; 
 but he was to wear it day and night about his neck 
 instead, on a tiny lanyard that she had plaited for 
 it out of her own warm hair. Denis could not trust 
 himself to look at it yet ; he could only press the 
 ring to his heart until it hurt, as holy sinners press 
 the scapular, but that was enough to nerve him. 
 He could even smile as he remembered the absurd 
 injunction which had accompanied this sweet talis- 
 man. Still smiling he looked down again through 
 the sunshine upon the empty bay ; but now the first 
 thing Denis saw was a separate shadow on the 
 grass. 
 
 " Cheer up, mister ! All board ! It "s getting on 
 for fifty knots to Melbourne, and the Lord knows 
 how many bells ! " 
 
 Jimmy Doherty was standing over him, and 
 his dark skin beamed as he rolled the nautical 
 phrases on his tongue. Denis got up without a smile. 
 
 " Do n't remind me of the sea, Jimmy ; help me 
 to forget about it. And as for Melbourne, we shall 
 never see it to-night." 
 
 " Sha' n't we though ! " 
 
 " What ! Fifty miles between midday and mid- 
 night ? "
 
 COLD WATER 73 
 
 " It 's not so much, and I 've got us a lift half- 
 way." 
 
 " But we can't afford that, Jimmy." 
 
 A shifty grin from Doherty betrayed a sort of 
 guilty pride in his arrangements. 
 
 " I Ve got it for love, mister, from a hawker as 
 only wishes he was a-goin' all the way, for the 
 honour and glory o' carryin' a gent that's done 
 what you 've done and got himself in all the pa- 
 pers." 
 
 Denis was divided between natural satisfaction and 
 annoyance. 
 
 " Very well, Jimmy, and I congratulate you ; but, 
 once and for all, never another word about that un- 
 less you 're asked ! We 're mates now, remember ; 
 I might as well brag of it myself. Besides but 
 it 's a bargain, is n't it ? " 
 
 Mr. Doherty said he supposed it must be ; but 
 for once his spirit was under a cloud, for he had ap- 
 pointed himself sole minstrel of his hero's praises, 
 foreseeing both honour and profit in the employ- 
 ment; but on reflection the embargo only made 
 him think the more of Denis, and his first care was 
 to whisper it in the hawker's ear. 
 
 The hawker was waiting with his wagon outside 
 an inn in Moorabool Street, and Denis was relieved 
 to find the man less palpably impressed by his ex- 
 ploit than Jimmy had represented him. He was a 
 little flint of a fellow, sharp but surly, who accepted 
 an eight-penny glass of porter with a nod and
 
 74 DENIS DENT 
 
 drained it without removing his eyes from the 
 sailor's face. But in a mile or so his tongue loos- 
 ened, as the trio sat abreast under the wagon's 
 hood, and the scattered buildings of the budding 
 town melted into the unbroken timber of the bush 
 track. 
 
 " So you 're bound for the diggings, are you ? " 
 said the hawker. " And what may you think of 
 doing when you get there ? " 
 
 "Well," said Denis, to enter into the man's hu- 
 mour, " we did think we might dig." 
 
 " Oh, dig ! " said the hawker, and relapsed at once 
 into his former taciturnity. 
 
 " What would you do, then ? " inquired Denis, 
 nudging Doherty, who, though he had plenty to say 
 when they were alone, was a respectful listener be- 
 fore a third person. 
 
 " Bake ! " said the hawker, without a moment's 
 hesitation. 
 
 " Bake ? " echoed Denis in amused dismay. 
 
 " It 's four-and-six the half-loaf at this moment," 
 said the hawker. " Same price as a quarter of sheep. 
 On the diggings, that is. Yes, sir, I 'd bake, that 's 
 what I 'd do, if I had my time over again, and capi- 
 tal enough to make a start." 
 
 " And if you had n't enough ? " 
 
 "If I hadn't enough, and if they were full- 
 handed in all the publics, and I could n't get a job in 
 any o' the stores, and the Commissioner would n't 
 give me one, and if I could borrow a license, beg
 
 COLD WATER 75 
 
 some tools, and steal enough to eat, well, I might 
 have another dig myself. But not till I 'd tried 
 everything else. You 've heard what they got in 
 Canadian Gully, I suppose ? " 
 
 " I have," said Denis. 
 
 " So had I," said the hawker. 
 
 " And what did you get ? " 
 
 " Not enough to eat bread on ; not one in a 
 thousand does. But you go and have your try. 
 You may have a bit of luck in the end, and manage 
 to bring your bones away with the flesh on 'em, 
 like me. That 's the most I can wish you, and 
 it 's hoping for the best. But you take my advice, 
 and when the luck turns, never wait for it to turn 
 again. You get rid of your claim for what it'll 
 fetch ; mine fetched what you see a hawker's 
 wagon, horses, and whole stock-in-trade. I just 
 jumped in and drove away, and he jumped into 
 my claim. And I will say I 'm doing better at this 
 game than I was at that." 
 
 " And how is he doing ? " 
 
 " I do n't know," said the hawker, " and I do n't 
 care." 
 
 " Prices must be good," remarked Denis. 
 
 " Among the middlings," said the hawker with a 
 sidelong glance at Doherty, who, however, was 
 looking the other way. " I can let you have a nice 
 pair o' boots for a five-pound-note, and a spare shirt 
 like what you've got on for thirty bob. But 
 it 's not what it was when I came out last year. I
 
 76 DENIS DENT 
 
 would n't come into the hawking business if I were 
 you; you could get twenty-five bob a day as a 
 carpenter, and three-pound-ten to four pound a 
 week at bullock-driving. But I 'd rather be a la- 
 bourer on the roads, with two crown certain a day, 
 and wood, water, and tent supplied, than peg out 
 another claim." 
 
 Denis had heard enough. He was not easily dis- 
 couraged, but he found it a relief to turn his attention 
 to the scenery. They were intersecting a forest of 
 rather stunted trees, all blown one way by the wind, 
 which made music of a peculiar melancholy among 
 their branches. Doherty said the trees were she- 
 oaks, answering Denis's question with great zeal. 
 Similarly Denis learned the names of the various 
 parrots that perched by the flock amid the dull 
 green foliage, or fled from tree to tree with a whirr 
 and a glint of every colour in the rainbow. Then 
 a pond must be called a water-hole, it seemed a 
 beck a creek, and the curly-bearded aboriginals 
 blacks or blackfellows but not niggers. It was the 
 earliest and most elementary stage of Denis's colo- 
 nial training, and he would have relished it if only 
 for his mentor's intense satisfaction in his task, to 
 say nothing of a capacity to teach not inferior to 
 the will. But the hawker had a last word left, 
 which he kept, as though by demoniac design, for 
 one of their glimpses, depressing enough to Denis 
 as it was, of the sparkling sea never many miles 
 distant on their right.
 
 COLD WATER 77 
 
 " Ah ! " said the hawker, pointing with his whip, 
 " if I 'd been one hour earlier in Geelong, I 'd have 
 sold lock, stock, barrel an' ammunition for a berth in 
 that ship that cleared out for Old England this 
 forenoon. Ship from Melbourne you can 't get. It 
 was a chance in a hundred, and I 'd have given all 
 I have for it, as you will for such another before 
 you 've seen half as much as me." 
 
 It was about three in the afternoon, at a place 
 called Wyndham, that the pair took their leave of 
 this dispassionate pessimist, with as little regret as 
 may be supposed, and found themselves afoot for 
 the last twenty miles. And almost from the first 
 step Doherty was loud in his denunciation of every 
 word the hawker had uttered, not one of which was 
 Denis to believe for an instant. But there was no 
 Denis left to embrace this view ; the leave-taking of 
 the morning and the hawker in the afternoon had 
 reduced him between them to unmitigated Dent, a 
 dogged fellow ready for the worst, though more 
 than ever bent upon the best. 
 
 " There are two sides to everything, and give me 
 the dark side first," said he ; " besides, a lift for 
 nothing is a lift for nothing. But what's that 
 you Ve got in your pack, Jim ? " 
 
 " What 's what ? " asked Doherty, changing col- 
 our as he trudged. 
 
 " There 's a box of some sort showing through 
 your outer blanket." 
 
 " Oh, that 's my revolver."
 
 78 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Your revolver ! You had n't one this morning. 
 Who 's given it to you ? " demanded Denis. 
 
 " No one," the boy confessed. " I bought it 
 from the hawker while you were on the ship." 
 
 " And how much did you give for this ? " asked 
 Denis, as they squatted by the roadside, with a neat 
 oak case open between them, and a great five- 
 chambered Deane and Adams twinkling in the sun. 
 
 " Ten guineas, mister." 
 
 " Ten guineas ! More than half the wages you 
 drew from the station, for a second-hand revolver ? 
 He did n't say it was first-hand, did he ? " 
 
 " No, but he said it was worth more." 
 
 Denis sprang impatiently to his feet. 
 
 " Well, it may save our lives, and then it will be," 
 said he. " But I like your notion of a lift for love ! "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE CANVAS CITY 
 
 THE travelers had been variously advised as 
 to their best road to Melbourne from a cer- 
 tain point ; but what they did (by pure ac- 
 cident) was to come out on the Williamstown 
 promontory and get a second lift (by sheer luck) in 
 a boat just leaving for the Sandridge side. They 
 were even luckier than they knew. The gain in 
 mileage was very considerable. And there was sun 
 enough still upon the waters for them to see with 
 their own eyes the derelict sail of all nations and of 
 every rig, swinging forlornly with the turning tide, 
 their blistered timbers cracking for some paint, and 
 all hands at the diggings. 
 
 But the sun was sinking when the two friends 
 landed at Liardet's Jetty, and came at once by the 
 Sandridge Road to the first thin sprinkling of the 
 tents which formed the Melbourne of those days. 
 The track ran in ruts through sand and dust as fine 
 as tooth-powder ; they trudged beside it over scanty 
 grass, with here and there a star-shaped flower with- 
 out the slightest scent. Gum-trees of many kinds, 
 some with the white bark peeling from their trunks, 
 others smooth and leafless as gigantic bones, made
 
 8o DENIS DENT 
 
 amends with their peculiar aroma. There was a 
 shrill twittering of the most unmusical birds, the 
 croak of bullfrogs from a neighbouring lagoon, a 
 more familiar buzz of flies, a tinfoil rustle of brown 
 grass at every step. Once the grass rustled before 
 Denis's foot came down, and in a second he had 
 stamped the life out of his first snake a long black 
 fellow with a white waistcoat and pink stripes. 
 Doherty held it up in horror. 
 
 " That 's not the way to kill a snake," said he. 
 " Jump out of the road if you have n't a stick. It 's 
 lucky for you that you came down on his right end, 
 or he 'd have been up your leg like a lamplighter, 
 and in a few minutes you 'd 'a' been as stiff as him. 
 Poisonous ? I believe you, mister ! You thank 
 your stars, and do n't do it again." 
 
 And Denis went on with a cold coating to an 
 active skin, but without a syllable until Doherty 
 drew his attention to a marquee under the trees, 
 with a brass plate stitched to the canvas ; and when 
 they got near enough to read the legend it was 
 ESTABLISHMENT FOR YOUNG LADIES, 
 in tremendous capitals ; there was even a black- 
 board nailed to a blue gum, with benches fixed to 
 stumps, and every accessory but the young ladies 
 themselves. Denis was prepared to meet them two- 
 and-two in the next glade, but the multiplication 
 of tents soon put this one out of his head, and their 
 infinite variety became apparent as they drew to- 
 gether into streets. There were canvas cones, can-
 
 THE CANVAS CITY 81 
 
 vas polygons, canvas in every figure defined by 
 Euclid and in more that baffle definition. A cricket 
 tent had a publican's sign swinging from an over- 
 hanging branch. A red lamp surmounted the 
 nearer of two uprights which carried a pole with 
 a sheet stretched across it ; the doctor crawled out 
 of this his surgery, and lit up with a brawny arm, 
 as the travelers passed. Denis thought it still quite 
 light, but when they came to the first bricks and 
 mortar, as it seemed but a few yards further, there 
 was just enough rose in the dusk for good eyes to 
 glean from the notice-board in front of the house 
 that its three rooms and its strip of yard were to 
 let at .400. And in another minute it was night. 
 
 An unpleasant feature of these canvas streets was 
 that slops and refuse were hurled into the middle of 
 them, while cast-off clothing literally lined the sides ; 
 but as a light twinkled at one tent, and a fire blazed 
 up outside the next, the picturesque contrasts 
 afforded by the firelit faces, the inconceivable jum- 
 ble of grades and races, blinded Denis to all else. 
 Now it was a drayman with a single eye-glass, now 
 a gentle face at the wash-tub and a diamond flash- 
 ing through the suds. The peoples might have 
 been shot by the shovelful from their respective 
 soils ; yellow Yankee, gross German, suspicious 
 Spaniard, sunny Italian, burly Dane and murderous 
 Malay, there they all were, so many separate in- 
 gredients newly flung into the pot. A noticeable 
 link was the hook-nosed Jew who spoke every Ian-
 
 82 DENIS DENT 
 
 guage and hailed from every clime. And either 
 there were more Chinamen even than Europeans, 
 or their blue breeches and their beehive hats 
 brought them oftener to the eye. But the usually 
 drunken blackfellow and his invariably degenerate 
 gin were already becoming scarce in their own land. 
 
 Denis and Jim drifted with this cosmopolitan 
 crowd across a bridge, into a region of fewer tents, 
 better lights, more weather-board walls, and not a 
 few of bricks and mortar. A veranda where a 
 free fight was raging turned out to be that of the 
 General Post Office; the flag flying over it cele- 
 brated the arrival of an English mail, and it was for 
 their letters that the poor folk fought. One shook 
 himself clear with his letter in his hand, and an in- 
 describable look of happiness on his face, as Denis 
 looked on enviously. In an innkeeper's yard hard 
 by, the horses of a bullock-team scratched the 
 panels of a resplendent brougham ; and though 
 this was evidently the fashionable quarter, judging 
 by the numbers of regular shops, the gutters were 
 swollen to such rivers that in places drays acted as 
 ferry-boats across them. In some of the shop win- 
 dows the things were marked VERY DEAR to tempt 
 the plutocratic plebeian ; but in nearly all there was 
 a legend which went to one head at least the 
 legend of GOLD BOUGHT IN ANY QUANTITY. 
 
 " There must be plenty going after all," said 
 Denis, " or you would n't see that at every turn." 
 
 Doherty agreed without enthusiasm ; it was what
 
 THE CANVAS CITY 83 
 
 he had always held ; but the surface excitement of 
 his years was not proof against a ravenous appetite, 
 whereas Denis could have gone on and on without 
 a bite. Yet they were really in search of modest 
 fare, and were actually reconnoitring a large and 
 flaring shanty, which rather chilled the frugal blood 
 in Denis, when a choice harangue was poured into 
 them from the veranda ; and there sat a gorilla of 
 a man, his shirt half-hidden by his beard, dipping a 
 pannikin in a bucket between his knees, and spilling 
 the contents as he waved it to the pair. 
 
 " Come in, ye cripples ! " roared he. " Come and 
 have a pannikin o' champagne with ole Bullocky, 
 or by the hokey you '11 be stretched out stiff! " 
 
 And with that the true gorilla fell to pelting them 
 with the empty champagne bottles that surrounded 
 him, until Denis cried a truce and led the way in, 
 laughing, under a storm of drunken banter from 
 the successful digger and his friends. 
 
 " A new chum, I see ! " said Bullocky, rolling an 
 unsteady eye over Denis when he had handed him 
 the pannikin. " Another blessed ' Jack ashore,' by 
 the cut of ye; deserting orf'cer, I shouldn't won- 
 der ! All the more reason listen me : none of your 
 damn quarter-deck airs here, you know. There 
 ain't no blessed orf'cers aboard this little craft. 
 We 're all in the cuddy or afore the mast w'ich 
 you please so you can just sweat all the notions 
 you ever had. And if you do n't empty that there 
 pannikin down your own gullet "
 
 84 DENIS DENT 
 
 A huge fist finished the sentence with a terrify- 
 ing shake, as Denis was in the act of handing the 
 tin mug to the open-mouthed Doherty. 
 
 " We have n't had our supper yet," he explained. 
 " It 's dangerous stuff on empty stomachs." 
 
 " Not had your suppers ? " thundered Bullocky ; 
 a lurch took him to the tap -room door, where he 
 gave the order in a roar. " Now you drink up," 
 he went on, with ferocious hospitality, as another 
 lurch brought him back. " It cost five pounds a 
 bottle, and if it ain't good enough for scum like 
 you, I '11 stretch the two of ye stiff till your grub 's 
 ready." 
 
 And the genial brute bellowed with laughter un- 
 til the veranda shook, and flinging off a wideawake 
 garnished with an ostrich feather, stuck his great 
 head into the bucket of champagne and drank like 
 his betters of the field. As a result, Denis and Jim 
 had their meal in peace, for it was but lukewarm 
 mutton and sodden duff, and while they ate, one of 
 his friends informed them that " Bullocky " was the 
 short for Bullock Creek, Bendigo, of which the 
 great man was patron sinner, having made several 
 fortunes there that year, and spent them in the way 
 they saw. " Which is n't so bad," added his friend, 
 who did discredit to a better class, " for a gentleman 
 from over the way." 
 
 Denis asked him what he meant. 
 
 "An old hand from Van Diemen's Land," the 
 man answered in a despicable undertone. And
 
 THE CANVAS CITY 85 
 
 Denis felt inclined to tell the old hand, who now 
 returned to crown his hospitality by forcing a nug- 
 get apiece upon the two beginners. 
 
 " But it must be worth fifty pounds ! " exclaimed 
 Denis, in vain protest, as he handled his. 
 
 " Fifty smacks in the mouth ! " thundered Bul- 
 locky preparing to administer them. " You ain't on 
 your dam' quarter-deck now ! " 
 
 " Very well," said Denis, " we '11 keep them for 
 luck, rather than come to blows about it ; and we 
 really must thank you " 
 
 " You dare ! " interrupted Bullocky, with another 
 flourish of his hairy fist. " It's no more'n wot I'd 
 do for any other scum with all their troubles ahead 
 on 'em. I ain't got no troubles fore nor aft ; I 'm 
 Lord God o' Bullock Creek, I am, and I ain't done 
 with you yet ; you come along o' me." 
 
 So saying, he led the way toward certain sounds 
 of revelry which had begun to fill the lulls between 
 his detonations. And in a marquee crowded with 
 diggers, and reeking with the fumes from pipe and 
 pot, the trio were in time for the last lines of a song 
 from a buffoon on the platform at one end : 
 
 " And when you think it 's all serene 
 Pop goes the weasel ! " 
 
 It was the latest song from England, and was 
 vociferously encored ; but not for the first time, it 
 seemed, and the mountebank would only bow and 
 scrape. In an instant the rank air was yellow with
 
 86 DENIS DENT 
 
 flying orange-peel. But Bullocky handed Jim a 
 nugget to throw for him, which Mr. Doherty dis- 
 charged with such effect that it hit the performer 
 on one leg and sent him hopping round the stage 
 on the other, until the nature of the projectile was 
 discovered, and the song given yet again. At its 
 close the plutocrat's party were accorded a table in 
 front, and more drink ordered to Denis's embar- 
 rassment. " Careful, Jimmy," he contrived to whis- 
 per, and received a reassuring kick under the table 
 by way of reply. 
 
 A poor painted girl, with a voice that had some 
 little sweetness left, and a pathos all its own, came 
 next with a song just old enough to have associa- 
 tions for some of those who heard. It was, how- 
 ever, a sweet song in itself, and in a few bars a hush 
 had fallen on the audience ; even Bullocky sat back 
 in his chair, his huge beard leveled at the singer. 
 
 " You are going far away, far away from poor Jeannette ; 
 There 's no one left to love me now, and you too will forget ; 
 But my heart will be with you wherever you may go 
 Can you look me in the face and say the same, Jeannot ? 
 When you wear the jacket red, and the beautiful cockade, 
 Oh ! I fear you will forget all the promises you made. 
 With a gun upon your shoulder and a bayonet by your side, 
 You '11 be taking some proud lady and be making her your bride 
 You'll be taking some proud lady and be making her your 
 bride ! " 
 
 So it ran ; and Denis caught himself pressing his 
 dear new amulet to his heart. He was so saddened
 
 THE CANVAS CITY 87 
 
 that he did not see Bullocky until he heard him 
 roar, " No, he won't, my dear ! I '11 stretch him stiff 
 and stark if he do ! " at which one behind gave a 
 laugh, and so brought that formidable fist within an 
 inch of his nose, while with the other paw the 
 gorilla dashed away a tear that ought to have filled 
 a wineglass. Denis lost half the next verse in 
 watching him. Bullocky was now sprawling across 
 the table, his great face hidden in the hirsute folds 
 of his powerful arms. 
 
 " Oh ! if I were King of France, or still better Pope of Rome, 
 I 'd have no fighting men abroad, no weeping maids at home. 
 All the world should be at peace, or, if kings must show their 
 
 might, 
 
 Why, let them who make the quarrel be the only ones to fight 
 Yei, let them who make the quarrel be the only ones to fight ! " 
 
 Bullocky's shoulders were heaving with vinous 
 sobs. He did not join in the tempest of applause, 
 and before the last verse had been repeated his 
 emotions reached their anti-climax in a sounding 
 snore. Denis gave Doherty a nod, and they de- 
 serted under cover of the final furore. 
 
 Near the exit of the marquee a degenerate sailor 
 reeled into them ; and it shocked Denis slowly to 
 identify the blurred features of his late shipmate, 
 the chief officer of the North Foreland. It was but 
 a week since he had given evidence as clear as it 
 was creditable at the inquest in Mr. Kitto's wool- 
 shed.
 
 88 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Seen you come in," said the mate. " Thought 
 you was in blue water by this time." 
 
 " How so ? " asked Denis. 
 
 " Homeward bound," hiccoughed the mate. 
 
 " I 'm not going home yet," said Denis. " I 'm 
 going to try my luck on the diggings first." 
 
 The chief swayed incredulous. " Thought that 
 was all plain sailin' ? " said he. " Thought you was 
 to go home with 'em, an' marry her at t' other end 
 if not at this ? Well, well, you might just as well 
 have taken my advice ! " 
 
 " What advice ? " asked Denis, coldly. 
 
 " It was just as you was swep' overboard," ex- 
 plained the mate. " You did n't hear it ; and if you 
 had it would n't 've been no use without the boat ; 
 but I was goin' to tell you to stand out to sea like I 
 did ; and you might as well, do n't you see ? Drawn 
 your pay at the agent's yet ? " he added as Denis 
 was turning away. 
 
 " Not yet ; that 's what I Ve come for ; but I only 
 got here to-night." 
 
 " Ah," said the chief, " I have ! I wish I was 
 you ! " And Denis left him with the tears in his 
 eyes. 
 
 Outside the marquee a crowd had collected, and 
 with reason, for in the centre stood a blacksmith 
 with a shod horse whose four hoofs he was display- 
 ing in turn ; and it was shod with pure gold, which 
 he rubbed with a leather until the horseshoes shone 
 again in the glare of the naked flame that lit the
 
 THE CANVAS CITY 89 
 
 entrance to the booth. Denis knew it must be 
 Bullocky's steed, and they had not to ask a ques- 
 tion to gather that it was. 
 
 " How about the dark side now ? " whispered 
 Doherty, slipping an arm through his hero's as they 
 walked away.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 
 
 WHERE they were to sleep was now the 
 question. Doherty, who had still some 
 sovereigns in his pocket, was strongly in 
 favour of good beds at any reasonable price ; but 
 this did not commend itself to the son of the dales, 
 whose hard head was always less sanguine for the 
 day than for the far event. Dent was to draw his 
 due next day ; he was not very certain how much 
 there would be to draw. He had assured Mr. Mer- 
 ridew that he had plenty of money, when he was 
 really at his last gold piece. The squatter, on the 
 other hand, had insisted on giving each adventurer 
 a pair of blankets with his blessing ; with these in 
 tight rolls about their shoulders, they had made 
 their march ; and Denis now announced his inten- 
 tion of sleeping under a tree in his as soon as he 
 had found the bed for Doherty. Their first quarrel 
 nearly ensued. The boy had to shed a tear before 
 Denis would hear of anything different ; and then 
 they had to find their tree. 
 
 After a fright from a spurred police cadet with 
 drawn sabre, who threatened the pair with a five- 
 pound fine apiece for attempting their ablutions in
 
 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 91 
 
 the Yarra, back they went across the river to the 
 chartered squalors of Canvas Town ; but instead 
 of keeping as before to the main streets of tents, 
 struck off at a tangent for the nearest open country. 
 And this led them through worse places still ; now 
 wading knee-deep in baleful filth, and now through 
 its moral equivalent in the most rampant and re- 
 pulsive form. In these few dark minutes they saw 
 much misery, more selfishness, and very little de- 
 cency indeed. Jim slipped his hand through Denis's 
 arm with a timidity that spoke volumes in his case ; 
 and Denis drew his deepest breath that day when 
 the lights lay all behind them, save a single camp- 
 fire far ahead in the bush. 
 
 Dent and Doherty were wandering toward this 
 light, neither actually intending to go so far, nor 
 yet knowing quite how far they would go, when a 
 mild voice hailed them from under just such a tree 
 as should have met their needs. 
 
 " I say," it said, " you fellows ! " 
 
 " Hullo ? " cried Denis, stopping in his stride. 
 
 " Steady ! " returned the voice in an amused un- 
 dertone. " Mum 's the word if you do n't mind 
 coming nearer." 
 
 The pair stole up to the tree. A slight young 
 man stood against the trunk in the shaded star- 
 light; it was his voice that conveyed his youth; 
 they could barely see him at arm's length. 
 
 " Thanks awfully," he went on. " I have no idea 
 who you are, but I should like awfully to shake
 
 92 DENIS DENT 
 
 hands with you ; unfortunately, I have n't a hand 
 at liberty feel." 
 
 What Denis felt was a coil of rope, and an- 
 other, and another, as he ran his hand up and 
 down. 
 
 " Tied up ! " he whispered. 
 
 " And robbed," added the complacent young 
 man. 
 
 " Of much? " asked Denis, getting out his knife. 
 
 " Only the result of five months' hard labour on 
 Bendigo ; only my little all," the young man mur- 
 mured with a placid sigh. " But it might be worse : 
 they sometimes truss you up with all your weight 
 on your neck, and then you can't make yourself 
 heard if you try. Is n't there a fire somewhere be- 
 hind me ? " 
 
 " A good way off there is." 
 
 " It 's not so far as you think. I heard them 
 light it. But it would be just as well not to let 
 them hear us." 
 
 " Why should n't they ? " asked Denis, as he 
 worked a flat blade between the young man's mid- 
 dle and the rope ; whereupon Doherty put in his 
 first word in an excited whisper. 
 
 " Do n't you savvy ? They 're the blokes what 
 done it, mister ! " 
 
 " Exactly," said the mild young man. " And 
 that 's about all I know of them, though I 've been 
 in their* company all day. But my name is Mose- 
 ley ; you might make a note of it, in case anything
 
 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 93 
 
 happens. My father 's Rector of Much Wymond- 
 ham, in Silly Suffolk as you might expect from 
 his imbecile son." 
 
 " I do n't see where the imbecility comes in, 
 much less what can happen now," said Denis, en- 
 couragingly ; as he spoke, he loosened the severed 
 coil, and the late captive stumbled stiffly into the 
 open. 
 
 " I ought to be ashamed to own it," he went on 
 in whispers, squatting in the grass to bend his limbs 
 in turn, " but I met these chaps on the way into 
 town with my poor little pile, heigho ! and took 
 them for father and son, as they professed to be. I 
 thanked Providence for putting me in such re- 
 spectable hands, and stuck to them like a leech 
 till they lured me out here to camp with the result 
 you found. As for nothing happening now, they 
 swore they 'd murder me if I uttered a sound ; 
 they Ve camped within earshot to be handy for the 
 job ; and I give them leave to do it, if I do n't get 
 even with them now." 
 
 Doherty rubbed his hands in glee ; but Denis was 
 quite unprepared for this spirited resolution, voiced 
 as it was in the spiritless tone which distinguished 
 the other young man ; and he asked Moseley whether 
 he was armed. 
 
 " I should be," was the reply, " but they took my 
 pistol with my pile, confound them." 
 
 " Then how on earth do you propose to get even 
 with them ? "
 
 94 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Oh, I may wait till the blackguards are asleep ; 
 I shall steal a squint on them presently, and then 
 decide. But do n't you fellows bother to stay. I 'm 
 awfully obliged to you as it is." 
 
 It did not require this generous (and evidently 
 genuine) discharge to retain their services to the 
 death. In Denis the Celt had long been uppermost, 
 and, like Doherty,he was in a glow for the glowing 
 work. Apart from that, Denis was rather fascinated 
 by the rueful humour and the chuckle-headed 
 courage of a temperament at once opposite and con- 
 genial to his own. 
 
 " Either we stand by you, Moseley," he muttered, 
 " or we all three run for it ; and I '11 be shot if we 
 do that just yet ! Luckily, one of us can supply the 
 firearm, and the other can use it if the worst comes 
 to the worst." 
 
 Doherty was already at his pack. The polished 
 oak case shone in the starlight like a tiny tank, until 
 the lid stood open and its contents gave a fitful glit- 
 ter. Wadded bullets, percussion caps and a pow- 
 der-horn had baize-lined compartments to them- 
 selves ; in their midst lay a ponderous engine with 
 a good ten inches of barrel. Denis was some time 
 capping and loading it in all five chambers, while 
 one companion watched with languid interest, and 
 the other in silent throes of triumph. 
 
 A minute later they were all three creeping on 
 the fire, like Indian scouts. The two rascals sat 
 over it still. One had his back turned to the ad-
 
 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 95 
 
 vancing enemy ; and it was so broad a back that 
 they caught but occasional glimpses of his vis-a-vis, 
 who had a rather remarkable face, pale, shaven, and 
 far more typical of the ecclesiastic than of the 
 footpad. 
 
 " That 's the dangerous one," whispered Moseley. 
 " The other beggar 's twice his age." 
 
 " Wait, then," said Denis " what a hawk he 
 looks ! Had n't we better work right round and 
 take them in his rear ? " 
 
 " As you like," said Moseley, light-heart- 
 edly. 
 
 And they had decided on this when quite another 
 decision was rendered imperative by the younger 
 robber suddenly bounding into the air and flinging 
 something from him with an oath. For one cold 
 instant the three imagined they were caught. They 
 had halted unwisely, where there was little cover, 
 some fifty yards from the fire and perhaps a hun- 
 dred yards from Moseley's tree. It became im- 
 mediately apparent that there was only one thing 
 to be done. 
 
 "Why, it's more than half silver!" the rascal 
 shouted, white with rage. " It 's a cursed fake ; he 's 
 got the rest somewhere else I '11 hack his head off 
 for this ! " 
 
 A clump of bushes lay nearer the fire than the 
 crouching trio. " Run for them ! " whispered 
 Denis, and led the way with his nose between his 
 knees. They reached the cover just in time.
 
 96 DENIS DENT 
 
 The man passed within a yard of them. His mate 
 remained squatting over the fire. 
 
 " Now you take this," said Denis, handing Jimmy 
 a length of the cut rope which he had brought with 
 him, " and you this," giving Moseley the Deane and 
 Adams. " Now both follow me like mice and do 
 exactly what I tell you." 
 
 So they crept up to the fire in the formation 
 of an isosceles triangle. 
 
 " Where are you ? Where 's your tree ? If you 
 do n't answer I '11 carve your head off! " they heard 
 one ruffian threatening with subdued venom in the 
 distance ; his voice was at its furthest and faintest 
 when Denis leaped on the other from behind and 
 nipped an enormous neck with all ten fingers. 
 
 " I 'm not going to choke you, but you '11 be shot 
 dead if you make one sound. Here, Moseley, stick 
 it to his ear. You understand, do you ? One 
 sound. There, then ; now you '11 be gagged. 
 Jimmy, the rope." 
 
 Denis felt rather sorry for his man as he went to 
 work ; he was such an elderly miscreant, so broad and 
 squat (rather than obese), as one who had been 
 pressed like a bale of wool. But he held his peace 
 with stolid jowl until gagged by a double thickness 
 of the rope that soon held him hand and foot. 
 
 " Now for your mate," said Denis. As he spoke, 
 the fellow could be heard shouting that their bird 
 was flown ; thereupon the three withdrew behind 
 trees. " And remember," said Denis, who went last
 
 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 97 
 
 with the revolver, " if you make a sign to send him 
 back you '11 be the first." 
 
 They had not a minute to wait. Their second 
 victim came back cursing their first for sitting so 
 unmoved over the fire. Denis peeped and saw the 
 lean, ascetic face advancing white-hot with pas- 
 sion ; in the last ten yards he stopped, suspicious, 
 but not yet of the truth, for the untended fire had 
 declined to a mere red and white remnant in his 
 absence. 
 
 " Good God, man, are you dead ? " he cried, and 
 then came running at the thought. At the same 
 instant Denis stepped from behind his tree. 
 
 " Throw up your hands before I fire ! " 
 
 And up they both went, but one barked and 
 flashed on the way, and the ball whispered in 
 Denis's ear as he took deliberate aim and shot the 
 scoundrel down. 
 
 " Take care ! " he shouted to the others, rushing 
 up. " I aimed low. He is n't dead. Do n't trust 
 him an inch ! " 
 
 But the man had been drilled through the sciatic 
 nerve, and he leaped where he lay like a landed 
 fish. He had let fall the pistol in his pain, and 
 Moseley had the pleasure of picking up his own. 
 
 " Has anybody any brandy?" asked Denis, for the 
 wounded man looked ghastly, writhing in the star- 
 light, and he was bearing his torments without a word ; 
 but when Moseley produced a flask, and Denis held 
 it to him, the unbeaten brute only seized the op-
 
 98 DENIS DENT 
 
 portunity of snatching at the revolver in his other 
 hand. 
 
 " The blackguard ! " piped Doherty, as Denis dis- 
 engaged without a shot. " I 'd finish him for that ! " 
 
 " No, you would n't, Jimmy ; but if he wants to 
 grin and bear it, why, he 's welcome till they come 
 for him ! Come on, Moseley," added Denis, as that 
 placid person characteristically took his time, under 
 the gagged man's nose, over his stolen belongings. 
 But in a few moments the three were off at the 
 double, and in a few more the contents of a third 
 revolver followed them without effect. 
 
 " I expected that," said Denis as they ran. " But 
 what a fine villain ! Not a word in his pain. Edu- 
 cated man, I should say." 
 
 " Mean to put the police on 'em to-night or in the 
 morning ? " called Moseley, with languid interest, as 
 he jogged along last. 
 
 " Not at all," said Denis. 
 
 " Not at all ? " panted Doherty. 
 
 " We want to get to the diggings, not to cool our 
 heels in this nice place. We 've winged one and 
 taught them both a lesson, and wasted quite enough 
 time on such carrion as it is." 
 
 They were now in full view of the lights of Can- 
 vas Town. Moseley, far behind, petitioned for a 
 more civilized pace in the most strenuous tone the 
 others had yet heard from him. And while they 
 waited Denis returned the revolver to its rightful 
 owner.
 
 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 99 
 
 " I 'm heartily ashamed of myself, Jimmy," said 
 he : " first I blame you for buying the one thing we 
 want more than another, and then I take it from 
 you and use it myself ! But the credit 's every bit 
 of it yours ; but for you those villains would have 
 gone scot-free with this fellow's fortune ; but for you 
 he would be a poor man to-night, and he 's got to 
 know it. I hope you recovered everything?" 
 added Denis, as Moseley came up with them at 
 his leisure, and all three proceeded to ward the lights. 
 
 " I do n't know," was the reply. " I ought to 
 have thirty-eight pound, twelve and six, but there 's 
 over a pound of it in silver, and you did n't give me 
 time to count it." 
 
 A few paces were covered in silence ; then Denis 
 gave a grim little laugh. " So we Ve all risked our 
 lives for thirty-eight pounds odd ! " 
 
 " It was my all," said Moseley, rather hurt. " I 
 never said it was much, and never asked you to risk 
 your lives." 
 
 Denis took his arm with a heartier laugh. 
 
 " My dear fellow, we were n't going to let you risk 
 yours alone, and I would n't undo it if I could. It 
 was n't a question of amount, either ; if you had told 
 us the figure it would have made no difference. 
 But you did say it was your pile, you know, that 
 you were taking back to England ! " 
 
 " It was n't much of one, certainly," the other ad- 
 mitted on reflection, with his own ingenuous can- 
 dour. " I am not so sure, now, that it would have
 
 loo DENIS DENT 
 
 paid my passage home. I never thought of that be- 
 fore. So you two are going up to the diggings, 
 just as I come down ? " he added rather wistfully, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " We start to-morrow if we can." 
 
 " Much capital, may I ask ? " 
 
 " Not much more than half your pile between us, 
 I 'm afraid." 
 
 " It needs more capital than you 'd think," said 
 Moseley, in a pensive way. 
 
 " I dare say." 
 
 And Denis sighed. 
 
 " Ballarat or Bendigo ? " 
 
 " I thought of tossing for it." 
 
 They were back again on the foul fringe of the sail- 
 cloth suburb. Moseley stood still in the mud. And 
 the bright southern stars discovered a pleasing diffi- 
 dence in a wholly amiable face. 
 
 " Have you really no choice ? " he asked. 
 
 " Absolutely none." 
 
 " Well, then, I hardly know how to put it," stam- 
 mered Moseley ; " but I Ve some experience, if I 
 have n't much to show for it ; and if Ballarat would 
 do for you I should be sorry to turn up again in 
 Bendigo ; I 'm afraid I did pretend I 'd done a little 
 better there but Ballarat 's really the place, and if 
 you could do with a third well, there 's my poor 
 little pile, it would go into the pool, and well I 
 do n't mind saying I should be proud, after the way 
 you Ve stood by me to-night."
 
 THIEVES IN THE NIGHT 101 
 
 " So should I ! " cried Denis, seizing Moseley's 
 hand. His warm heart was touched. " So would 
 Jimmy," he added, for the lad was standing aloof as 
 he always would when they were three. " It 's the 
 natural thing, and your experience will be more 
 valuable than even your money, not that we can 
 take more than your share of that. Come, laddie, 
 and give him your hand on it, too ; and then for the 
 best three beds we can afford, and three good glasses 
 of ale to seal the partnership." 
 
 Doherty turned to Denis rather quickly when he 
 had shaken the new partner's hand. " You see," he 
 said, " it is a case of beds, after all ! " 
 
 But his tone was reproachful rather than trium- 
 phant, as though Denis might have listened to him 
 before.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 
 
 THE firm of Dent, Moseley, and Doherty, 
 gold-diggers, was formally established next 
 day, in a clump of trees a few miles out of 
 Melbourne. Denis had experienced no difficulty in 
 obtaining his paltry dues from the shipping agents, 
 but even so he and Doherty could not muster 
 twenty pounds between them. Moseley, on the 
 other hand, was for putting in nearly double this 
 amount, and yet only receiving his one-third of the 
 profits. He argued that but for the others he 
 would have had nothing to put in at all. It was 
 long before Denis would listen to him, and Doherty 
 took no part in the discussion. But eventually a 
 compromise was agreed upon, and thus entered by 
 Denis in a new pocketbook purchased for the 
 nonce : 
 
 October, 19, 1853. , s. d. 
 
 Dent and Doherty Cash 19 12 10 
 
 Moseley " . 19 14 6 
 
 " Loan to Company 18 10 o 
 
 S7 17 4
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 103 
 
 This pocketbook, with its blue-lined sheaf of 
 glorious possibilities, represented Denis's one dis- 
 bursement in Melbourne beyond bed, board, and the 
 glasses of beer overnight. A rigid economy was 
 his watchword ; they must walk to Ballarat ; so let 
 their packs be light, and if kits were dearer on the 
 diggings, they would still have saved. 
 
 Doherty agreed with every word ; but as they re- 
 sumed their journey, and Moseley fell a few paces 
 behind, he reminded Denis of the nuggets which 
 Bullocky had forced upon them at the inn. 
 
 " I said we 'd keep them for luck," replied Denis ; 
 " but, of course, I could only speak for myself; you 
 must do what you like with yours." 
 
 " I do what you do," said the boy. 
 
 " And you both do well ! " added Moseley, catch- 
 ing them up. " I 'm all in favour of a fetish ; that 's 
 what I never had on Bendigo. But nuggets decoy 
 nuggets set a nugget to catch a nugget, eh ? 
 That 's a fetish and a half ! I suppose they 're only 
 little bits of things ? Do you mind letting me see 
 them ? " 
 
 When he did see them, he changed his tune. 
 
 " Good heavens ! But these must be over a 
 pound between them, if not getting on for three 
 figures in the other kind of pounds ; do you mean 
 to say you had these given you ? I say, I 'm not 
 sure that my affection for a fetish would hold out 
 against one of these." 
 
 " Well, mine will," said Denis, smiling with set
 
 104 DENIS DENT 
 
 teeth. " I do n't turn presents into money, Mose- 
 ley, till the devil drives ! " 
 
 " But who on earth made you such presents as 
 these?" 
 
 " Oh, a rough diamond with a beard to his 
 middle, and a voice like a bull, who did his 
 best to stand on his head in a bucket of cham- 
 pagne." 
 
 " By Jove ! I believe it must have been old Bull- 
 ocky himself." 
 
 " It was. Do you know him ? " 
 
 " Know him ? No one was ever yet on Bendigo 
 without knowing old Bullocky; he's cock of the 
 walk in Ironbark Gully, finds gold every time, by a 
 sort of second sight, as some of these chaps find 
 water. Why, the first time I ever saw him he was 
 sitting picking nuggets out of a lump of earth like 
 plums from a pudding ! " 
 
 And Moseley beguiled a mile or more with tales 
 of the great gorilla ; he had, indeed, a very passable 
 gift of anecdote, and an easy, idle, fanciful wit which 
 made up in rarer qualities what it lacked in bril- 
 liance and virility. He had not a foul or an unkind 
 word in his vocabulary; and Denis had been too 
 long at sea to undervalue either merit. Moseley 
 was not only a gentleman, but a man of refinement 
 and no little charm, whose companionship might 
 well be prized by such another at that wild end of 
 the earth. And yet Denis forgot to listen as one 
 entertaining tale led light-heartedly to another, for
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 105 
 
 it was only the humours of the life that Moseley 
 seemed to have absorbed. 
 
 " But I might as well save my breath," said 
 Moseley, with more truth than he supposed. " It 's 
 bound to be the same on Ballarat, only more of it ; 
 the one thing I can promise you is plenty of com- 
 pensation if the fetish does n't do his duty." 
 
 Denis smiled without replying. " I suppose you 
 do n't know what sort of soil it is at Ballarat ? " he 
 asked at length. 
 
 " At Ballarat ? " cried Moseley, greatly amused. 
 " Why, my dear fellow, I could n't tell you what 
 sort it was at Bendigo ! " 
 
 " But you were digging there five months." 
 
 " Digging, exactly ; not studying the soil." 
 
 " They seemed to you to find it anywhere, did 
 they ? " 
 
 " Anywhere and everywhere, my dear fellow ! 
 Are you a geologist, Dent ? " The question came 
 after a pause. 
 
 " Not as yet," said Denis ; and Doherty, who had 
 no notion what a geologist was, glanced at him 
 sidelong as at one who could soon be it or anything 
 else he chose. 
 
 So the time passed, and the miles were mounting 
 up when Moseley, who ought to have known the 
 way to a certain point, found that he had overshot 
 it by as many miles again. It was a trying mo- 
 ment for the height and heat of the afternoon ; but 
 so savage was the mild Moseley with himself, so
 
 io6 DENIS DENT 
 
 unusually animated with his contrition, that Denis 
 slapped him on the back, and they turned back 
 laughing to an inn where they had drunk beer a 
 couple of hours before. This beer-drinking was an 
 extravagance resented by Denis, yet not a point on 
 which he cared to oppose the man who had con- 
 tributed so freely to the common fund. Nothing 
 could have been more wholesome for active young 
 fellows, but their beer alone cost them eight and 
 threepence the first day, bread three and six, billy- 
 can two and six, tea and sugar two and six, and 
 their beds at this inn six shillings. One pound 
 two and nine-pence for the first nine miles. 
 
 Denis did not grumble, but in his heart he re- 
 sented the beds almost as much as the beer ; there 
 was more to be said for them, however, especially 
 in a country teeming with desperate characters ; 
 and the beds at least were cheap, few travelers 
 breaking their journey so near its beginning or its 
 end. Denis, however, sat late in the bar, listening 
 to the conversation of all and sundry who stopped 
 to drink, and learning much in an unobtrusive way : 
 he had never in his life been quite such a Dent, so 
 canny, so calculating, and so cool. As a first step 
 toward the accomplishment of his great resolve, he 
 had already overcome the romantic spirit of its in- 
 ception ; thus the next night, at Bacchus Marsh, he 
 thought nothing of foregathering with an odious 
 little man, who consulted Denis as to the best place 
 to get a " white 'igh 'at and a diamond ring " im-
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 107 
 
 mediately on landing in London, but who gave him 
 much valuable information in return. And the 
 night after that, when they were fifty miles from 
 Melbourne, there was a landlord with gold-dust 
 sticking to the palms of his hands, who only needed 
 plying with his own liquor to talk by the hour. By 
 this time Moseley was keeping them all back with 
 a sore heel ; and the nearer the diggings, the greater 
 each day's expenses ; but Denis no longer grudged 
 the money, for he was gaining much that money 
 could not buy. 
 
 Often they were overtaken and left behind by 
 more dashing adventurers, aggressively mounted 
 and armed, and what was more galling, once or 
 twice by swifter pedestrians than themselves ; but 
 Moseley preferred hobbling with his companions to 
 boarding the scarlet coach which passed them, 
 pitching like a ship on its leather springs. The 
 partners met with no moving accident on the road. 
 Rumours of bushrangers were never followed by 
 their appearance. It was not the less delightful to 
 meet the Ballast gold-escort coming down, in its 
 sparkling cordon of sabres and lace, for it made the 
 braver show in those sombre wilds 4 , and left a re- 
 assuring sense of law and order in its yellow wake. 
 
 The fourth night they camped out but ten miles 
 from the diggings, where they hoped to arrive by 
 noon next day ; but the blister on Moseley's heel 
 broke and bled, and though either Denis or Jim 
 carried his pack thereafter, while the other gave
 
 io8 DENIS DENT 
 
 him an arm, the last and most exciting stage oi 
 their journey was also the slowest. The deep-cut 
 bullock-track led them all morning by open flat 
 and shallow gully, between low hills timbered like 
 an English park ; from noon on, as the track con- 
 verged with others, the party received more than 
 one cheery invitation to drain a pannikin of tea at 
 wayside encampments ; but even the lame man 
 would not stop again, and the light in his eyes was 
 as bright as any. The three drew close together as 
 they walked. It was as though each made it a 
 point of honour neither to lead by an inch nor to 
 keep the others back; it was also as though all 
 three had lost their tongues and found new eyes, 
 for the gold-light was in them all. 
 
 " Hush ! " exclaimed Denis, stopping sud- 
 denly. 
 
 A deep though distant hum came to their ears, 
 faintly at first, but in a steady boom as they stooped 
 and listened without a breath between them. 
 
 " It 's like the streets of London, from the docks, 
 after a voyage," whispered Denis, raising a puzzled 
 face a little. 
 
 " It 's a creek," said Doherty. " I never knew 
 they had a creek like that." 
 
 " Nor I." 
 
 And as one man they turned to Moseley, to stand 
 upright on the spot ; for so he was standing, and 
 grinning at them both from ear to ear. 
 
 " That 's not traffic, nor yet a creek," said he.
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 109 
 
 " It was the same when you got near Bendigo. 
 It 's the gold in the cradles. It 's the gold ! " 
 
 The broad brown track rose before them, scored 
 by a myriad wheels, backed by hard blue sky. In 
 an instant they were racing skyward between the 
 ruts. Jimmy had given a whoop, and Moseley his 
 light-hearted laugh, but Denis led without a word 
 until the deep hum had risen to a rumble. Then 
 he looked round, and Jimmy passed him with a yell. 
 Moseley was running very lame. Denis waited for 
 him. 
 
 " Jump on my back ! " said he. " I won't leave 
 you, and I can't wait." 
 
 " You certainly can't carry me." 
 
 " We '11 see." 
 
 " Then you sha' n't." 
 
 " Come on ! " 
 
 And Denis was soon staggering in Doherty's 
 steps, a lean shin protuding from the crook of 
 either arm, a good ten stone upon his back. As 
 he stumbled on, in the last hundred yards, the 
 rumble resolved itself into the roar of ten thousand 
 cradles rocking as one. And on the hill's crest 
 Doherty stood waving his wideawake against the 
 blue. 
 
 Denis reeled up to him, breathing hard, with 
 Moseley still protesting on his back. But for the 
 next few minutes it might have been a bronze group 
 that crowned the hill. 
 
 Under their eyes, in a single smooth green basin
 
 no DENIS DENT 
 
 of the sere and wooded ranges, were the tents and 
 earthworks of all nations, joined for once in un- 
 natural war upon the earth that bore them. White 
 were the tents of that unparalleled encampment, 
 gleaming coolly in the sun, and pitched in patches 
 like the scent from a paper-chase ; and for every 
 tent there was a red-lipped shaft, with men like 
 ants crawling out and in, and muddy pools here and 
 there between the heaps, with more ants busy at 
 their brim. Here a few cradles rocked, like great 
 square-toed shoes ; but they blackened either bank 
 of the yellow stream that picked its way between 
 the tents and the ant-heaps of gravel and of clay ; 
 and thence the noise, as of a giant foundry, which 
 could be heard a mile away. The squeak of a 
 windlass was a variation at closer quarters ; the 
 deeper claims were thus distinguished ; the deepest 
 of all had windsails, too, that rose from the earth 
 like tall ghosts, with lantern jaws and arms like fins. 
 
 " Anything like Bendigo ? " whispered Doherty to 
 the seasoned digger, who was standing between the 
 other two. 
 
 " More compact," replied Moseley. " And not 
 half the trees." 
 
 " This must be Black Hill Flat, this open ground 
 on our right," said Denis. " And that should be 
 Bakery Hill over there on the left." 
 
 His tone made the others look from the landmarks 
 indicated to Denis himself; and he was consulting 
 a dirty bit of cardboard.
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 111 
 
 " What have you got there ? " asked Moseley, 
 edging up to him. 
 
 " A map, a map ! " cried Jimmy, who had run 
 round to his other side. 
 
 "Where on earth did you get hold of that, 
 Dent?" 
 
 " Aha ! " chuckled Denis. " I suppose you do n't 
 remember the man I told you about at Bacchus 
 Marsh, who wanted the white hat and the diamond 
 ring ? He gave it to me, and I 'd rather have it 
 than the fifty pounds he said he 'd give for his ring ! 
 I make that the Gravel Pits right ahead across the 
 stream ; you can see the sun on the pools of water ; 
 they say it 's the wettest bit on the diggings. And 
 you see the trim tent to the right on the green 
 mound? That's Commissioner's Flat, where we 
 shall go first thing on Monday morning for our 
 licenses." 
 
 " You 've been here before," said Moseley, with an 
 amused shake of the head. " You were here last 
 voyage do n't tell me ! " 
 
 " My last voyage was to Calcutta," said Denis, 
 laughing as they walked on ; " but if you like I 
 was here most nights on the way up, more especially 
 the one we spent at Bacchus Marsh." 
 
 The first pair of diggers actually at work in their 
 hole thrilled Denis none the less, and it was he who 
 led the way to have a better look at them. They 
 were quite close to the road on Black Hill Flat, 
 which was an attractive part for new hands, with
 
 112 DENIS DENT 
 
 fewer claims and more trees than there seemed to 
 be further on. These men's tent stood out of the 
 grass like a roof in a flood ; and beyond the tent a 
 red night-cap bobbed above ground, as one man 
 plied the pick while the other leaned on the shovel 
 awaiting his turn. The new chums halted at a re- 
 spectful distance, but the man with the shovel made 
 them welcome with a friendly oath, and chatted 
 good-humouredly in the Tyneside tongue as they 
 all stood looking down into the hole. 
 
 " You 'd bettaw come and peg out alongside of 
 us," he said. " We come from Newcassel, and 
 we're new chums ourselves." 
 
 " And why did you choose this place ? " asked 
 Denis. 
 
 The man with the shovel gave a happy-go-lucky 
 shrug. 
 
 " Howt ! " said he. " One pudding 's as good as 
 anothaw until you eat it ; " and Moseley added, 
 " Quite true," with an experienced nod. 
 
 " But we 'd gotten a good account o' 't," put in 
 the man with the red night-cap, burying his pick in 
 the upper earth, and scrambling out of the hole with 
 its aid. " The wash-dirt 's close to top, an' dry as a 
 slag-heap ; what 's more, a parcel of Frenchmen 
 have made their fortunes here this very year ; an' 
 it 's a queer thing if we can't do as well as them 
 beggaws." 
 
 The man with the shovel was now doing his part 
 below ground with great vigour. Shovelfuls of a
 
 STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 113 
 
 hard conglomerate of quartz, ironstone, sand and 
 clay, were flying in all directions. As the new- 
 comers withdrew, Moseley took Denis by the arm. 
 
 " We might find a worse place to camp : 
 what do you say to that gum-tree further on to- 
 ward the hill ? I tell you what I '11 borrow an 
 axe from these chaps, and cut fire-wood and tent- 
 poles if you two will go for some rations and a 
 dozen yards of canvas. It'll be dark in another 
 hour ; do n't be much longer, and you '11 find 
 a fire on, and everything ready for pitching the 
 tent." 
 
 " We do n't want to settle on the first place we 
 come to," said Denis, between dubiety and a natural 
 attraction to the spot. 
 
 " Or anywhere else, in a hurry," agreed Moseley ; 
 " but we 've got to spend the night somewhere, and 
 a quiet Sunday while we look about us ; and for 
 that I do n't think you could do better." 
 
 So the site of their first encampment came to be 
 selected; it was marked by a solitary and rather 
 stately blue gum-tree, of which Denis took due note 
 as Doherty and he regained the track.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 EL DORADO 
 
 ON the road they fell in with a long-legged 
 digger, in the muddy remnants of a well- 
 cut pair of trousers, which telescoped into 
 top-boots of a more enduring excellence ; the man 
 was further distinguished by a certain negligent 
 finesse of beard and moustache, a very quiet blue 
 eye, and a voice as quiet when he stopped in his 
 stroll to address the pair. 
 
 " Surfacing, I suppose ? " said he, with a slight 
 but sufficient indication of the Tynesiders' claim. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " said Denis, out of his 
 depth at once. 
 
 " I ought to beg yours," the tall man responded, 
 opening his blue eyes a little wider, and regarding 
 Denis with quiet interest. " I merely saw you 
 come away from that claim over there, and I take 
 rather an interest in Black Hill Flat. That is it, 
 you know." 
 
 Denis nodded. 
 
 " You are n't a new chum, then ? " the other 
 added, smiling over the term. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am. This is our first sight of the 
 diggings."
 
 EL DORADO 115 
 
 " Then it 's no use asking you a technical ques- 
 tion; but surfacing, of course, means going no 
 deeper than the surface some ten or twenty feet, 
 do n't you know. Very few do go deeper, and I 
 am not sure that it would pay on this flat." 
 
 Denis explained that the Tynesiders had only 
 got about five feet down. 
 
 " So many of them give it up at that," said the 
 tall man, with a faint smile, and would have gone 
 on with the least little nod ; but Denis quickly 
 asked him how deep he would go himself and what 
 he thought of Black Hill Flat. 
 
 " I 'm a deep-sinker," was the reply ; " but if I 
 was n't, and was one of a party, there 's nowhere I 
 would sooner try my luck than over there. The 
 drawback is than you can't go very near the water, 
 because the lead does n't ; so you have a long 
 way to carry your wash-dirt, and it wants three or 
 four to keep the pot boiling. On the other hand 
 that 's what keeps off the average digger, who 's the 
 most impatient person in the world, and so you 
 have the place more or less to yourself. Still, of 
 course, the fewer there are to seek the longer they 
 will take to find, unless some one is very fortunate. 
 A lucky man, though," said the tall digger, looking 
 back toward the Tynesiders' camp " a lucky man 
 with two hard-working mates might make his for- 
 tune there as soon as anywhere." 
 
 " Did n't some Frenchmen ? " asked Denis, re- 
 membering what he had heard at the claim.
 
 ii6 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Ah, that was on the hill, and quartz ; how they 
 crushed it I can't conceive ; for the ordinary man 
 it would be more ruinous than deep sinking, which 
 is saying a great deal." 
 
 The tall digger was turning away again, with 
 rather more of a smile, but Denis's eager face de- 
 tained him a little longer. 
 
 " Then which do you recommend," asked Denis, 
 " surfacing or deep-sinking ? " 
 
 " Oh, come," laughed the other, " I '11 be shot 
 if I recommend either ! It depends on yourself 
 and your resources. One 's quick and cheap and 
 easy, but nearly all a matter of luck ; the other 's far 
 slower and more expensive, but also far surer for a 
 man of intelligence, as I can see you are. If you 
 go in for surfacing, you might give Black Hill Flat 
 a trial; but I shouldn't tackle it less than three 
 strong." 
 
 And with a last good-humoured and yet distant 
 nod, a mixture of courtesy and condescension alike 
 inbred, the tall man went his way, as it might have 
 been down Pall Mall at the same pace, and with 
 the same carriage in his deplorable trousers and 
 his long-suffering top-boots. 
 
 " I wonder who he is," said Doherty, on whom 
 the still blue eyes had not rested for a moment. 
 
 " I wonder where he is," returned Denis, " and 
 how much good he 's doing there." Nor would he 
 discuss the man, with Doherty, as a man at all, but 
 only as the most superior digger thus far within
 
 EL DORADO 117 
 
 their ken. It was nevertheless a new type to 
 Denis ; he did not belong to it himself, neither did 
 Moseley, nor yet Ralph Devenish with all his airs. 
 But it was as a digger of transparent parts that 
 the tall man returned to a mind from which the 
 general impression soon blotted the particular. 
 
 The general impression on the banks of the Yar- 
 rowee was a strident chaos in extreme tints. The 
 rocking of the countless cradles made a distracting 
 chorus at close quarters. The vividness of the pic- 
 ture helped to daze a newcomer. The sky was 
 bright blue overhead ; the mud on all sides was 
 the very brightest mud ; the tiny patches of green 
 were as bright as emeralds. Grass and mud sparkled 
 with a rank dew of empty bottles. Nearly every- 
 thing was wet and glistening in the level sunlight. 
 The hairy miners shone with their own moisture 
 and their own sunshine of enthusiasm, for the gold- 
 light lit up every face. Nor was it an ignoble face as 
 Denis saw it over and over again. It was full of the 
 hearty virile hope that expanded his own soul. And 
 it was every vivid tint of red and brown, as the mud 
 was every bright shade of brown and yellow ; and to 
 each red face there was a redder shirt, and to every 
 red shirt a pair of moleskin trousers, often snow- 
 white, never the less picturesque for the clots of 
 splendid mud that plastered and spattered it. For 
 to Denis the mud was gold at first sight, molten 
 gold that should have nipped off his foot when he 
 sank ankle deep in it, as it was liquid gold that
 
 n8 DENIS DENT 
 
 wound in and out among the tents, and was seen 
 piecemeal through the strings of moleskin legs and 
 rocking cradles, between the banks of the Yarrowee. 
 
 The famous cradle really was like a great wooden 
 boot on rockers ; the ankle was a raised and perfor- 
 ated tray into which they threw a bucketful of earth 
 and then a balerful of water ; the foot was a trough 
 which received the muddy fluid and its precious 
 sediment. As Denis watched the operation for the 
 first time, he imagined the gold-dust pouring 
 through the perforations like pepper from a caster ; 
 yet all that was ultimately taken out of the toe of 
 the cradle, and good naturedly thrust under the new 
 chums' noses in the hollow of a horny palm, would 
 have been a small helping of salt. Denis could 
 have taken his hat off to it, nevertheless, and in an- 
 other moment Doherty did throw his into the air. 
 
 " Not a bad tub," the digger had informed them. 
 " Very near an ounce, I '11 wager, or four good quid 
 while you 've been watching." 
 
 Some claims were so near the water that the new- 
 comers saw exactly how the labour was divided in 
 parties of three. One man was busy in the hole, 
 digging and filling bucket after bucket ; another 
 carried the buckets to and fro, emptying the full one 
 into the tray of the cradle ; the third did the rock- 
 ing and supplied the water. The deeper claims 
 were crowned by a windlass mounted on a frame- 
 work of logs ; and Denis supposed it was a fourth 
 man who stood thereon to raise and lower the
 
 EL DORADO 119 
 
 buckets. But nothing was more fascinating to 
 watch than the most primitive operation of all, 
 namely the use of the tin wash-pan by certain old 
 diggers who still preferred it to the cradle : there 
 was downright legerdemain in the whirlpool of earth 
 and water that they made in a mere hand-basin, but 
 especially in the way they got rid of both, slop by 
 slop, until only the gold-dust tinkled in the tin. 
 
 The pair picked their way between the heaps of 
 mud and gravel known as the Gravel Pits. They 
 walked up to Commissioner's Flat, and saw the 
 Commissioner himself, in his gold-lace cap, seated 
 at a table in his tent, like an ordinary general in the 
 field. On the table were a pair of scales that Denis 
 undertook to trouble before long. " Those are 
 what they weigh it with," he whispered to Do- 
 herty ; and they watched a happy miner go in with 
 a leathern bag and come out gloating over his re- 
 ceipt. This was the most populous part of the dig- 
 gings. There was some speaking sight or some 
 striking face at every turn. All the men were 
 bearded like the pard ; they might have lost a nug- 
 get while they scraped a chin ; and the community 
 seemed devoid of women. On one claim, however, 
 a whole family were at work, the father digging, the 
 mother rocking as she nursed her babe, an elder in- 
 fant toddling with its share of grist, the eldest pour- 
 ing water into the mill. 
 
 As man and boy wandered and looked on, obliv- 
 ious of their errand, the day's work ended as by a
 
 120 DENIS DENT 
 
 miracle at six o'clock to the minute. Perhaps they 
 had missed some warning shot or signal in their 
 absorption ; it certainly was as though a second Big 
 Ben had clanged the hour from which no man 
 might rock a cradle or fill a tub. One minute the 
 cradles roared their loudest ; then, a lull that grew 
 into a widespread human hum ; and within a quarter 
 of an hour, a thousand crackling fires, each with its 
 wreath of bluish smoke, its steaming pot for the 
 centre of the firelit circle. The bewildered pair had 
 meanwhile set about their business by an effort ; 
 and it tided them into a world of yellow and translu- 
 cent tents, a simple world presently enlivened by 
 blurting cornets, squeaking fiddles, and the ubiq- 
 uitous concertina. 
 
 It was a Saturday night, and the scene was very 
 like a gigantic fair ; here was a small, ill-lighted 
 tent, sibilant with the suppressed excitements of sly 
 grog ; but here, there, and everywhere were large, 
 well-lighted, over-crowded store-tents, with flags fly- 
 ing honestly against the stars. Yet even in these a 
 Hogarth might have reveled. Diggers of the 
 stamp of Bullocky pitched bank-notes right and 
 left, nor ever counted the change; or instead of 
 change, lengths of calico or bars of soap were tossed 
 across the counters. Yet Denis had managed at 
 last to get more or less of what was wanted at com- 
 paratively reasonable prices. He paid only eighteen 
 pence a yard for thirteen yards of canvas, three 
 shillings for a pound of cheese, tenpence a pound
 
 EL DORADO 121 
 
 for potatoes, and four-and-sixpence for a hind- 
 quarter of mutton. He was struggling out of the 
 tent, holding the meat aloft, with Doherty at his 
 heels, when a cold thrill ran down him. Two other 
 men were struggling in, and the four met so fairly 
 as to block each other's way. One of the new 
 comers had a grayish beard badly dyed, and little 
 eyes under a peaked cap ; the other was smoking a 
 meerschaum pipe with a Turk's face, as unmistak- 
 able as his own, yet Denis had to hear him speak 
 before he could believe his eyes. 
 
 " Well met, Dent ! I suppose I 'm about the last 
 person you expected to see here, eh ? '' 
 
 " You are." 
 
 " Why, I passed you on the road, man, passed 
 you in the coach, and you never saw us ! I changed 
 my mind before the pilot left us ; did n't see why 
 you should do all the fortune-making, Dent, my 
 boy ; so here I am." And the bold eyes of Ralph 
 Devenish gleamed with a sudden malice that pierced 
 the man's gay crust, while those of his companion 
 seemed smaller, closer, and yet merrier than before. 
 
 " Good ! " said Denis, looking his cousin steadily 
 in the face. " I hope we may both make our for- 
 tunes, Devenish and then go home together in the 
 same ship ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 THE ENEMY'S CAMP 
 
 RALPH DEVENISH was the eldest son of 
 doting parents who had done their duty by 
 him according to their lights. They were 
 well-to-do folk, though the homely epithet would 
 have insulted the blood which was their boast ; they 
 were not, however, really wealthy, and they had the 
 vast family of their generation. It was therefore 
 something of a sacrifice to send Ralph to his public 
 school, and a distinct one to support his subsequent 
 commission in the Guards. It is true that the sacri- 
 fice fell principally upon a long line of younger 
 brethren, who could scarcely have filled the parental 
 eye less if they had stood all their lives in Indian 
 file behind the first-born. But many was the time 
 the father paid some debt with hardly a murmur, or 
 the mother pinched herself to make surreptitious 
 additions to the gay lad's allowance ; for man and 
 boy he was the first consideration in their minds, 
 and consequently the sole consideration in his own. 
 In return this criminal couple had a brilliant and 
 successful son, who was a favourite wherever he 
 went, especially among strangers, and who frater- 
 nized to their satisfaction with the more direct issue
 
 THE ENEMY'S CAMP 123 
 
 of families almost as old as their own ; the only dis- 
 appointment was that Ralph was nearing his thirties 
 without having married into one or other of them. 
 It was time, for many reasons, that he made the 
 marriage that was only to be expected of him, and 
 settled down. The marriage that was only to be 
 expected of Ralph Devenish declined in brilliance 
 as the years went on ; but the prospect finally re- 
 solved itself into no regrettable alliance with a 
 beautiful and charming girl, who was also quite a 
 little heiress in her way. Then Ralph and Nan had 
 known each other all their lives. The families were 
 allied in business. There was nothing in the world 
 against the inferior family, except that invidious 
 juxtaposition. It was therefore a sound choice, if 
 it was nothing more. 
 
 Yet Ralph became a company officer without 
 getting engaged even to Nan Merridew. Some 
 said she had refused him. Mr. and Mrs. Devenish 
 could afford to smile. Nevertheless, the attachment 
 became obvious on his side and not on hers. Then 
 Ralph had an illness at Portman Street ; it devel- 
 oped into a malignant typhus which nearly killed 
 him ; and the shattered officer was given a year's 
 leave in which to recruit from the day he got about 
 again. It seemed certain that this episode would 
 bring matters to a crisis ; and when the convales- 
 cent was ordered a health voyage in one of the 
 firm's vessels, and Mr. and Miss Merridew accom- 
 panied him, it was quite understood that the
 
 124 DENIS DENT 
 
 engagement would be announced on their re- 
 turn. 
 
 Nan alone did not so understand it ; and in ex- 
 ceptional circumstances already set forth, her father 
 was the next to relinquish an idea which he had 
 cherished as much as anybody. Devenish, how- 
 ever, was naturally no prey to the sentiment to 
 which he attributed his reverse in one quarter and 
 its acceptance in the other. He had never regarded 
 it as a defeat, and he was certainly not the man to 
 do so as he saw the last of Denis against an Austra- 
 lian sky from the Memnon's poop. On the con- 
 trary, the gallant Ralph had never been nearly so 
 much in love as with the ardent and disheveled 
 girl, nobly careless of appearances, who wept and 
 waved within a few feet of him until the last. 
 
 His tact, however, was not equal to his passion, 
 and it was a breach of tact that sent Ralph Deven- 
 ish ashore with the pilot. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " he had said at last. " He has the 
 best of it, after all ! " 
 
 " What do you mean? " cried Nan, as she turned 
 on him with fiery tears, but not one in her 
 voice. 
 
 " He has all the fun of the fair," replied Deven- 
 ish, lightly. " They say it 's the biggest fair ever 
 held on earth." 
 
 " You mean the gold-fields, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Yes. I shouldn't blame him for wanting to 
 have his fling on them."
 
 THE ENEMY'S CAMP 125 
 
 " I do n't understand you," said the girl, very 
 coldly. " Pray who is blaming him ? " 
 
 " Well, Dent is rather in Mr. Merridew's bad 
 books for insisting on staying out, you know ; and 
 I thought he might be in yours, too." 
 
 " Did you, indeed ! Then let me tell you I am 
 proud of him for what he has done, and for what 
 he 's going to do. But if he were here now, stand- 
 ing in your shoes, though I would give anything to 
 have him here, I should still be ashamed of him in 
 my heart ! " 
 
 Devenish winced, and his dark, clear skin was 
 stained a deeper shade; as for Nan, she was so 
 heated that every tear had dried upon her angry 
 blushes. 
 
 " If you are thinking of me," he said, " you cer- 
 tainly are n't thinking of what you are saying, or 
 you would remember that a year's leave is a year's 
 leave." 
 
 " And that yours is n't up till May," she added 
 with ironic levity. " It 's no business of mine, of 
 course ; only you should n't start comparisons between 
 the man who stays and the man who turns back." 
 
 " I am also in less need of money," he told her 
 through his teeth. 
 
 " Money ! " she cried in unrestrained contempt. 
 " I was n't thinking of the money I was thinking 
 of the fun and adventure and romance that would 
 have enticed every man worth calling a man, once 
 he had got so far except you ! "
 
 126 DENIS DENT 
 
 " From their sweethearts even ! " he hissed out, 
 with a devilish nod " from the girls they pretend 
 they want to marry ! " 
 
 Nan was stung in her turn; and hers was a 
 poisonous sting. The blood drained from her face. 
 It was some moments before she could speak. 
 
 " That is their business," she whispered at last. 
 " At all events you know what I should have 
 thought of Denis if he had n't stayed ; but if you 
 want to know what I think of him now, you shall." 
 And with trembling lips, before Ralph, before the 
 man at the wheel, before the officer and the mid- 
 shipman of the watch, Miss Merridew kissed the 
 bloodstone signet ring upon the third finger of her 
 left hand. That was what happened on the Mem- 
 non while Denis watched her dipping out of sight. 
 
 What happened next was that Devenish nearly 
 knocked his servant, Jewson, from top to bottom of 
 the companion hatch; the man just managed to 
 clutch the rail, and was called roughly into his 
 master's cabin forthwith. 
 
 "Sorry I upset you, Jewson, but you should 
 have got out of my way. You were listening, of 
 course?" 
 
 " I could n't help hearing that last, sir." 
 
 " No, I suppose the whole ship heard that. Nice, 
 is n't it ? " 
 
 " I know what I 'd do in your place, sir." 
 
 Devenish looked fiercely into the cunning, elderly 
 face, with the dyed beard and the foxy eyes.
 
 THE ENEMY'S CAMP 127 
 
 " You do, do you ? " 
 
 " I do, sir ; but do n't look at me like that, Cap- 
 tain Devenish, sir, or I shall never dare to tell you. 
 There 's something else I 'd as lief tell you first ; but 
 how can I when you look like giving me a horse- 
 whipping if I so much as open my mouth ? " 
 
 " Go on, you old humbug," said Ralph, relaxing 
 a little ; " give me some brandy and water, and let 's 
 have it." 
 
 Jewson gave him the brandy and water first. 
 Ralph took a gulp, and nodded for the news. 
 
 " Well, sir, you see what he give her ; but do you 
 know what she give him ? " asked Jewson, in a vile 
 undertone, half-gloating, half-afraid. 
 
 "No. What?" 
 
 " Another ring." 
 
 " He 's not wearing it." 
 
 " That 's just it ; he is, round his neck. And 
 what do you suppose he 's wearing it on ? " 
 
 " Out with it." 
 
 " It 's one of her own rings," said Jewson, bring- 
 ing his small eyes so close together that they seemed 
 to touch. " And he 's wearing it round his neck on 
 a lanyard she made him out of her own hair ! " 
 
 Ralph's comment did him some credit. 
 
 " You brute ! " he said at last. 
 
 " Captain Devenish, sir, it 's the four gospels." 
 
 " But you 've been listening to them too." 
 
 " I could n't help it, sir ; really I could n't. She 
 only give it 'im to-day when he come aboard to bid
 
 128 DENIS DENT 
 
 good-bye. They went into the after saloon, and I 
 was only in here with the door open. I could n't 
 help hearing every word." 
 
 And the wretch displayed his obvious longing, 
 with the cunning light in the little eyes and the grin 
 amid the dyed hair on the wizened face ; but with 
 all his faults Ralph Devenish was still something of 
 a gentleman, and, Nan notwithstanding, even more 
 of a man. 
 
 " You will never dare to repeat one of them," said 
 he. " If you ever do, and I hear of it, you will get 
 what you yourself suggested just now. That '11 do, 
 Jewson ; not another word about that." 
 
 The old steward accepted his rebuff with aplomb. 
 
 " Very well, sir. Of course my feelings ain't like 
 a gentleman's ; a gentleman would n't expect it. 
 But this I do promise, never to tell anybody if I 
 do n't tell you. And now, sir, I should like to tell 
 you, if I may make so bold, what I 'd do in your 
 place." 
 
 " If it amuses you, by all means." 
 
 " It does, sir ; but it 'd amuse me more if you 'd do 
 it, and there 's time enough still. I 'd take Miss 
 Merridew at her word, and ashore I 'd go with the 
 pilot, and to Ballarat by the first coach ! " 
 
 Ralph sipped his brandy on the settee. It was 
 finished before he spoke. 
 
 " I should never make my fortune there," he said. 
 
 " You might if you took me with you. I was in 
 Californy in 'forty-nine. And I 'd cook for ye,"
 
 THE ENEMY'S CAMP 129 
 
 added the steward, his face shining with its least 
 evil light ; " I 'd cook as not many can in Australia, 
 let alone the diggings. That 's what I used to ship 
 as ; but it 's heart-breaking work at sea." 
 
 " If I did make my pile," added Ralph, shrewdly, 
 " it would n't alter matters one way or the other." 
 
 " Perhaps not. But you 'd be able to see whether 
 he made his ! " 
 
 That was all Jewson said ; that was all Devenish 
 heard. But the words were spoken with so subtle 
 an intonation that the tantalizing prospect held out 
 sounded the most solid satisfaction in the world ; 
 and they turned the scale. Captain Devenish's 
 portmanteaux were not even unstrapped ; within a 
 few hours he had bag and baggage aboard the pilot's 
 cutter, with Nan's last ironic wishes ringing un- 
 kindly in his ears, and the chief steward of the 
 North Foreland, whom the second mate had been 
 instrumental in disrating, at his elbow. The next 
 day but one they passed Denis and his companions 
 on the Ballarat Road, and had pegged out a claim 
 in the palpitating heart of the Gravel Pits before the 
 week was out. 
 
 The encounter in the crowded tent was not a sol- 
 itary experience of the kind in Ralph's case ; being 
 a public-school boy, he had not been an hour on the 
 diggings before he recognized an old schoolfellow. 
 It was, indeed, the old schoolfellow who first recog- 
 nized Ralph Devenish ; but that was not Ralph's 
 fault. Nigger Rackham was the very fellow whom
 
 130 DENIS DENT 
 
 his old friends would have expected to find up to 
 the bare neck in wash-dirt, but perhaps the last 
 whom they would have looked for in spruce uni- 
 form at the head of a jingling mob of mounted 
 troopers. He came of an old West Indian stock, 
 thickly tinctured with native blood, and had been 
 expelled from school for a hearty, natural black- 
 guard who was only good at games. His present 
 employment suggested extensive reformation, but 
 that impression was soon removed over a bottle of 
 brandy in Rackham's tent, and the pair cracked 
 another in Ralph's on the Saturday night. 
 
 " You ought to join us," says Rackham. " Talk 
 of me being out of my element ! I 'm more in mine 
 than ever you '11 be in yours as a licensed miner. 
 You 've neither the turn nor the patience, as I 
 remember you ; and what do you want with a few 
 extra thousand, which is all you '11 make with the 
 luck of the devil ? " 
 
 " They will come in very useful when I get back 
 to town. You breathe money in the Guards, Nig- 
 ger." 
 
 " But you won't make enough to feel the differ- 
 ence. I know you won't. You 're not the sort. 
 Whereas, if you were to join us, I could promise 
 you the best sport on earth, better than fox-hunting, 
 and plenty of it." 
 
 " What 's that, Nigger ? " 
 
 " Digger-hunting ! " says Rackham, his white 
 teeth gleaming in a grin, his bright eyes brighter
 
 THE ENEMY'S CAMP 131 
 
 than ever in his cups. " You look upset : we won't 
 hunt you ; but you want to be one of them, and I 
 want you to be one of us." 
 
 " But how and why do you hunt them, Nigger ? " 
 
 " To see their licenses ; half of them do n't take 
 
 a license out ; you did, because your man knows 
 
 the ropes. But of course I would n't have let an 
 
 old chum get into trouble." 
 
 " But what trouble can it get you into ? " 
 " If you 're caught digging without a license on 
 you, whether you have it elsewhere or no," 
 said Rackham, with a gleam and a glitter from his 
 negroid teeth and eyes, " you may get run down and 
 run in, and shut up in the Logs till all 's blue. The 
 Logs is the camp lock-up. You sha' n't see the in- 
 side of 'em unless you want, out of curiosity but 
 that 's what happens to the ordinary digger-devil. 
 I Ve had a fine fellow chained up to a tree all night 
 for his cheek. I rather like 'em like that. But 
 when they do n't go to ground in their claims, and 
 break for the bush with you after them, boot and sad- 
 dle, spurs and sabre, then you know what hunting is ! " 
 " It seems a bit unfair," said Devenish, blowing a 
 reflective cloud from the Turk's head. 
 
 " Unfair as you like," says Rackham under his 
 breath, " but the best fun going ! I 'd rather put up 
 one well- nourished digger than all the foxes in 
 Leicestershire; but there you are, and now you 
 know, not that it applies to you ; only, if you should 
 happen to make any enemies (and they 're a pre-
 
 132 DENIS DENT 
 
 cious rough crowd to do with), you pass the word 
 and I '11 do the rest for the sake of old times." 
 
 Devenish coloured a little, and looked to see 
 whether Jewson was within earshot outside the 
 tent ; and he was ; but just then a diversion was 
 caused by a pistol-shot in the distance, then another, 
 and then so many more, both far and near, that it 
 was as though battle and murder were taking place 
 on no small scale. 
 
 " You 'd better empty yours, too," said Rackham, 
 pointing to Ralph's revolver in answer to his look. 
 " Some do it most nights, but every mother's son 
 does it on Saturday night, to load up again and 
 start the week with fresh powder and shot. Now 's 
 your time, old fellow, while the night 's young and 
 your hand steady ; then fill up my can, for to-mor- 
 row 's the Day of Rest ! " 
 
 The brandy had been obtained at a sovereign the 
 bottle from one of the numerous sly-grog tents at 
 which a digger-hunting constabulary was delighted 
 to wink. But neither Devenish nor Rackham was 
 a drunkard ; they were merely congenial and con- 
 vivial spirits whose incongruous environment pro- 
 moted a mutual warmth. And the guardsman's 
 contribution to the common fusillade, which still 
 continued, was heard with the rest not a mile away, 
 in the other new tent on Black Hill Flat, where 
 Moseley was making the like explanations to his 
 equally inexperienced comrades, and the redoubtable 
 Deane and Adams was duly emptied in its turn.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE FIRST CLAIM 
 
 MOSELEY had amused himself, in the ab- 
 sence of his mates, by pegging out a 
 supposititious claim, twenty-four feet by 
 eighteen, just to let them see what they might ex- 
 pect between them elsewhere. He was much as- 
 tonished, and withal as elated as his easy nature 
 would permit, at Denis's decision in the morning. 
 Denis found the pegs almost in the shadow of the 
 blue gum-tree, beneath which they had pitched their 
 tent, and he declared that they could not possibly 
 do better. The tall digger was duly quoted on the 
 possibilities of Black Hill Flat. Its merits as a resi- 
 dential quarter were already obvious. The Tyne- 
 siders' camp was the nearest, and it was not within 
 speaking distance. As for Moseley, it entirely 
 suited him to settle down with the least trouble and 
 delay, in the first peaceful spot ; and the party spent 
 a happy Sunday in re-pitching the tent and carefully 
 arranging the whole encampment. 
 
 The day was an experience in itself. It was 
 kept wonderfully holy, for that community, in those 
 wilds. Dent and Doherty took a morning walk ; it 
 did not interest Moseley, who had also volunteered
 
 134 DENIS DENT 
 
 to cook. But Denis was much struck and a little 
 touched to meet the string of Sunday promenaders, 
 all in their best and cleanest, as at home, and to 
 realize that the average digger was a really law- 
 abiding creature after all. Outside every tent the 
 Sunday dinner smoked or hissed on fires all but in- 
 visible in the strong sunlight ; one or two had been 
 turned into canvas church or chapel, and a familiar 
 hymn, heard in passing, was only the more moving 
 for the gruff voices which groaned it forth. On 
 one point Denis satisfied himself : not a hand was 
 put to the cradle or the spade ; and so peaceful was 
 the impression left in his heart, that not even Mose- 
 ley's cooking, which was very disappointing, could 
 spoil an hour of that first auspicious Sabbath. 
 
 The gold license at that time cost thirty shillings ; 
 it had to be renewed monthly at the same tariff, and 
 it carried with it as many vexatious restrictions as 
 were ever put in print on document of the sort. 
 But the three new diggers, who were the first to ob- 
 tain theirs on the Monday morning, did not wait to 
 read the regulations. Two of them rushed back 
 through the heat to Black Hill Flat, where Doherty 
 had turned the first sod, and Denis many more, be- 
 fore Moseley rejoined them at his leisure. 
 
 Rather more than a foot's depth of black soil was 
 soon turned up, and then rather less than another 
 foot of reddish-coloured clay, much harder to work 
 upon ; by the time he was through this layer, Denis 
 perspired freely, and was inclined to be irritable
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM 135 
 
 with Moseley, who was for " trying a tub " already, 
 and seemed for once to have Jimmy with him. 
 
 " The wash-dirt 's from six to twelve feet down," 
 Denis objected. " Everybody says so ; and we shall 
 hardly get as far to-day. Besides, where 's the 
 cradle to try your tub in ? I thought we would 
 pick one up this evening." 
 
 " We might have tried some in a tin," said Mose- 
 ley, who, like many a mild being, had no slight gift 
 of opposition. " The way to paddock is to keep 
 on trying it all the way down. That 's what we 
 used to do on Bendigo." 
 
 " What 's paddocking ? " 
 
 Moseley smiled, though with perfect amiability. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you do n't know ? " 
 
 " I was n't on Bendigo." 
 
 " Well, it 's the most superficial form of surfacing. 
 But I 'm not set on it," added Moseley, with obvious 
 sincerity. " I only thought as it was cold tack for 
 dinner, and three of us can't work at the hole, it 
 would be something for me to do; but it really 
 does n't matter." 
 
 " My dear fellow, of course do as you like," urged 
 Denis, as Moseley 's tone made him critical of his 
 own. " You 're the experienced man, after all, and 
 we 're mates, not skipper and mate. Try a tinful 
 by all means." 
 
 " No ; on second thoughts, it 's a long way to the 
 water ; but I '11 tell you what I might do," said 
 Moseley, brightening. " I might go and buy the
 
 136 DENIS DENT 
 
 Long Tom while you two work at the hole. That 's 
 a thing I could do, for it won't be the first I 've 
 bought." 
 
 Denis felt constrained to consent to this, but with 
 misgivings, for his comrades' notions of economy 
 were not his own. It was Moseley who had bought 
 the pick and shovel, of their neighbours from New- 
 castle, with other articles of which the Tynesiders 
 had duplicates, on the Saturday night, when, for all 
 he knew, Denis might have returned with those very- 
 purchases ; and the canny north-countrymen had 
 found a customer after their own shrewd hearts. 
 Now the fellow said he would not be gone an hour, 
 which augured another incontinent bargain ; and 
 Denis dug on grimly into an eighteen-inch layer of 
 stones and sand. He was not particularly pleased 
 with Jimmy either ; the little fool had looked so 
 confoundedly eager at the prospect of a premature 
 test, so ridiculously disappointed when Denis 
 put his foot on it. However, he had not said a 
 word, nor did he now that they were alone, which 
 was more unusual. He merely looked on rather 
 wistfully, because Denis would do all the work ; but 
 presently he began looking even more wistfully to- 
 ward the tent ; for a long hour had doubled itself, 
 and still Moseley did not return, and still Denis 
 wielded pick and shovel by untiring turns. 
 
 At last came Moseley, strolling with a huge 
 cigar, and a box of them under one arm, but no 
 cradle.
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM 137 
 
 " I've got it," said he. " It'll be here directly; 
 a couple of Chinamen are bringing it slung on a 
 bamboo pole. I got it you for thirty bob. But 
 look here what I have brought a box of the best 
 but they 're out of my private pocket, and better 
 not ask the price." 
 
 That day they got down four or five feet, and 
 tried two or three tubs toward evening, walking 
 over half a mile with each, first and last, and ex- 
 tracting altogether one pennyweight of gold 
 precisely, or about four shillings sterling. And 
 the expenses of the party to this date were 
 18 IDS. 
 
 The first week's record was bad enough to make 
 them laugh and too bad to continue. Washing 
 everything after the second day, they had exactly 
 half an ounce of gold dust by next Saturday night, 
 while their further expenses amounted to several 
 pounds. Everything but meat was at a fancy price, 
 and in the beginning some new appliance was 
 wanted every day. Denis held out against the 
 dearer items as long as he could in decency, but it 
 did not grow easier to restrict the partner who had 
 contributed the lion's share of capital. The second 
 week realized three ounces (12 is. 6d.), and cost less, 
 though Moseley insisted on laying in fifty pounds of 
 flour as a bargain for 2 153. Denis for one, however, 
 refused to be comforted by the second week. It 
 was not bad, but to him a total and immediate fail- 
 ure would have been more acceptable than the
 
 138 DENIS DENT 
 
 prospect of a run of such insignificant success. 
 The second week raised neither high hopes nor a 
 laugh; the third began better, with an ounce on 
 the Monday, but dropped at once to three or four 
 pennyweight a day. This was worse than Moseley 
 had done on Bendigo, and he was soon advocating 
 a new claim on some lead that held good to the 
 water's edge ; but Denis was not so readily deterred, 
 much less since at the outset he had invented a con- 
 trivance which reduced to a minimum the natural 
 disadvantages of the flat, in the shape of a hand-bar- 
 row to hold as much wash-dirt as half-a-dozen tubs, 
 and so save as many journeys to and from the river. 
 It was only a couple of saplings with a few feet of 
 canvas nailed across, which it took two to carry 
 when full, but nobody happened to have thought of 
 it before, and it was a success when nothing else 
 succeeded. 
 
 These beginners had begun badly in every other 
 way. There was really nothing romantic in the life 
 as they found it. It was only fascinating to the 
 spectator, or to the exceptionally successful per- 
 former. They had ceased to be spectators with the 
 turning of their own first sod. There were many 
 discomforts in the life. Moseley was quite an in- 
 famous cook, yet it was the one direction in which 
 he exerted himself at all. He was still rather amus- 
 ing, and would have been a capital companion in 
 triumphant times, but Denis was no longer easily 
 amused. Doherty was also disappointing ; he had
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM 139 
 
 not been the same bright boy since Canvas Town. 
 Denis himself was seen to have a temper, and not 
 unknown to lose it ; but they had drifted into a belt 
 of unromantic experience not innocent of the 
 actively abominable. One morning Denis woke 
 itching ; and in the leaden light he thought it was 
 oatmeal on the rolled blanket which was his only 
 pillow ; but minute movements betrayed a nauseating 
 form of life ; in a word, the whole of his scanty bed- 
 clothes were most thoroughly fly-blown. The day 
 went in boiling them in salt and water, which car- 
 ried the offense to heaven, and during this horrid 
 task Denis did talk of pastures new, which Moseley 
 at once went to seek. After a discreet interval he 
 returned with glowing accounts of a disused hole 
 near at hand on the Native Youth, and before sun- 
 down the three started off with ropes and spars to 
 place across the top for a preliminary descent; 
 luckily one of them threw down a log to stand on, 
 the bottom being under water ; for in another in- 
 stant the pit was more alive than Denis's blankets, 
 but with writhing bodies and red eyes enough to 
 furnish forth a reptile house. Denis cut a slip from 
 one of the spars, penciled the word SNAKES on 
 both sides, and planted it like a rose-label as close 
 as possible to the brink of this dreadful hole. Nor 
 was the unfortunate day complete until they had 
 tried a tub at the old place without getting a grain. 
 It was the twelfth of November in all fitness a Fri- 
 day and this is its candid record.
 
 140 DENIS DENT 
 
 Moseley began to talk seriously of throwing the 
 whole thing up. It was plain that he regretted his 
 second innings on the gold-fields, yet he was not the 
 man to desert his mates, and this soon became the 
 greatest embarrassment of all. There was much 
 that was lovable in Moseley. He was the cheeriest 
 member of the party, and in happier circumstances 
 might have been its life and soul. As it was, some 
 ready conceit would often turn aside that wrath 
 which indolence and inefficiency were peculiarly 
 calculated to excite in Denis ; yet Moseley was nat- 
 urally indolent, and his inefficiency seemed nothing 
 less than catholic. He might have been a genius, 
 but if so it was at nothing that counted on the dig- 
 gings. There he was unstable, indecisive, happy- 
 go-lucky, a trifler, a procrastinator ; hopelessly un- 
 practical himself, and what was much more tire- 
 some, a consistent caviller at the practical in others. 
 His equally consistent good-humour was his saving 
 merit ; it also made him in a sense incorrigible, for 
 one must be more of a brute than Denis could ever 
 have been to blame with any bitterness a man who 
 was at all times unaffectedly prepared to blame him- 
 self. There was, however, one occasion upon which 
 even Denis felt inclined to say exactly what he felt 
 and rather more. He had at last written a letter, 
 and on returning from the creek with Doherty, had 
 found it gone from the rack which a few stitches 
 had made in the canvas over the place where he 
 laid his head.
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM 141 
 
 " Where 's my letter ? " he asked at once. His 
 tanned face was pale as well as blank. 
 
 " It 's gone," replied Moseley, with a reassuring 
 nod. 
 
 " Gone ! Who sent it ? " 
 
 " I did, with one of my own. I say, I hope I 
 have n't done wrong, Dent ? It 's English mail day, 
 you know, and I thought you 'd forgotten it." 
 
 " I knocked off early on purpose to take it my- 
 self." 
 
 " I 'm awfully sorry, Dent, but I happened to see 
 that it was already stamped." 
 
 " It 's all right, Moseley," said Denis, conquering 
 his displeasure, " and of course I 'm really very 
 much obliged to you, though I came back on pur- 
 pose to post it myself. It was very good of you to 
 trouble." 
 
 Moseley was beginning to look embarrassed, and 
 not merely because he had meant well and done ill. 
 He had not taken so very much trouble after all, 
 and he was too good a fellow to retain more credit 
 than his due. 
 
 "There was an old soldier came along," said 
 Moseley, colouring : " not a bad old chap, but a bit 
 of a gossip; he had a look down the hole, and 
 asked how we were doing, and drank a pannikin 
 of tea. As he was going to the post-office, and 
 offered to post my letter for me, I let him take them 
 both." 
 
 Denis could hardly believe his ears.
 
 142 DENIS DENT 
 
 " You gave my letter to a strange digger ? " 
 
 " And my own with it, Dent." 
 
 " A man you 'd never set eyes on before ? " 
 
 " I certainly never had ; but we had quite a long 
 chat first, and he seemed a decent soul enough. I 
 saw no reason to distrust him, at any rate. I know 
 what you 're saying to yourself," added Moseley, as 
 Denis smiled sardonically ; " but I 've been more 
 careful since the lesson I had the night we met. 
 Even if I 'm still the worst judge of character in 
 the world, what object could anybody have in 
 tampering with simple letters like ours ? " 
 
 The ingenuous question gave Denis an idea. 
 
 " What was the fellow like to look at ? " he 
 asked in his turn. 
 
 " Oh, just a respectable elderly man, not much 
 of the old soldier about him, but the diggings must 
 be crawling with them, and how many look the 
 part ? " 
 
 " Then how do you know he was one ? " 
 
 " He told me, of course." 
 
 " Had he a beard ? " 
 
 " That goes without saying." Moseley and Denis 
 were each growing one. 
 
 " But was his beard dyed ? " 
 
 " No gray." 
 
 " It should be gray," said Denis, grimly. " Did 
 he tell you which diggings he came from ? " 
 
 " Sailor's Gully." 
 
 Denis breathed again. He knew that Devenish
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM 143 
 
 and Jewson were at the Gravel Pits. He had really 
 no reason to connect the man who had taken the 
 letters with the man whom he had in mind ; and 
 further questioning finally relieved him of the idea, 
 partly because Moseley was unconsciously anxious 
 to make the best of his emissary. But the alterca- 
 tion had stirred the emotions of both young men ; 
 neither spoke in his natural voice ; each resembled 
 an unpleasing portrait of himself. So much had 
 been said, however, that it was an opportunity for 
 saying more. 
 
 " You know, Dent," Moseley went on, " I 've had 
 enough of the whole thing. I made a mistake when 
 I turned back with you, instead of taking the first 
 ship home as I had intended." 
 
 Denis said nothing. The sentiment expressed 
 was too identical with his own. Doherty reduced 
 the considerate distance to which he had withdrawn, 
 and there was no doubt he was beginning to listen. 
 
 " But I had n't written to say I was going home," 
 continued Moseley, " so I 'm expecting my money 
 at Christmas. It won't be much thirty pounds 
 but it 's sure. You see, my father was n't so san- 
 guine as I was when I came out, and he's allowing 
 me sixty pounds a year." 
 
 Moseley smiled a little sadly. Doherty drew a 
 few steps nearer. Denis had become a picturesque 
 study in sympathy, framed in the opening of the 
 tent. 
 
 " I wish I could persuade you to come home
 
 144 DENIS DENT 
 
 with me after Christmas ! " said Moseley, wistfully 
 enough. 
 
 Doherty looked tragically at Denis, but could 
 have flung up his wide-awake at the way Denis 
 shook his head without a word. 
 
 " Then I '11 be shot if I go either ! " cried Mose- 
 ley, with a noble tremor in his voice. 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " urged Denis, while Doherty 
 spun round on his heel. 
 
 " No," said Moseley, " you stood by me, and I '11 
 stand by you as long as you stay on Ballarat. It 's 
 no use talking, because I won't listen to a word. 
 You went through fire for me, Dent you both did 
 and I "d go through fire and water for you ! And 
 look here, Dent, I '11 never do another silly thing, 
 and 1 11 work harder and cook better you mark 
 my words ! " 
 
 They were such as neither listener had ever 
 heard from him before; but, Doherty was no 
 longer listening with any interest, and Denis was 
 too much affected to perceive that the humourist of 
 the party was surpassing himself when least intend- 
 ing it. All he could do was to drop his two hands 
 on Moseley's shoulders, and shake him affection- 
 ately until the fellow smiled. 
 
 " But what about the thirty pounds, when it 
 comes ? " asked Denis, with presence of mind and 
 some sudden eagerness. 
 
 Moseley's face lit up with the sacred flame of 
 loyalty.
 
 THE FIRST CLAIM 145 
 
 " It goes into the Company ! " said he. " I '11 
 back you with my last stiver as long as you stay on 
 Ballarat ! "
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 A PIOUS FRAUD 
 
 SO the little Company continued its existence, 
 and on Black Hill Flat, because Denis was 
 more and more against sinking a second hole 
 until there was no more gold to be got out of the 
 first. It was like his thoroughness and tenacity of 
 character, but was inconsistent with his original at- 
 titude as a digger. A moderate success was of no 
 use to him ; it must be a small fortune, or it might 
 as well be nothing at all. So it had been in the 
 beginning, and it was obviously still the case. Yet 
 there was no shifting Denis while there was a 
 pennyweight to the tub, and once there was nearly 
 an ounce, and one day in November yielded two 
 ounces four pennyweight. He was further fortified 
 by the opinion of one whom he instinctively re- 
 garded as an expert. Passing with Moseley through 
 Rotten Gully, on the Old Eureka Lead, to look at 
 one of the many sites which his companion fancied 
 in these days, Denis became much more interested 
 in a very well-built hut in juxtaposition to an evi- 
 dently deep hole with a capital windlass atop. A 
 fellow with trim whiskers and an expression of 
 splendid disgust was turning the handle, and as
 
 A PIOUS FRAUD 147 
 
 they watched a very muddy digger came up stand- 
 ing in the pail, from which he stepped with as much 
 daintiness as a lady with a dress to spoil. " Thank 
 you," said this one in an off-hand way to the other, 
 but Denis he favoured with a stare, followed by the 
 shortest of nods, for it was the deep-sinker who had 
 recommended Black Hill Flat. 
 
 " Did you try the Flat ? " said he. 
 
 " I 've been trying it ever since," returnd Denis, and 
 soon added with what result. He was furthermore 
 able to answer one or two technical questions in 
 such a way as to interest the deep-sinker, who 
 seemed quite struck with the simple device of the 
 hand-barrow. 
 
 " Well," said he, as the partners were taking their 
 leave, " I can't help my opinion, and I Ve got it 
 still. I believe there 's gold on Black Hill Flat, and 
 plenty of it ; what 's more, it 's the sort of nice dry 
 place where it should be pretty near the surface, if 
 it 's there at all. But, of course, you might prick 
 about for a year without finding it. I 'm sorry I 
 said so much about the place the other day ; if I 
 had n't I 'd give you another piece of advice now, 
 and that would be to take your time and go in for 
 deep sinking. You 're too good a man for surfac- 
 ing. Good-afternoon to you, and better luck." 
 And he ducked into his hut with a last least nod. 
 
 The upshot of this conversation, and of another 
 between Denis and Moseley upon the obvious qual- 
 ity of the deep-sinker, was that Moseley went
 
 148 DENIS DENT 
 
 " pricking about " the flat while Denis persisted in 
 the old hole, and Jim Doherty oscillated between 
 the pair. Nothing more came of it. Moseley was 
 a poor digger, who scarcely pricked skin-deep. He 
 soon went back to his evil cooking, which, how- 
 ever, had been less evil since the little scene with 
 Denis. His chops oftener hit a medium between 
 the blue-raw and done-to-a-rag extremes ; but his 
 bread would still have murdered a dyspeptic, and 
 the lean but hungry Doherty was laid up for forty- 
 eight hours after one of Moseley 's duffs. Denis 
 himself little knew how many of his sleepless nights 
 he owed to the same devastating cause; and on 
 Black Hill Flat he slept the sleep of the lost. 
 
 Early to bed was the digger's natural law, but if 
 Denis kept it he would be wide awake by the small- 
 est hours, and so lie tossing till the Flat was astir. 
 He found it a lesser evil to sit up late over a lonely 
 camp-fire, and beguiled these vigils with congenial 
 employment. He was making a new map of the 
 diggings. This one was in ink on a clean piece of 
 cardboard cut to fit the jacket pocket. It grew out 
 of odd scraps marked in pencil on Denis's walks 
 abroad ; some of the latter were taken on purpose 
 during these very sleepless nights. So the map 
 was his own, correct or incorrect, and it was made 
 on his own plan. It was largely geological. There 
 were the depths of sinkings where Denis could 
 ascertain them, and the various leads flowed in 
 rivers of bold red ink, which made up for any lack
 
 A PIOUS FRAUD 149 
 
 of academic accuracy by a rather stimulating appeal 
 to the imagination. But that was to come ; as yet 
 it was a spy's map, which even Jimmy had not 
 seen. 
 
 And sometimes when it had been put away for 
 the night, and there was enough fire still to kick 
 into a redder glow, or a great white moon in the 
 sky, then Denis would loosen the shirt that he but- 
 toned higher than most, and there was the little 
 ring his Nan had given him, the red-white-and- 
 blue of its ruby, diamond, and sapphire, twinkling 
 and glittering as it had in the light of day upon her 
 finger; and there was the lanyard of her beloved 
 hair ; and it, too, shone as though still upon her 
 sunny head : and so he thought she told him she 
 was well. But what had he to tell her ? He had 
 stayed behind to do something that was not yet 
 fairly begun, and already two months were up. 
 There were times when Denis did not regret the 
 letter which might never arrive. Its unredeemed 
 tale had cost him much in the unvarnished telling 
 on which his nature insisted; what if it were to 
 cost him as much again in her sight ? There could 
 be, after all, but one excuse for his separate ex- 
 istence at Ballarat. And when he realized this, it 
 was a hard, dark face that Denis turned to great 
 white moon or little red fire ; it was dark with dis- 
 gust of self and circumstance ; it was harder than 
 ever with a determination which had never wavered. 
 
 After one such night in the middle of December,
 
 150 DENIS DENT 
 
 the beginning of the end came quite quietly and 
 naturally at the following evening's meal. Moseley 
 had received his remittance, days before it was due, 
 and, as Denis said, it could not have come at a 
 better time. At this the moneyed partner had 
 looked up from his platter in somewhat anxious 
 inquiry. 
 
 " Because I 'm going to take your advice," ex- 
 plained Denis, " and give in and clear out ! " 
 
 " Home to England ? " cried Moseley, while 
 Doherty stayed the hand that held a loaded fork. 
 
 Denis shook his head, and Moseley's face fell a 
 little ; but Doherty sat munching with a satisfaction 
 as solid as the morsel in his mouth. 
 
 " Eureka ? " inquired Moseley, putting a brave 
 face on it. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Canadian Gully ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 " The Gravel Pits ? " 
 
 " No, thank you." 
 
 " I know ! " chimed in Doherty. " Sailor's 
 Gully ! " 
 
 " No, Jimmy." 
 
 " Little Bendigo, then ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Jimmy said he gave it up. But Moseley had an 
 idea. 
 
 " Not the other Bendigo, Dent ? " 
 
 Denis smiled. " From what you 've always said,"
 
 A PIOUS FRAUD 151 
 
 he went on, " it 's the better diggings of the 
 two." 
 
 " I believe it is," said Moseley, doubtfully. 
 
 " Not quite so over-run and overdone, you 
 know." 
 
 " No ; that is so, I 'm sure ; but but, I say, 
 Dent, I do n't want to show my face there again, I 
 do n't really ! " said Moseley, with a manifold anx- 
 iety more droll than he supposed. " You may 
 laugh," he went on, smiling himself, " but I did n't 
 commit a crime there, though you might think it. 
 I did n't even tell a lie. But I did pretend that I 
 had done pretty well. I let them think I was on 
 the point of sailing, cock-a-hoop, for England home 
 and beauty ! " 
 
 " And so you are," said Denis at length. He 
 spoke very quietly, but with a conviction that 
 turned Moseley's blushes to an almost passionate 
 glow. Yet in an instant the loyal creature was 
 fighting his heart's desire. 
 
 " I do n't want to desert you," he said. " I do n't 
 and won't ! " 
 
 " Then you keep us here." 
 
 " I do n't want to do that either. Yet you see 
 my position about Bendigo?" And his troubled 
 glance included Doherty, whose brown face was 
 also awry with mixed feeling. 
 
 " We see it perfectly, my dear fellow," Denis an- 
 swered ; " and if we ever have another mate " 
 (Doherty looked up quickly), " may he be half as
 
 152 DENIS DENT 
 
 staunch as you ! We have done our best, but so 
 far we Ve made a mess of it. You had had enough 
 in October, and you 've wasted these two months 
 on our account out of the sheer goodness of your 
 heart ; my dear Moseley, you sha' n't waste another 
 week. You 've tried Bendigo, and we have n't ; 
 you go home with as good a conscience as you 
 leave us, and in three or four months I shall follow 
 you." 
 
 And they really parted in three or four days, and 
 at a point not very much further than that from 
 which they had first beheld the tents and mud-heaps 
 of Ballarat ; only Jimmy looked his last on them 
 with a sigh, and even he had recovered his spirits 
 when it came to clasping hands. But all three had 
 light hearts at the end, and shoulders to match ; for 
 they had sold their entire kit at the very fair figure 
 of 11 $s. They had also cash in hand to the tune 
 of 2 us. 6d., so that the Bendigonians had nearly 
 10 as their share, to take with them to the new 
 field, but as Denis said, at least a hundred pounds' 
 worth of experience to put to it. He it was who 
 had kept the accounts, all through, and he who 
 would not hear of Moseley's generous but unfair 
 proposals at the end. It may be added that the 
 Company's debt to the latter had been duly, if not 
 forcibly, discharged ; but after all, they had taken 
 some thirteen ounces of gold out of the maligned 
 hole on Black Hill Flat, and sold the same for over
 
 A PIOUS FRAUD 153 
 
 Denis and Jim stood without speaking while 
 Moseley hurried away from them down the Mel- 
 bourne road ; but it may have been that their hands 
 ached more from his than did their hearts. When 
 he had waved his wideawake at the bend, and they 
 theirs for the last time, it is certain that from that 
 moment the original pair were more to each other 
 than they had been for two wearisome months. 
 They had almost as much to say as if they had been 
 separated for the same period. But it was not 
 Moseley that they discussed ; it was their own new 
 prospects, ways, and means. Nor had Denis long 
 to wait for Mr. Doherty's earlier manner, which got 
 up like a breeze in the free expression of his opin- 
 ion that ten pounds was not enough to " see " them 
 to Bendigo, " let alone starting of us when we gets 
 there." 
 
 " Perhaps it is n't," said Denis, slackening a stride 
 which had lacked something since the parting of the 
 ways. " Let 's sit down under that gum-tree and 
 talk about it. If you are right," continued Denis, 
 paring a slab of tobacco when they were duly 
 seated, " it might be better to turn back to Dallarat 
 instead of going on to Bendigo." 
 
 The matter-of-fact tone in which Denis made this 
 startling suggestion betrayed him to Doherty with- 
 out more ado. " You meant to do it all along ! " 
 said he. 
 
 " It was the only way to do it," returned Denis, 
 rubbing his tobacco between both palms, " without
 
 154 DENIS DENT 
 
 hurting anybody's feelings. Now he need never 
 know. He had a heart of gold, Jimmy, but it was 
 the only kind we should have got with him ; and 
 that 's the last word about him now he 's gone, poor 
 chap ! Back he goes to Silly Suffolk, and back we 
 go to Ballarat with nine-pound-three between us ! 
 But no more nice dry games on Black Hill Flat, or 
 anywhere else where the chances are big and the 
 certainties next to nothing ; we 're going to sink 
 deep and wet and dirty, Jimmy ; and we 're not go- 
 ing to sink on chance again." 
 
 Jimmy's eyes were wide open in all senses at 
 once. 
 
 " Sink deep on nine-pound-three, mister ? And 
 you 've been studyin' the 'ole game all this time ? " 
 
 " There 's this," said Denis, producing Bullocky's 
 nugget. " I believe you still have its fellow." 
 
 " And many 's the time I 've thought of it," cried 
 Jimmy ; " but you said we was to keep them for- 
 ever for luck ! " 
 
 " A lot of luck they 've brought us," said Denis ; 
 " on the other hand, I Ve learned a lot since then, 
 and even now I do n't propose to part with them 
 altogether. No, but since the devil drives we must 
 raise our fresh capital on them, and so let them 
 bring us luck after all. If they do we can soon re- 
 deem them ; and I mean them to, Jimmy, this time. 
 Come a bit nearer : I Ve something to show you," 
 continued Denis, drawing out his new map. " I Ve 
 made this at odd times, some of it when you and
 
 A PIOUS FRAUD 155 
 
 Moseley were fast asleep. I do n't say it 's accurate, 
 but it 's given me a better grasp of the diggings as 
 a whole than ever I had before, and I should like it 
 to do the same for you. You see the double lines 
 straggling from top to bottom like a bit of loose 
 tape?" 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " That 's the Yarrowee." 
 
 " And the little squares sprinkled all over ? " 
 
 " Fancy tents." 
 
 " And the blots in between ? " 
 
 " The holes belonging to them." 
 
 " And the centipedes, or whatever they are ? " 
 
 "The Seven Hills of Ballarat, Jimmy! Bakery 
 Hill, Specimen Hill, and all the rest." 
 
 " And the hanks of red ink in between the hills, 
 twisting all over the place, under half the tents and 
 holes ; you must have put 'em in first, mister ; they 
 look like rivers of blood. I 'm blessed if I know 
 what else they do look like ! " 
 
 " They 're rivers of gold, Jimmy, and I did put 
 them in first." 
 
 Jimmy looked up very quizzically, for, of course, he 
 felt he was being quizzed, and made a scathing in- 
 quiry as to the green that was or was not in his pierc- 
 ing eye. But Denis swore to his golden rivers, and 
 then admitted they were underground, which height- 
 ened Jimmy's interest while it restored his faith. 
 
 " They 're the leads, of course," continued Denis ; 
 " and the leads are neither more nor less than rivers
 
 156 DENIS DENT 
 
 of gold, flowing on the bed-rock at heights varying 
 with its height, or, if you like, frozen where they 
 flowed a million years ago. On the whole they flow 
 thin, and you only get so much to the tub ; but like 
 other rivers they have their thicker backwaters, and 
 here and there their absolutely stagnant pools ; those 
 are their ' pockets ' and their ' jewelers' shops,' as 
 they call them and as we shall call ours one of 
 these days. But it will take time, Jimmy, perhaps 
 weeks and months, before we sink deep enough to 
 begin driving right and left as all the deep sinkers 
 do. If it was n't for that I should have shown 
 Moseley my hand. He never could have held out, 
 and he would have hindered us who can and will. 
 He was longing to go, and he may be back in Silly 
 Suffolk before we get down deep enough to do much 
 good." 
 
 Doherty began to feel consoled for a prospect 
 which could not but chill his younger blood a little. 
 He did not wish to be months in getting to the 
 gold ; at any rate he would have preferred not to 
 know that they might be months ; but still less did 
 he want Moseley back. He was content therefore 
 to inquire how Denis could know before he went 
 to work that he was sinking in the right place. 
 And in a moment their heads were together again 
 over the map. 
 
 " You remember what the squares and blots 
 are ? " 
 
 " Tents and holes."
 
 A PIOUS FRAUD 157 
 
 " Then do n't you see how they follow and fill 
 the red rivers ? " 
 
 " There 's nothing else from bank to bank." 
 
 " Well, we 've only got to squeeze in between 
 any of them, on the lead we decide on, say Eureka, 
 or Sailor's Gully, wherever there 's room to peg out 
 a claim and pitch a tent. Now look up to the top 
 of the map, and tell me if you see that square and 
 blot all by themselves." 
 
 " I see them." 
 
 " High and dry on the banks of one red river, in- 
 stead of on the river itself? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " That was our old claim."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 A WINDFALL 
 
 THE pair had passed the place where they 
 had waved farewell to Moseley, and were in 
 sound but not quite in sight of all that one 
 of them had never expected to see or to hear again, 
 when a voice hailed them in the rear, and they 
 found that a buggy and pair had crept upon them 
 while they talked. Doherty was filled with appre- 
 hension. He had not been so happy for two 
 months. But Denis was much interested in the 
 driver of the buggy, who drove alone, and who 
 looked as though he might have been got up in 
 Bedford Row, what with his black silk stock, his 
 high hat still shining through its layer of yellow 
 dust, and his spectacled face clean-shaven to the 
 lips. 
 
 " May I ask if you are Ballarat diggers," said he, 
 " or new arrivals like myself? " 
 
 " We are diggers," replied Denis, " and Ballarat 's 
 just over that hill." 
 
 " So I should suppose," observed the gentleman 
 from afar, and proceeded to weigh the couple with 
 a calculating eye. " Been at it long ? " he added 
 as one who did not find them altogether wanting.
 
 A WINDFALL 159 
 
 " A couple of months." 
 
 " H'mph ! Not so long as I should have liked, 
 but there 's just a chance that you can help me, as I 
 am sure you will, sir," nodding at Denis, who nod- 
 ded back, " if you can. Perhaps the lad will be so 
 kind as to hold my horse. Thanky. Not that it 's 
 mine at all," the incongruous gentleman went on, 
 as he flung down the reins and addressed himself 
 to the contents of a small black bag. " I could n't 
 afford twenty-four hours in Melbourne waiting 
 for the coach, so I had to hire, with all sorts of 
 arrangements for changing horses on the way. But 
 my coachman was in liquor before midnight, and 
 when I left him, appropriately enough at Bacchus 
 Marsh, early this morning, I was n't going to trust 
 myself to another. If you have a tongue in your 
 head, sir, you can find your own way from Lincoln's 
 Inn to John o' Groats. Ah, now I have it ! " and 
 he produced a photograph, of the carte-de-visite 
 size then alone in vogue, and shook it playfully at 
 Denis before putting it into his outstretched hand. 
 " There, sir ! " he wound up. " If you happen to 
 know that face, just say so ; and if you do not know 
 it, have the goodness not to pretend you do. The 
 answer to the question is Yes or No." 
 
 Denis looked upon the full-length presentment of 
 a very tall gentleman, in a frock-coat, a white waist- 
 coat, and an attitude as stiff as the heart of early 
 Victorian photographer could desire. An elbow 
 rested on the pedestal of a draped pillar, and the
 
 160 DENIS DENT 
 
 thumb of that hand in the watch-pocket ; but the 
 handsome face looked contemptuously conscious of 
 its own self-consciousness, only it was the very 
 gentlest contempt, and Denis recognized the expres- 
 sion before the face. Strip off his muddy rags, re- 
 apparel him thus, shave his chin and nick his beard 
 into flowing whiskers, and there was their friend the 
 deep-sinker, hardly a day younger than when Denis 
 had last seen him on his claim in Rotten Gully. 
 
 " The answer is Yes," he said, returning the like- 
 ness. 
 
 " You are sure of that ? " 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 " You do n't want the lad to confirm your view ? " 
 
 " As you like ; but he has only seen him once, and 
 I have twice. It 's the deep-sinker, Jimmy," added 
 Denis over his shoulder. 
 
 The shaven gentleman pulled a wry face. 
 
 " May I ask if that 's the only name you know 
 him by ? " 
 
 " I have never heard his name ; but that 's what 
 he is, and the most scientific one I Ve come across." 
 
 The wry face went into a dry smile. 
 
 " And do you know where to find him ?" 
 
 " Well, I know his claim." 
 
 " Would you very much mind getting up beside 
 me and directing me how to drive there ? " 
 
 " I should be delighted to have the lift." 
 
 " Thanky. There '11 be room for your young 
 friend behind. This is one of those happy coinci-
 
 A WINDFALL 161 
 
 dences which almost give one back one's childish 
 belief in luck ! " 
 
 The diggings were in the state of suspended ani- 
 mation which was their normal condition from 
 twelve to three. The latest pilgrim blinked about 
 him through his spectacles, more interested than 
 impressed with what he saw. Denis took the reins, 
 turned off the road at once, found a ford in the 
 northern bend of the Yarrowee, and drove straight 
 into an outpost of windsails and windlasses hidden 
 away behind the hill. In another minute the buggy 
 drew up beside the deep-sinker's solid little hut, in 
 whose shade his soured assistant sat asleep, with 
 his eyebrows up and the corners of his mouth 
 turned down, even in his dreams. 
 
 " Where 's your master ? " demanded the visitor, 
 causing Denis and Doherty to exchange glances ; 
 but the other merely opened a long-suffering eye, 
 pointed indoors, and had closed it again before the 
 gentleman descended. 
 
 At his request, the partners remained in the 
 buggy, where they spent an interval of a few min- 
 utes in covetous admiration of the neat hut with its 
 bark roof, the iron windlass, the stack of timber 
 slabs for lining the shaft, and the suggestively solid 
 opening of the shaft itself. They agreed to look 
 down, if not to descend, with the deep-sinker's per- 
 mission, before departure. Meanwhile his quiet 
 voice was not to be heard outside, but the visitor's 
 was, and eventually the pair emerged.
 
 162 DENIS DENT 
 
 " But I 'm just going to touch bottom," the tall 
 digger expostulated. " After weeks and months 
 I 'm all but on it, and now you want to carry me 
 off!" 
 
 The visitor whispered some smiling argument, 
 which elicited a shrug of familiar and restrained 
 contempt. 
 
 " It is n't the money," said the tall man. " It 's 
 the fun of the thing, do n't you know." 
 
 The visitor took out his watch as though they 
 could just catch a train. 
 
 " I 've arranged for fresh horses all along the 
 road," said he. " These have only done ten miles, 
 and they can do the same ten back again. I hope 
 I made it plain about the first ship. It may sail 
 the day after to-morrow." 
 
 The digger sighed inevitable acquiescence. He 
 looked rather sadly, yet with some quiet amuse- 
 ment, at his rude little home, at the good wind- 
 lass on its staging stamped against the sky. His 
 assistant had meanwhile risen from his slumbers, 
 and was standing respectfully at hand. 
 
 " Charles," said the digger, " I 've got to go home. 
 Are you coming with me, or will you stay out here 
 and make your fortune out of the hole ? I '11 make 
 you a present of it if you will." 
 
 But the look of splendid disgust had vanished as 
 if by magic from the assistant's face. " I '11 go 
 home with you, sir ! " he said emphatically, and 
 then looked from one gentleman to the other, as
 
 A WINDFALL 163 
 
 though he might have committed a solecism. He 
 was forthwith ordered into the hut to put his mas- 
 ter's things together, with a grim smile on the mas- 
 ter's part, who proceeded at last to notice Denis, or 
 at any rate to record such notice with his fraction 
 of a nod. 
 
 " So it 's to you I owe my prompt discovery," 
 said he. " Ton my word I 'm not as grateful to 
 you as I ought to be ! Doing any better on Black 
 Hill Flat?" 
 
 " I 've left it," said Denis, rather shortly. 
 
 " Where are you now ? " 
 
 " Nowhere. We have sold up and are going to 
 start again. Your friend has given us a lift, for 
 which we 're much obliged, but I think the horses 
 would stand all right without us." 
 
 " Would you like to take over this claim and 
 hole?" 
 
 " I have no money," said Denis. Behind him 
 Doherty had given a gasp, followed by something 
 like a sob of disappointment. But the deep-sinker 
 wore the broadest smile they had ever seen upon 
 his languid countenance. 
 
 " My dear good fellow, I do n't want money for 
 it ! " cried he. " I want a worthy inheritor with 
 energy and ideas, somebody a cut above the stupid 
 average, and by Jove you 're my very man ! Come 
 on : if you do n't the whole thing will be jumped 
 by the nearest ruffian. I do n't say there 's much 
 in the hole; but it's a good, sound hole as far as it
 
 164 DENIS DENT 
 
 goes, and it can't have to go much further. We 've 
 worked through the light clays and through the sand, 
 and we 're well in the red ; when you get through that 
 you can start washing, and I wish you the luck you 
 deserve. Thank me ? What for ? If you do n't 
 come in some one else will. I am only too glad to 
 leave the little place in such good hands. It was 
 pretty carefully chosen, and if it is n't plumb over 
 the gutter it ought to be." 
 
 So the reconstructed firm of Dent and Doherty 
 became possessed of one of the deepest holes and 
 best-appointed claims on the celebrated Eureka 
 Lead, and all within a few minutes ; for it took the 
 man Charles no longer to collect such chattels as 
 were worth his master's while to take away with 
 him. Thus, ere the diggings were astir again for 
 the afternoon, the new owners were alone in their 
 unforeseen glory, and one of them at least was still 
 capering and singing in his joy. But over Denis a 
 cloud had already fallen ; and there was a blacker 
 cloud on Jimmy when he grasped the cause. 
 
 " It 's Moseley," said Denis. " This is horribly 
 unfair on him." 
 
 "Unfair! How?" 
 
 " Suppose we should have as good luck here as 
 we had bad luck on the flat ! " 
 
 "Well? Did n't he want to be out of it ? Wasn't 
 he longing to go home? " 
 
 " I do n't like it," persisted Denis. " I played a 
 trick on him, but I never thought it would turn out
 
 A WINDFALL 165 
 
 like this. I thought we should spend months doing 
 what we 've after all had done for us." He raised 
 his brooding eyes from the ground, and there was 
 the buggy still in view, labouring in and out among 
 the tents. " Jimmy, you stay on the claim ! " he 
 cried, and dashed after it on the spur of the mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " What 's happened ? " asked the late sinker, 
 pleasantly. " We have n't forgotten anything, have 
 we?" 
 
 " No, but I have," panted Denis, " and if you can 
 help me I '11 be as grateful again to you. There 's 
 a chum of ours who left us only this morning. He 
 was sick of it ; but he little knew the luck that was 
 in store for us. His name 's Moseley, and he was 
 going home in the first ship, which will be your 
 ship, but you will probably overtake him on the 
 road to-night." 
 
 " What 's he like ? " asked the spectacled gentle- 
 man, who no longer drove ; and when Denis told 
 him he was sure he had met Moseley in the fore- 
 noon, and felt confident of recognizing him again. 
 
 " Then will you tell him exactly what has hap- 
 pened to us, and that he shall come in on the old 
 shares if only he '11 come back ? Say we changed 
 our mind about Bendigo ; and say we must be two 
 men and a boy, and we 'd far rather he was the 
 other man than some stranger, especially if there 's 
 a fortune in it. Tell him there probably is ; and if 
 you will tell it him all from his friend, Denis Dent,
 
 166 DENIS DENT 
 
 gentlemen, I can't say how grateful I shall be to 
 you ! " 
 
 Denis had an odd reward for his trouble and this 
 outburst. The tall digger shook hands with him 
 for the first and last time. 
 
 But the climax of the business was to come long 
 before Moseley's answer. Denis had not been five 
 minutes absent, yet on his return to the new claim 
 it was surrounded by a fringe of diggers embel- 
 lished by a posse of mounted men in spruce uni- 
 form. 
 
 " What on earth is it ? " cried Denis, rushing up 
 in alarm. 
 
 " The old story," answered a digger. " Joe ! 
 Joe! Joe!" 
 
 " Traps," added another ; but Denis had not been 
 on the diggings two months without learning the 
 meaning of both words. Either was the diggers' 
 danger signal, and signified a raid by the police in 
 search of their licenses ; in fact, that very sport 
 whose praises Lieutenant Rackham had sung in the 
 ear of his old crony Captain Devenish. 
 
 And it was Rackham who led the present field ; 
 dismounted, he had run his man to earth in the 
 bark-roofed hut; and his man was no more of a 
 man than the unfortunate Doherty, who was cling- 
 ing tooth and nail to the door-post, while Rackham 
 himself, a full-blooded negro in his rage, tugged 
 like a terrier at his ankles. 
 
 " Stick to it, little 'un ! " cried one in good-hu-
 
 A WINDFALL 167 
 
 moured encouragement. " If you do n't, the claim '11 
 be jumped afore your mate gets back." 
 
 " Hold your row," growled another with an oath. 
 " It 's a fine deep hole, and I have a jolly good 
 mind to jump it myself." 
 
 Denis burst through them at that moment. 
 
 " What 's the matter ? " he demanded of Rack- 
 ham ; but he had the sense not to lay a hand on 
 the fellow's uniform, and the black devil let go one 
 of Doherty's ankles. 
 
 " He 's not got his license, and he 's going to the 
 Logs," says Rackham, showing his white teeth in 
 the sun. " Who are you ? " 
 
 " His mate," said Denis. " Do you mind letting 
 go his other leg ? " 
 
 " And where 's your license ? " added Rackham, 
 turning on him as he complied. 
 
 Denis was feeling in his breast pocket with a 
 smile ; before quitting the flat Jimmy had proposed 
 to destroy his Ballarat license as of no further use, 
 but Denis knowing better had got it from him on 
 some pretext. 
 
 " Here is my license and his, too," said he, and 
 handed both to Rackham, who now stood livid and 
 trembling with mortification, under a derisive cross- 
 fire of "Joe! Joe! Joe!" from all sides of the 
 claim. " If you will examine them," added Denis, with 
 the politeness he could afford, " you will find that they 
 both have about a week to run ; and after this you may 
 trust us to take out the new ones in Very good time."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 HATE AND MONEY 
 
 NIGGER RACKHAM had the freedom of 
 the tent on the Gravel Pits, where he 
 would appear sometimes at dead of night, 
 brandishing a bottle and demanding the Welsh 
 rarebit or the savoury omelette at which Jewson 
 had shown himself an adept. Many an impromptu 
 carouse was thus initiated, and it was after one of 
 them that Rackham distinguished himself by whis- 
 tling for a hansom outside the tent. He was a man 
 of violent appetites, whose every vein was swollen 
 with sufficiently savage blood. But he had a crude 
 vitality and a brutal gaiety very bracing on occa- 
 sion, as when he told of Denis's fortunes in one 
 breath, but undertook his ruin in the next. This 
 was a night or two after their collision at the new 
 claim ; the bottle was getting low, and the lieuten- 
 ant's eyes were like living coals. 
 
 " I '11 take it out of him ! I '11 have him at the 
 Logs yet, never fear," said he. " There are only 
 two of them ; some fine morning there '11 be only 
 one, and no license to show. Then away he goes, 
 and if you like you shall jump the claim. But it 
 won't be for another month."
 
 HATE AND MONEY 169 
 
 " Another month ! " echoed Devenish with a blank 
 face. 
 
 " The brutes have taken out their new license a 
 good two days before they need," explained the 
 lieutenant. " That I happen to know, but they 
 do n't know I know it. They 've had a fight, and 
 we are ready for another raid ; if we let them be 
 they won't take such care when this next month 's 
 up. But we must wait till it is up, and we must 
 chance your poor relation growing rich in the 
 time." 
 
 Ralph Devenish sat up smoking for an hour when 
 the bottle was empty and his companion gone. He 
 was much the more temperate man of the two, but 
 patience was not one of his virtues, though it had be- 
 come a necessity of his protracted suit. That only 
 left him with less than ever for the ordinary inci- 
 dents of life, and his experience as a digger had 
 not made Devenish more patient. He had been 
 as lucky at the start as Dent had been unlucky. 
 In these few weeks he had actually netted some 
 three hundred pounds sterling, out of a chain of 
 shallow workings whereby he and others had been 
 tracing the Gravel Pits Lead down its course : only 
 within the last day or two had the lead run into a 
 drift of water which had flooded all the holes and 
 completely damped Ralph's ardour. It was pro- 
 nounced impossible to sink through this drift with- 
 out the tiresome operation known as " puddling " ; 
 and that proved far too heroic a measure for Ralph
 
 170 DENIS DENT 
 
 Devenish, who was only happy when washing his 
 two or three ounces a day. So one morning he was 
 counting on making his three hundred up to five at 
 least, and by the following night he had found out 
 when the next ship sailed from Melbourne. It was 
 at this juncture that Rackham brought word of a 
 contrary turn in the affairs of Denis. The untimely 
 news checked all Ralph's plans. He was not at all 
 inclined to leave his rival with the ball at his feet, 
 and nothing to stop him but the capricious perse- 
 cution of a corrupt constabulary. 
 
 Ralph might have blushed to put it so even to 
 himself, but that was his actual attitude as he sat 
 smoking into the small hours, and so Jewson stole 
 in and found him in the end. Ralph was not 
 startled ; the steward was regularly the last abed ; 
 but now his boots were yellow with fresh dust, and 
 the perspiration showered from his peaked cap as 
 he took it off. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " asked Ralph, raising 
 a morose face to stare. 
 
 " I thought you might like an extra drop to- 
 night," replied the steward, winking and grinning 
 as he produced a bottle, " so I Ve been getting you 
 another of these from where the lieutenant gets 'em. 
 You do n't do your fair share, Captain Devenish, 
 sir, and you may want to when you 've heard my 
 little report." 
 
 " Report of what ? " asked Devenish. But the 
 steward would only chuckle and shake a wicked
 
 HATE AND MONEY 171 
 
 skull until the grog was served out and the pair 
 seated, pannikin to pannikin, on either side of the 
 packing-case that did duty for a table. 
 
 " I heard what you were talking about, you see," 
 began Jewson, wiping the gray moustache from 
 which the dye had almost disappeared. 
 
 " You generally do." 
 
 " And you generally know it, so where 's the 
 harm? But when I hear you talking about the 
 second mate that was," continued the steward, show- 
 ing a whole set of ill-fitting false teeth, " I do more 
 than hear I listen and listen I will whenever I 
 catch his cursed name ! " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, sir, it 's right." 
 
 " What 's right ? " 
 
 " What the lieutenant was telling you. He 's 
 fallen on his feet this time. I 've been to see." 
 
 " You Ve been to Mr. Dent's tent already ? " 
 
 The prefix was a mark which it would have been 
 against Ralph's instincts to overstep with an inferior. 
 It was incongruous enough to curve the corners of 
 the steward's mouth. 
 
 " It ain't a tent," said he, chuckling. " It 's one 
 of the best huts I Ve seen on the diggings." 
 
 " It is, is it ? " 
 
 " Once I 'd found Rotten Gully, which is n't so 
 very far from this, it was easy enough to find the 
 only claim it could be." 
 
 " So it 's as good as all that ! "
 
 172 DENIS DENT 
 
 " To look at," said Jewson, " on a moonlight 
 night. But they 'd their own light burning inside ; 
 you had n't to get very near to hear their voices. 
 They were sitting up yarning, same as you and the 
 lieutenant. Only on tea," added the steward, in the 
 absence of further encouragement. 
 
 " Poor devils ! " remarked Devenish, raising his 
 pannikin. 
 
 " You can't call 'em poor now, sir," declared the 
 steward. " All 's fair in love and war, and I had a 
 look in on 'em like a mouse : they 've proper 
 crockery left 'em by the outgoing tenant, and a 
 proper table to set it on." 
 
 " Anything else?" inquired Ralph, sarcastically. 
 
 Jewson leaned forward and lowered his voice 
 as though they were being spied upon in their 
 turn. 
 
 " Half a saucerful of gold-dust out of the hole ! " 
 
 " Already ! " exclaimed Devenish, dropping re- 
 serve in his astonishment. 
 
 " In the very first day's washing ! They never 
 began until to-day. That 's what 's keeping them 
 up all night," added Jewson. " They Ve started 
 looking ahead, you see. Let me fill up your pan- 
 nikin, Captain Devenish. You do n't get half a 
 chance with Mr. Rackham, sir ! " 
 
 Ralph Devenish was one who carried his liquor 
 in a manner worthy of his blood. His worst friend 
 had seldom seen him fuddled. He was so much 
 the less proof against the deeper and more damning
 
 HATE AND MONEY 173 
 
 effects. His tongue did not slur a syllable that fol- 
 lowed, but it ran away with him all the faster for 
 that. It muttered degrading confidences ; it snarled 
 unscrupulous revenge; it revealed a man so dif- 
 ferent from the Ralph Devenish known of other 
 men that it was as though the drink had gone to 
 his heart instead of to his head. 
 
 " I will marry her ! I swear I will ! We were 
 all but engaged before, and I '11 marry her yet. 
 He never shall. I '11 see him in hell first I '11 send 
 him there myself ! An infernal snob out of the mer- 
 chant service, and his infernal father's son all over ! 
 What 's the matter with you, Jewson ? What are 
 you grinning at?" 
 
 " Only at the idea of you committing a crime, 
 sir. A captain in the Grenadier Guards ! Ho, ho, 
 ho ! " And the steward showed his horrible teeth 
 again ; but there was no mirth in the little black 
 penetrating eyes that were fast to Ralph's. 
 
 " But I would ! " he swore. " I mean to marry 
 her, by hook or crook." 
 
 " You really do ? " said Jewson, turning grave. 
 
 " Fair or foul ! " cried Ralph, recklessly. 
 
 " It 's all one in love and war," repeated the stew- 
 ard, with a shrug. " But if you mean what you 
 say I '11 tell you what to do." 
 
 " You will, will you ? Well, let 's have it." 
 
 " I should do as you were thinking of doing ear- 
 lier in the evening. I should go home by the first 
 ship, and marry her quick ! "
 
 174 DENIS DENT 
 
 " What ! Leave him digging his fortune and 
 writing her all about it every mail ? " 
 
 Devenish had already vowed that he would never 
 do that. He repeated the vow with an oath. 
 
 " But you do n't know that she 's getting any let- 
 ters," remarked Jewson, calmly. 
 
 Ralph gave him a sharp look. " What do you 
 mean by that ? " 
 
 " Only that he may not be writing to her ; he 
 did n't in the beginning, you see ; that letter I 
 posted was his first." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " His mate told me so." 
 
 " You did post it, Jewson ? " 
 
 The steward chuckled as he shook his head. 
 
 " That 's tellings," said he, slyly. " You can 
 think I did n't, or you can think I did. He de- 
 served to have it posted, did n't he ? He deserves 
 so well of me and you, do n't he ? All 's fair in 
 them two things, you know ; if it 's the one thing 
 with you, it 's the other with me ; it 's bloody war 
 between me and the second mate, and will be 
 whether you stay or not ! " 
 
 Devenish was revolted in spite of his worst self. 
 But he was also relieved, and his conscience dead- 
 ened as quickly as it had come to life again. If 
 the letter had not been posted, it was through no 
 fault of his, and even now he knew nothing about 
 it. And if Jewson, for his own reasons, chose to 
 stay behind on the diggings, in order to thwart the
 
 HATE AND MONEY 175 
 
 man who so richly deserved thwarting, neither had 
 he, Ralph, anything on earth to do with that. Yet 
 his nature shrank from such an ally, even as he be- 
 gan to appreciate the creature's value, and he 
 frowned as he filled the Turk's head for the twen- 
 tieth time that night. His hand was as steady as 
 his speech. It was his better nature that was under 
 eclipse. Meanwhile, the steward took the oppor- 
 tunity of surreptitiously replenishing Ralph's pan- 
 nikin, and still more surreptitiously emptying his 
 own upon the ground. 
 
 " So you propose to hold a watching brief on my 
 behalf ? " said Ralph at last, and forced a smile at 
 the idea. 
 
 " I propose to keep an eye on him for you, if 
 that 's what you mean," replied the steward. 
 
 " But Sergeant Rackham 's going to do that as it 
 is. He says he'll be level with our friend in a 
 month." 
 
 " A month ! " echoed Jewson, scornfully. " He '11 
 be a made man in a month, if he goes on as he 's 
 begun. He 's tumbled on a jeweler's shop, or I 'm 
 much mistaken." 
 
 " Well, you can't take it from him, can you ? " 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " You mean you can ! " exclaimed Devenish, irri- 
 tated by the confident subtlety of the man's manner. 
 
 " Oh, no, I do n't." 
 
 Devenish tilted the pannikin and set it down with 
 a clatter.
 
 176 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Then what do you mean ? Out with it, Jew- 
 son. I 'm sick of beating about the bush ! " 
 
 " So am I," said the steward, dryly. 
 
 " If you can't turn a man out of his hole, and 
 prevent him getting all that 's to be got out of it, 
 what on earth can you do that 's any good to me ? " 
 
 " If you went home," said Jewson, slowly, " I 
 could keep him here till it was no use his following 
 you till you were married ! " 
 
 " Oh, so you think you could do all that ? " 
 
 " I know I could, Captain Devenish." 
 
 " You know it, do you ? " 
 
 " Of course, you would make it worth my while." 
 
 Ralph laughed harshly as he raised the pannikin 
 once more. 
 
 " I was waiting for that, you old villain ! I was 
 waiting for that ! " 
 
 But it did not disgust him. He did not even 
 pretend to be disgusted. There were no scruples 
 left in those reckless, heated eyes. 
 
 " You give me your promissory note for a thou- 
 sand pounds, payable on your wedding day, or on 
 demand thereafter, and you '11 be married the month 
 after you get back." 
 
 Ralph laughed more harshly than before. 
 
 " Go on, Jewson ! You are n't drunk, are you ? 
 Then how do you think you 're going to manage 
 it?" 
 
 " Ah, that I sha' n't tell you ; but manage it I can 
 and will. You leave it to me. If you sail at the
 
 HATE AND MONEY 177 
 
 New Year and there 's two or three ships adver- 
 tised it '11 be your own fault if you are n't married 
 by midsummer. And if that is n't worth a thou- 
 sand pounds I do n't know what is." 
 
 " It 's worth two ! " whispered Devenish, hoarsely ; 
 " and you shall have two if if " 
 
 " If what ? " 
 
 " If he if he lives to see the day." 
 
 Jewson chuckled aloud. 
 
 " Of course he will ! " he cried. " Where would 
 be the fun if he did n't ? Where would be my fun 
 that 's been due to me ever since he had me dis- 
 rated ? " 
 
 " Then it 's a bargain." 
 
 " What ? Are you going to give me your hand 
 on it, Captain Devenish ? " 
 
 " My hand and word, and if I break the one may 
 the other wither ! " 
 
 " But you '11 put it on paper, sir, won't you ? " 
 
 " Whenever you like." 
 
 " One thousand or two ? " 
 
 " Two if he lives to see it nothing if he does n't." 
 
 " A bargain it is."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 ROTTEN GULLY 
 
 JEWSON had not exaggerated the manifest 
 attraction of the claim in Rotten Gully. 
 The hut was eighteen feet by ten, very sol- 
 idly built, with a fireplace and a chimney at the in- 
 ner end. Many neat contrivances in the shape of 
 shelves and racks testified to the leisurely particu- 
 larity of the late owner. He had settled down as 
 on some desert island where a man might expect to 
 end his days. There were refinements so superflu- 
 ous in themselves as to suggest that the actual work 
 had proved as alluring as the natural reward. In 
 point of fact the Eureka Lead had been followed 
 through the gully and lost on the flat beyond while 
 this deliberate digger built him his hut and sank the 
 hole which he was fated to abandon within a few 
 feet of the gutter. 
 
 But the hole was by far the best and soundest in 
 the gully, which deserved its name insomuch as it 
 provided insecure sinkings as a rule. Some of the 
 abandoned shafts had already fallen in ; but this one 
 was beautifully slabbed with timber from top to 
 bottom, now some sixty odd feet, the depth of the 
 lead hereabouts being something under seventy.
 
 ROTTEN GULLY 179 
 
 One of the first things Denis did when they were 
 left in peaceable possession of the claim was to lo- 
 cate it in his last map ; and a mark was duly made 
 in the very middle of one of the red rivers. 
 
 " Right over the gutter ! " he exclaimed. " The 
 sinker said so ; but he was n't the man to sink any- 
 where else. Do n't you remember him saying we 
 were within a few feet of it ? Jimmy, I 'm going 
 through some of those feet before I 'm an hour 
 older, and we '11 try the first tub to-night ! " 
 
 He went down at once in the bucket, armed with 
 a spade a complete plant had been thrown in with 
 the claim and for an hour he dug straight down, 
 making the smallest and deepest hole possible, and 
 finally filling the bucket from the bottom. But it 
 was hard work. The red clay was so veritably rot- 
 ten that again and again the little hole filled up. 
 Denis's shirt was plastered to his skin when Doherty 
 wound him above ground with the bucket, and the 
 clay in the latter was still as red as ever. Denis 
 took it to the creek, however, and tried it piecemeal 
 in a tin dish, but did not get a grain. He returned 
 to Doherty unruffled and smiling. 
 
 " It 's no use, Jimmy ; we 've not got down to it yet, 
 and we sha' n't get down to it like that. We must 
 go on digging the whole shaft. But there 's another 
 good hour of daylight, and if you like to go down 
 and do a trick I '11 wind up the buckets as you fill 
 them." 
 
 As the shaft went down by inches the sides had
 
 i8o DENIS DENT 
 
 to be slabbed as heretofore ; but the " sets of tim- 
 ber " stacked outside the tent proved to be cut to 
 the size, pointed, and ready for fitting into the 
 grooved uprights, which in their turn were found to 
 have been driven into the four corners of the shaft 
 to a depth of several feet beyond that of the shaft 
 itself. So there was no difficulty there while the 
 cut slabs lasted, and as the pair worked half the 
 night in their excitement, by lantern light, and were 
 at it again by sunrise, they had added some three 
 or four feet to the depth by the following forenoon. 
 Then Denis tried another little hole in the middle, 
 and this time the third spadeful was different from 
 the other two. Some particles of gravel trickled 
 from the end of the spade, and even what was on it 
 was of two colours and two consistencies. The 
 next thrust grated to the ear. Denis roared for the 
 bucket, and a head and shoulders stamped them- 
 selves upon the square envelope of sky overhead. 
 
 " I Ve struck it ! I 've struck it ! Down with the 
 bucket and stand by to wind up ! " 
 
 A wideawake danced against the tiny square of 
 blue ; a shrill cheer came tumbling in echoes down 
 the timbered shaft ; then a leaping bucket, then a 
 writhing rope ; and the head and shoulders hung 
 over the brink once more in motionless silhouette, 
 while Denis filled the bucket with the gravelly sub- 
 stance, separating the inaugural spadeful with his 
 hands. There was a difference even to the touch. 
 The red clay was slightly damp, the gravelly com-
 
 ROTTEN GULLY 181 
 
 pound perceptibly warmer, and so delightfully gritty 
 that Denis could have sworn the grits were pure 
 gold. But it took him some time to fill the bucket, 
 for the red clay was not too damp to crumble, and 
 it continually poured back into his advance hole, 
 burying him sometimes to the thighs. At last, how- 
 ever, a homogeneous bucketful was got to upper 
 air, and Denis after it in a mud-bath of clay and 
 perspiration, but with his triumph shining through 
 his filth. 
 
 It still remained to test the stuff and justify the 
 triumph, but Denis did both without delay at the 
 creek, which was far nearer here than on Black Hill 
 Flat. They had no cradle as yet at the new claim, 
 whose late methodical proprietor had not arrived at 
 the stage of requiring one ; but Denis took the tin 
 dish once more, and came back beating it like a 
 tambourine, on knee and head, but carrying the 
 empty bucket at arm's length in the other hand. 
 At least it felt as empty to Denis as it looked to 
 Doherty, until the bucket was tilted, and what had 
 seemed but a sparse deposit of rather yellow and 
 sparkling sand formed a slender segment of palpable 
 gold-dust 
 
 They poured it from the bucket back into the tin 
 dish, and from the tin dish into a smaller tin, and 
 from the smaller tin into the saucer in which Jewson 
 really did get a glimpse of about half of it that night. 
 The trial " tub " had yielded upwards of two ounces, 
 by the gold-scales of a friendly neighbour ; before
 
 182 DENIS DENT 
 
 night Denis had spent quite half on a good candle, 
 a pair of scales, and the wherewithal for a digger's 
 supper of new damper, steaming chops, and scald- 
 ing tea. 
 
 Thereafter the pair sat up planning, building, 
 furnishing and inhabiting castles which were no 
 longer altogether in the air ; but with Denis, in any 
 case, early hours would have been impossible after 
 such a meal hurled into an empty stomach in the 
 late evening of such a day; and the pernicious 
 combination may be confidently traced in the view 
 which he took of this very aspect of a situation 
 otherwise surpassing all his dreams. 
 
 " It 's all very well for a day or two," said 
 Denis, " but you and I can never go on doing all 
 the work and the cooking too. We could n't even 
 if we were born cooks. What we want is some 
 fellow to look after us and the hut. Two all told 
 are not enough." 
 
 Doherty was toying with the gold-dust in the 
 saucer, picking it up in pinches, and letting it 
 trickle through his fingers in fairy showers, play- 
 ing with it, drawing in it, as children play and 
 draw in sand. The game palled even as Denis 
 spoke. 
 
 " Two were enough for the swell cove who was 
 here before us, mister." 
 
 " I know : he took his time : so many hours a 
 day, or so few, and not a minute more. What 's 
 the result ? He is n't here to reap his reward,
 
 ROTTEN GULLY 183 
 
 because he was in no hurry, and it did n't much 
 matter after all. But I am here I am in a hurry 
 eveiy grain and every minute matters to me ! " 
 
 " It would mean one grain in three instead of in 
 two." 
 
 " Then the three would come quicker than the 
 two do now. Not that we 're obliged to take an- 
 other partner because we want an extra hand ; at 
 two ounces to the tub we could afford to make it 
 worth many a man's while to do all we want at so 
 much the week." 
 
 Jimmy looked up quickly. 
 
 " Then you have n't heard from Mr. Moseley 
 yet?" 
 
 " I have, Jimmy. I called at the post-office to- 
 night, and the letter was there. Not he ! Not for 
 Joe ! He wishes us all possible luck, but he has 
 had enough of the diggings to last him a lifetime ; 
 and from what he says he ought to be out at sea by 
 this time, homeward bound. Put the billy on the 
 fire, Jimmy, and we '11 drink him a good voyage in 
 half a pannikin of tea before we turn in." 
 
 To all this Jewson stood listening, if not at the 
 door, still within easy earshot of the unsuspecting 
 friends ; and as he listened an inspiration burst upon 
 his crafty brain. He drew away in the moonlight, 
 nodding and grinning to himself a grotesque 
 Mephistopheles if you will yet deeper and darker 
 than friend or foe imagined. His plan was matured 
 on the way back to the Gravel Pits, and Captain
 
 184 DENIS DENT 
 
 De vanish was told just as much as it was good for 
 him to know that night, but as we have seen, not a 
 syllable more, and that modicum with the wary tact 
 and infinite precaution of a Mephistopheles of higher 
 class. 
 
 Next day was a great one at the new claim ; from 
 early morning to high noon the pair laboured in 
 hourly shifts at lowering the whole shaft to the 
 level of the precious wash-dirt. It was not to be done 
 in the time. But later in the day they went deep 
 at one corner, and at last uncovered an angle of 
 the gutter which they had only probed the day be- 
 fore. They took up several bucketfuls to try in the 
 new cradle before dark. The yields were uneven, 
 but the lowest was an ounce, the highest three 
 ounces ten pennyweight, and the day's aggregate 
 just under one pound, or upward of forty pounds 
 sterling. 
 
 Yet they were less excited than they had been 
 the night before. The gold was there ; it was only 
 a question of getting it out, a question of time, 
 ways, and means. They had taken turns at the 
 creek as well as in the hole, and the friendly neigh- 
 bour who had lent his scales had kept an eye on 
 the new cradle in their absence, which was inter- 
 mittent owing to the necessity of one always re- 
 maining on the claim. " You must find another 
 mate," said he to Doherty, who no longer disagreed 
 as he toiled back to the hut. They must find an- 
 other mate, or they must greatly reduce their hours
 
 ROTTEN GULLY 185 
 
 of labour. A reduction of profits would result in 
 either case. 
 
 To-night they were too tired to cook. Denis 
 made tea, and each took a pannikin to his couch, 
 and spread himself prostrate in the dusk. 
 
 " In another hour or two," said Denis, " we '11 
 go out one at a time, and have the best supper 
 that money can buy on Ballarat. We can afford 
 that ; but we can't afford to go on using ourselves 
 up at this rate." 
 
 A slumbrous sigh was the only answer from the 
 other bunk ; but Denis was too much exercised in 
 his mind to close an eye. Should they seek a 
 mate ? or should they restrict their hours ? Could 
 they get a respectable hireling to look after them if 
 they tried ? The last plan was the most desirable 
 for obvious reasons ; and Denis desired it on other 
 grounds as well. He was naturally anxious, for his 
 own sake and for one other's, to make as much 
 money as possible in as little time; and he had 
 tasted blood, at last, in an intoxicating draught. 
 He had begun making up for lost time ; that was 
 what he must go on doing. It was not so with 
 Doherty, however, and this time Denis had quite 
 decided to respect the prejudices of the lad who 
 had stood by him so loyally through so many luck- 
 less weeks. After all, in the beginning they had 
 actually started for the diggings, they two, to sink 
 or to swim together. The importation of Moseley 
 had been as unfair as it had proved unwise ; the
 
 i86 DENIS DENT 
 
 ignorant lad had found himself at a continual dis- 
 advantage between the two educated men; they 
 could talk in parables beyond his comprehension, 
 and Moseley invariably did. Doherty had been 
 bitterly jealous of him, yet had striven finely to 
 suppress his chagrin, and never stooped to back- 
 biting or tale-bearing under its stress. And his 
 devotion to Denis had never wavered ; that was at 
 once a touching consideration and a clear claim. 
 No ; there should be no more partners if Denis 
 could help it, but if he could not, then the new- 
 comer should be a man after Jimmy's heart rather 
 than his own. 
 
 It was moonlight when Denis came to this con- 
 clusion of the matter, though he had lain down in 
 daylight not long before. He did not lie many 
 minutes more. A shambling step came to his ears, 
 came nearer and nearer ; he jumped up in time to 
 meet a tottering figure at the door.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 NEW BLOOD 
 
 " T EWSON ! " exclaimed Denis in cold astonish- 
 I ment. " What in the world do you want 
 +J with me ? " 
 
 " You may well ask, sir," replied the steward, in 
 an abject whine, " but on all the diggings there was 
 no one else that I could turn to little as I deserve 
 at your hands, sir little as I know I deserve ! But 
 you look at me, Mr. Dent, and you '11 see the way 
 I 've been used ! " 
 
 He turned his face into the level moonbeams ; an 
 eye was closed and discoloured ; a lip was swollen 
 and cut, and the coat was almost torn off the 
 steward's back, hanging in ribbons from the 
 shoulders only. 
 
 " Some one 's been knocking you about," re- 
 marked Denis, dispassionately. 
 
 " Some one has," the steward agreed, grimly : 
 " some one as ought to have known better some 
 one not half as old as me, and more than twice as 
 strong ! But it was my fault. I might have 
 known ! I seen it coming from the first ; it was 
 bound to come when the luck gave out. You '11 
 have heard about the water on the Gravel Pits,
 
 i88 DENIS DENT 
 
 likely ? It 's flooded us out altogether ; and this 
 is the way the Captain 's used me, with his own 
 hands, after two months' faithful service ! " 
 
 " You 've probably been getting drunk," said 
 Denis ; but there was no sign of drink about the 
 man ; and Denis accepted his denial with some re- 
 gret for the suggestion, for he was already more 
 sympathetic than he seemed, because readier than 
 he knew to believe ill of Devenish. 
 
 The steward's story was that for some trifling 
 omission he had been visited with a torrent of 
 intolerable abuse, and on remonstrance, with the 
 personal chastisement of which he bore marks 
 which never struck Denis as other than genuine. 
 The wretch was clever enough to make excuses for 
 his late master, whose behaviour he attributed 
 entirely to irritation caused by the ruin of his 
 claim ; but as Jewson said, that was not his fault, 
 and he could not stay another hour with a gentle- 
 man who used him so. So he had turned to Denis 
 in his distress little right as he had and he hoped 
 the past at least would be forgiven and forgotten 
 if only for the sake of the season. 
 
 " Why, what is the season ? " asked Denis ; for in 
 the incessant excitement of the last few days, and 
 the unaccustomed surroundings of blue sky and 
 blazing heat, he had quite forgotten that Christmas 
 was upon them ; but he remembered as he spoke f 
 and could quite believe the steward's statement that 
 it was already Christmas Eve.
 
 NEW BLOOD 189 
 
 " And to think you had forgotten ! " added Jew- 
 son, who was fast recovering a careful kind of con- 
 fidence. " Why, I expected to find you starting to 
 keep it in the good old style roast beef turkeys 
 plum-pudding and mince pies ! What 's the good 
 of being a lucky digger unless you keep a high old 
 Christmas like the rest of 'em ? " 
 
 " Who told you I was one ? " asked Denis, sus- 
 piciously. 
 
 " Who told me ? If you asked me who had n't 
 told me, Mr. Dent, I might be able to answer you, 
 sir. You do n't keep a thing like that to yourself 
 in a place like this. Captain Devenish told me, for 
 one ; it was one of the things that helped to make 
 him mad." 
 
 " Well," said Denis, " you must come in, steward, 
 but I 'm sorry there 's nothing to offer you. We 
 were going out to get something before we turn in. 
 There's nothing in the place but the remains of 
 some mutton we had last night and this midday, 
 some stale damper, and some dried-up cheese." 
 
 " Call that nothing ? " chuckled Jewson. " You 
 might let me see what 's left, Mr. Dent ; it 's won- 
 derful what can be done with what, by a bit of a 
 cook ; and I 'm all that, sir, though I say it. I 
 might be able to save you turning out again, and 
 I 'd be proud to do it after your kindness, Mr. 
 Dent, which I have done so little to deserve ! " 
 
 Denis was not the man to refuse; he did not 
 like the fellow's whining tone, but it was not his
 
 190 DENIS DENT 
 
 only tone, and he did appear to have been roughly 
 handled. He did not impose upon Denis alto- 
 gether, but only as much as was necessary, which 
 was characteristic of his craft. He was admitted, a 
 lamp lit without disturbing Doherty, and the 
 remnants of the mutton fetched from an outside 
 safe. Jewson sniffed it suspiciously. 
 
 " Sweet enough ! " said he. " I see you knew 
 enough to salt it. And are them taters I see in 
 that sack ? Then down you lie like your mate, and 
 shut your eyes, and see what the king '11 send you ! 
 Stop a bit, though ; did n't you say there was bread 
 and cheese ? " 
 
 " Yes, but they 're both as hard as nails." 
 
 " Never mind ; they may make into something 
 soft. Any mustard ? " 
 
 " Yes ; they left us some." 
 
 " No beer, I suppose ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 " Well, never mind. You leave the rest to me. 
 Thank you, I see where everything else is, and in 
 twenty minutes to half-an-hour there'll be some- 
 thing for you to see and taste too ! " 
 
 Already he was crouching over the fire, blowing 
 upon the red embers, coaxing them into flames; 
 and in the growing glow his cunning face looked 
 kindly enough, and his grin but that of an artist 
 bent on triumphing over materials which only put 
 him on his artistic mettle. Denis watched him a 
 little from the door. Then he sauntered to and fro
 
 NEW BLOOD ,91 
 
 between hut and shaft ; and presently there came to 
 his nostrils the most savoury and appetizing smell 
 that they had yet encountered on the diggings. 
 Something was hissing on the fire; at the table 
 Jewson was preparing something else. On his bed 
 Doherty still slept the sleep of exhaustion; and 
 down upon the bark roof of the hut, on the black 
 hieroglyph of the mounted windlass, and on the 
 white tents further along the gully, shone a moon 
 of surpassing purity and splendour. And Denis 
 thought of a Christmas hymn, and then of Father 
 Christmas himself, as he peered in and watched the 
 elderly evil-doer with the once-dyed beard prepar- 
 ing his miraculous and momentous meal. 
 
 Momentous as the sequel will very soon show, 
 at the time it was indeed little less than a miracle, 
 and nothing less to Doherty, who was roused from 
 a castaway's dreams of plenty to find them true. 
 The remains of the mutton had been changed as by 
 some fairy wand into a spiced ragout swimming in 
 rich gravy. The cook apologized for the potatoes, 
 which he had only had time to fry ; but the other 
 diners had forgotten that potatoes could be fried, 
 and their appreciation was proportionate. But the 
 greatest success came in the Welsh rarebit which a 
 master hand had evolved from the stale damper and 
 the dried-up cheese. It lay steaming in its dish 
 like liquid gold a joy to the eye, a boon to the 
 nose, and to the diggers' hardened palates an in- 
 conceivable delicacy and treat.
 
 192 DENIS DENT 
 
 " And to think," said Denis, " that we had the 
 material by us; that we've had it ready to our 
 hand any time these two months ! " 
 
 " And much good it was, or would have been," 
 echoed Doherty, " to our hand ! It 's the hand 
 that matters, not the material. Mr. Steward, give 
 me yours ! " 
 
 " His name is Jewson," remarked Denis ; and 
 his heart sank in spite of him as he saw the young 
 hand join the old across the empty plates. 
 
 " But you called me steward, Mr. Dent, and I 
 like to be called steward," rejoined Jewson, adroitly. 
 " It reminds me,of times you may think I 'd like to 
 forget ; but I would n't and shall I tell you why ? 
 Because I 'd like to make up for 'em, sir, if only 
 you 'd give me the chance. I 'm out of a job. 
 Wild hosses would n't take me back to Captain 
 Devenish. I was only his servant, not a partner, 
 and I '11 be your servant, Mr. Dent, and a good one, 
 sir, if you '11 give me a trial. Pay me what you 
 like I ain't partic'lar." 
 
 And the old rogue lapsed into a living heap of 
 humility ; but he had gone just one sentence too 
 far. 
 
 " I '11 pay you well if I take you," said Denis, 
 shortly, as he sipped his tea. Yet even the tea 
 seemed a better brew than they had managed to 
 achieve for themselves. 
 
 " I do n't want you to make up your minds to- 
 night," resumed the steward, reducing the humility
 
 NEW BLOOD 193 
 
 a degree or so. " I do n't care about hotel work. 
 I certainly should n't start work at any of these 
 here shanties on Christmas Day. They have ap- 
 proached me, you understand, through Lieutenant 
 Rackham, who has been kind enough to say a good 
 word for my capabilities. But that 's not the kind 
 of place I 'd like so well as this. Let me camp out- 
 side to-night, and cook your Christmas dinner to- 
 morrow, while you think it over." 
 
 But Denis said he would prefer to think it over 
 at once, and lit his pipe, and went out to do so 
 then and there, with a troubled face which Jewson 
 could understand and Doherty could not. 
 
 " He never liked me," said the steward with a 
 sigh. " And it was my fault," he added self- 
 reproachfully. 
 
 " But if you see that you could soon make him 
 like you." 
 
 " If he gave me the chance, perhaps." 
 
 " He shall ! " 
 
 Denis was leaning in the moonlight against the 
 windlass staging. There he listened to the lad's 
 strenuous and enthusiastic plea. 
 
 " We 've never had a mate like that since we 've 
 been on Ballarat," urged Jimmy ; " and all done in 
 half-an-hour out of our own odds and ends ! Why, 
 mister, that steward of yours would make a man 
 of me and a new man of you in less than no time. 
 And he does n't even ask to be a partner ; he 's the 
 very man we want, dropped from the stars on to
 
 194 DENIS DENT 
 
 this blessed claim ! If we do n't snap him up, 
 others soon will, and we deserve to lose the second- 
 best chance we 've ever had." 
 
 Denis puffed his pipe in silence. 
 
 " I know him, you see," he said at last. 
 
 " Of course you do." 
 
 " But I never liked him." 
 
 " So he says." 
 
 " And it was his own fault." 
 
 " He says that too. He 's said enough for me to 
 see he means turning over a new leaf if you give 
 him this chance." 
 
 Denis wavered. If he was going to give the 
 man a chance (and he could always watch him, 
 and get rid of him at a moment's notice) it would 
 be perhaps unfair to let the lad know all he 
 thought about their prospective companion. 
 
 " Do you really want him to have the job, 
 Jimmy ? " 
 
 " I do so, mister. He 's the very man for us. I 
 want him bad." 
 
 " And you never wanted Mr. Moseley at all, eh ? " 
 
 " No, mister, I never did." 
 
 Denis went on smoking for another minute. 
 The moon was high now, and as pure as ever. 
 The tents further down the gully shone white as 
 from a fall of real Christmas snow ; and sounds of 
 real Christmas came faintly from them, and more 
 faintly from far beyond. Denis, however, was not 
 thinking of the morrow, but of many a morrow
 
 NEW BLOOD 195 
 
 of long days of unremitting labour of short nights 
 when the spent body would be fit but for rest and 
 for refreshment. He felt the better already for this 
 single evening meal. And the man could be 
 watched the man could be watched. 
 
 " Well, mister ? " 
 
 " It 's all right, Jimmy. He shall have his trial 
 to-morrow the day after to-morrow and as many 
 days after that again as he suits us and we him. 
 But never let him know the half of what we take, 
 and never you leave him on the claim alone."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 
 
 DENT and Doherty became the heroes of 
 one of those fairy-tales in which the times 
 were rich. For eight consecutive days, 
 after laying the gutter bare from wall to wall of the 
 shaft, and slabbing the latter down to the last inch, 
 they washed their twenty tubs a day, and averaged 
 rather better than four ounces to the tub. The 
 daily yield only once fell below .300 at current 
 rates ; but more than once it impinged upon .400. 
 Altogether the eight days realized upwards ot 
 S> which was the aggregate amount handed 
 over to the Commissioner, who forwarded it to Gee- 
 long by Gold Escort, which delivered it to a firm of 
 gold-buyers whom the Commissioner could recom- 
 mend, and who presently remitted some 2,400 
 in hard cash. 
 
 These wonderful days were also the most com- 
 fortable that the partners had yet spent upon the 
 diggings. They were properly looked after for the 
 first time. They had three good meals a day, to 
 say nothing of coffee and a biscuit before they went 
 to work in the early morning and afternoon tea 
 with hot cakes or any other incongruous luxury
 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 197 
 
 which happened to occur to the steward's mind. 
 Denis said it was a good thing they were working 
 so hard. Doherty rolled his eyes and put on flesh. 
 The pair were being spoiled and cosseted by a 
 master-hand, and it did them more good than their 
 success. They were the better workers by day, the 
 better sleepers by night, and this despite the mani- 
 fold excitements of every waking hour. 
 
 Jewson was excelling himself; but an outsider 
 would have said it was well worth his while, for 
 Denis had hit upon a scale of pay which made him 
 after all a small partner, whose earnings might 
 amount to several sovereigns a day, and could not 
 fall below five pounds a week. As prices went, the 
 bargain was not extravagant, and Denis was the 
 first to appreciate the blessing of better food ; the 
 steward's prowess was no small asset in the suddenly 
 successful concern, and he must be kept in it by 
 hook or crook ; on that the partners were agreed. 
 And yet Denis was as far as ever from trusting the 
 man in his heart, though his original prejudice had 
 abated not a little. 
 
 Jewson wore a shade over the blackened eye, 
 which had only been exposed by moonlight ; but 
 Denis's distrust was not such as to make him want 
 to lift it, because it never occurred to him to dis- 
 credit the account of his cousin's violence; and 
 therein is seen the working of another prejudice, on 
 which a cunning brain had counted all along. A 
 simple nature, on the other hand, is simple even in
 
 198 DENIS DENT 
 
 its suspicions ; and the worst that Denis harboured 
 were engendered by Jewson's strange practice of 
 shopping at night only and usually being hours 
 about it. Denis sometimes had a mind to follow 
 him, but it was not in his nature to play the spy, 
 and so the real spy went free. 
 
 The lucky pair took their luck very coolly, one 
 because he did not understand the value of money, 
 the other because he understood it too well to esti- 
 mate a thousand pounds at a penny more than a 
 tithe of the ten thousand on which he had set his 
 heart. In money matters, however, the point of 
 view is everything, and in none is it more mercurial. 
 A day or two served to inure the partners to the 
 idea of dividing a couple of thousand a week, and 
 Denis began almost to resent the fact that at this 
 rate it would take ten whole weeks for him to reach 
 his minimum ; he was also annoyed that in all the 
 gold they had got there was not as yet a single 
 nugget. 
 
 " I promised to send the first one home to Eng- 
 land," he said openly in the hut. " I would give a 
 hundred pounds to have one worth fifty to send by 
 the mail to-morrow night ! " 
 
 Jewson was crouching over his camp-oven at the 
 time ; his back straightened, and for some moments 
 he sat in an arrested attitude, his head thrown up in 
 undisguised attention ; but this was not noticed, 
 and his face could not be seen. 
 
 That night the steward was so long upon his
 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 199 
 
 rounds that Denis did not sit up for him, but de- 
 cided on a word of remonstrance in the morning. 
 Yet when morning came, the coffee was so hot and 
 aromatic, the biscuit so crisp, the fresh air so cool 
 and so invigorating, that he found it difficult to 
 complain just then. And in the first hour of the 
 new day that happened which effaced all untoward 
 impressions from his mind. 
 
 Denis had been lowered into the shaft to dig. 
 Doherty had raised one bucket of wash-dirt, and was 
 waiting for the next, when a loud shout brought 
 him to the shaft's mouth. 
 
 " A nugget, Jimmy ! A nugget in the nick of 
 time ! I nearly cut it in two with the spade ! " 
 
 It was a very small nugget, much in the shape 
 and size of a kidney-bean, but of singularly pure 
 and smooth gold, and Denis declared that it was 
 just the thing. With the point of his knife he re- 
 moved every particle of earth, and then scrubbed it 
 with soap and water until it was as bright as the last 
 sovereign from the mint. It seemed to give him 
 greater pleasure than all the gold-dust despatched 
 to Geelong; and no more work was done before 
 breakfast, which was taken with the nugget on the 
 table in front of Denis, save when he pressed a 
 piece of twine into the cleft made by the spade and 
 tried how it looked round Doherty 's neck. 
 
 " Half should be yours, by rights," he said ; " but 
 you won't mind if I credit you with the weight in- 
 stead? Do n't be a fool ! Of course I '11 do that !
 
 200 DENIS DENT 
 
 But it was almost my last promise to send her my 
 first nugget and it 's been such a long time com- 
 ing." 
 
 " Funny it 's coming just when you wanted it for 
 the mail," remarked Doherty in perfect innocence ; 
 but the steward spoke up from his self-appointed 
 place beside the fire. 
 
 " I only wonder it 's the first," said he ; " but you 
 take my word it ain't the last. Talk about jew- 
 elers' shops ! You Ve opened one of the best on 
 Ballarat. Look at the men you 're bringing back 
 to the gully ; there 'd be a rush if it was n't for the 
 depth they 've got to sink, and that you had all 
 done for you. I sha' n't be satisfied till I see you 
 put your pick into a bit like they took out of Ca- 
 nadian Gully twelve months ago." 
 
 Nothing could have been more consistent and 
 withal less officious than the discreetly sympathetic 
 encouragement of the steward ; he also knew some- 
 thing about gold-mining, and his unobtrusive sug- 
 gestions were often of value. Denis was indeed 
 more and more unable to reconcile the useful lands- 
 man with the ship's steward who had broached the 
 ship's spirits and misbehaved himself in other ways ; 
 but after all, a man might pull himself together, and 
 having suffered from a bad master, might well de- 
 sire to make the most of a good one. So Denis 
 was imposed upon while still as much on guard 
 against imposition as these engrossing days al- 
 lowed.
 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 201 
 
 And the eight days of harvest were almost at an 
 end ; that very morning there was a subtle change 
 in the appearance of a bucketful that Doherty sent 
 up, and Denis forthwith washed an almost wholly 
 unprofitable tub. He then went down the shaft, 
 and found as he expected that they had struck the 
 bottom of the gutter, and were on the hard paleozoic 
 floor. The difference was even more marked than 
 that between the red clay and the auriferous drift, 
 here only four or five feet thick. There were still 
 some tubs to take before the corners of the shaft 
 were cleared to the bed-rock. 
 
 " And then ? " asked Doherty with a blank face. 
 
 " Then the fun begins." 
 
 " Tunneling ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " But how do you know which way ? " 
 
 " Down the gully ; nothing simpler. But first 
 of all we can try all round with trowels, in holes 
 just big enough to take your arm, like tasting 
 cheese ; then where it 's richest we shall tunnel for 
 another three months, and if this is the gutter and 
 not a pocket we shall be well enough off by that 
 time to take a spell and talk things over." 
 
 They were for once down the shaft together, and 
 as they stood discussing the situation the steward's 
 small head appeared like that of a pin against the 
 little square of sky high above. 
 
 " There 's a Chinaman selling beer," he shouted 
 down. " Would you like some ? "
 
 202 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Very much," answered Denis. " Draught or 
 bottle, steward ? " 
 
 Draught." 
 
 " Then take three pints, and cool it in the gallon 
 jar. It 's an occasion," continued Denis down be- 
 low. " The first of the nuggets before breakfast and 
 the last of the gutter before noon ; only, it 's not 
 the last; and even if it were, that little nugget 
 would be some consolation to me." 
 
 When they regained the upper air there was still 
 half-an-hour before the midday meal, and Denis 
 spent it in finishing a long letter and packing the 
 nugget with it in a small tin box unearthed by Jewson. 
 This he tied up in brown paper, but was unable to 
 seal for want of wax ; and the parcel remained by 
 his plate as the naked nugget had done at breakfast. 
 
 It was now the middle of January, and the hottest 
 weather that Denis had ever known on land. The 
 well-built hut was cooler than the open air, but to 
 swallow a pannikin of tea was to have a warm bath 
 in one's clothes. The beer was therefore a great 
 and timely treat ; each man made short work of his 
 pint, and the little package was duly toasted on the 
 eve of its travels. Denis intended taking it to the 
 post-office himself, while the other two enjoyed the 
 siesta which was a necessity of the digger's ex- 
 istence in the hot season. A pipe on the bed was 
 all he would allow himself that day ; the others 
 were already asleep when he lit up and began 
 puffing vigorously to keep his eyes open. The
 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 203 
 
 eight long days were beginning to tell on him. 
 This one was also of an unbearable and inhuman 
 heat. 
 
 Denis was the first to open his eyes. The pipe 
 had dropped from his teeth. It could not have 
 dangled very long, yet the bowl was the coldest 
 thing Denis had touched that day. Well, it was 
 lucky he had not set fire to himself ; and since the 
 others were still stretched in slumber, the steward 
 on his blanket near the door, it could not be very 
 late. Time enough at least to do what he had in- 
 tended doing without disturbing them and with 
 a bound Denis was in the middle of the floor. 
 
 The packet was not on the table where he had 
 left it. Had he left it there ? He tore the blankets 
 off his bed in the wild hope of finding it there. No ; 
 he remembered keeping his eye on it as he lay 
 back smoking like a sot. In an instant the things 
 were swept off the table in a vain search for the 
 little brown-paper parcel. All this time Denis was 
 venting his feelings in little involuntary cries, but 
 now he called the other two by their names. They 
 stirred uneasily without waking. 
 
 Denis began to guess what had happened. His 
 mouth was dry and his head heavy. The light had 
 altered. Outside the shadows had run like ink, and 
 by the watch it was almost five o'clock. A three 
 hours' sleep instead of one ! And his packet gone 
 with the time for posting it ! 
 
 He searched further before finally rousing his
 
 204 DENIS DENT 
 
 companions ; and there were signs that the whole 
 place had been carefully ransacked, but none as yet 
 that anything else had disappeared. Denis was 
 equally thankful that he had got rid of the gold-dust 
 and that cash payment was still to come ; after all, 
 the value of the nugget was chiefly sentimental ; 
 and there was some compensation in the thought 
 that the thief could not have chosen a worse time 
 for himself or a better one for his victims. 
 
 " Robbed ! " echoed Doherty, sitting up stupidly 
 at last. His eyes had lost all their brightness, and 
 he was soon nursing his head between his hands. 
 But Jewson was quicker to grasp what had hap- 
 pened quicker than Denis himself. 
 
 " That yellow devil of a Chinaman ! " he ex- 
 claimed, and sat smacking his lips with a wry face. 
 " Opium ! I thought so ! I 've known the taste 
 too many years ; but I '11 know him when I see him 
 again, and I '11 string him up to the nearest tree by 
 his own pig-tail. Draught beer, eh? I wonder 
 who else he offered it to? See what comes of 
 striking it rich and letting it get about that you 
 have struck it ! No, I know you can't help it, un- 
 less you 've got a private river to wash your dirt in ; 
 but that 's what 's done it, as sure as I 'm standing 
 here." 
 
 " But you are not standing there," rejoined Denis, 
 as the servant made for the door. " Where are you 
 off to in such a hurry ? " 
 
 " To lay my hands on John Chinaman ! " an-
 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 205 
 
 swered Jewson with an oath. " To catch him red- 
 handed with your nugget on him, and to ram his 
 own pig-tail down his yellow throat ! " 
 
 The partners were left looking at each other with 
 rather different expressions. 
 
 " He '11 do it, too," said Doherty, jerking his 
 head toward the door. " Trust the old steward ! " 
 
 " I suppose one must trust him,." remarked Denis 
 in a dubious tone. 
 
 " Trust him ? Of course you must ! Why not, 
 mister ? Has n't he looked after us well enough so 
 far ? Has n't he made all the difference in the world 
 to us, and have n't you admitted it every day ? I 
 do n't care what he was at sea ; let 's take him as we 
 find him ashore, and then we shan't get wrong. 
 You do n't seriously think the steward 's had any- 
 thing to do with this, do you ? " 
 
 " Not seriously," replied Denis ; nor, on reflection, 
 had he the smallest ground for any such suspicion. 
 
 " Because," pursued Doherty, triumphantly, " if 
 he wanted to put up a robbery, it 's a funny thing 
 he should wait until there was hardly anything to 
 rob is n't it ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " And you 've lost nothing except the nugget, 
 have you ? " 
 
 " And the parcel it was in, and my letter ! " 
 
 " Perhaps he's a chap like me, wot can't read," 
 the lad suggested by way of consolation. " But are 
 you sure that 's all you 've missed ? "
 
 2o6 DENIS DENT 
 
 He was looking very hard at Denis. 
 
 " I think so, Jimmy. Why ? " 
 
 " If you undo another shirt-button I '11 tell you." 
 
 There was no need for Denis to do that. His 
 fingers were down his neck in an instant. And the 
 lanyard of his beloved's hair, which had encircled it 
 day and night for the last three months, was gone 
 with the little ring that Nan had given him at their 
 farewell on board the Memnon. 
 
 His rage and distress knew no bounds ; the loss 
 of a far larger nugget had been a bagatelle com- 
 pared with this. A certain superstition was in- 
 grained in Denis ; it was one of the few things he 
 had inherited from both the races whose blood 
 clashed in his veins ; and in a moment it was as 
 though his star had fallen from the zenith. Apart 
 from the loss of that which he held dearer than 
 aught but Nan herself her talisman there was the 
 utter ill-omen of such a loss. And Denis raved 
 about both, bidding Doherty find another mate as 
 quick as he could, for they were at the end of their 
 tether and would wash no more ounces. 
 
 " And if we did," cried the distracted fellow, " if 
 we took out a million between us after this, it would 
 only be to go home and find her dead ! You make 
 a note of it, and then clear out of the sinking ship. 
 My luck has ended this day ! " 
 
 Doherty bore it as long as he could, then jumped 
 up saying he was going for the police. " Not for 
 you," he added, " though you deserve the Logs if
 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 207 
 
 ever a man did. I 've heard a blackfellow talk like 
 that, but not a white man, and may I never hear the 
 like again ! We '11 have the traps on the track of 
 that Chinaman, as well as Jewson ; and we '11 get 
 back what you Ve lost for its own sake, not for what 
 it can't alter one way or the other." 
 
 This bracing remonstrance was not without effect. 
 Denis controlled himself by an effort, dashed away 
 an unmanning tear, and was soon the severest critic 
 of his own despair ; but he would not let Doherty 
 summon the police, neither would he go himself. 
 
 " It is too intimate too sacred her hair ! " he 
 whispered in a fresh access of misery. " Fancy 
 furnishing a description of that, and letting them 
 publish it broadcast ! No, no ; better lose it alto- 
 gether ; and may the thief never dream what it was 
 he took ! " 
 
 " Then where are you going ? " asked Doherty, 
 following Denis as he strode out of the hut. 
 
 " Down the shaft, to start the tunneling, and to 
 try just one tub before six, to see if the luck has 
 changed or not." 
 
 While he was down, Doherty, waiting at the 
 windlass, received a visit from the friendly neigh- 
 bour who had kept an eye on their cradle at the 
 creek. He said that one of his mates was minding 
 it still, but as no one had been near it all the after- 
 noon, and nothing seemed doing on the claim, he 
 had just come to see if anything was amiss. The 
 man was a genial, broad-shouldered, black-bearded
 
 208 DENIS DENT 
 
 digger of a rough but excellent type, and on reflec- 
 tion Doherty told him of the drugged beer and the 
 resultant loss of the nugget, but of nothing else. 
 The digger seemed considerably interested, asked 
 several questions, and good-naturedly lent a hand 
 to raise Denis from the depths. 
 
 " I Ve just been hearing of your loss," said he, 
 " and I congratulate you ! It 's not many lucky 
 diggers whose luck attracts the light-fingered gentry 
 and who only lose a four-ounce nugget after all ! 
 So that cook of yours has gone to look for the 
 Chinaman ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "I hope he'll find him," said the burly digger, 
 and went off with a dry smile and a good-humoured 
 nod. 
 
 But it was no Chinaman whom Jewson had gone 
 to seek ; it was a gentlemanly digger of peculiarly 
 British appearance, with military whiskers which 
 had never been allowed to meet upon the chin ; 
 and he was found waiting at the place where the 
 special coach with the English mail was due to 
 start for Melbourne at six o'clock. 
 
 " At last ! " said he in an ungracious undertone. 
 " What happened to you, Jewson ? I had given 
 you up altogether." 
 
 " I thought he 'd never wake up," whispered 
 Jewson as they drew aside, " and I durs n't run the 
 risk of his finding me gone, as well as as well as 
 this, sir ! "
 
 THE JEWELER'S SHOP 209 
 
 " What the devil are you talking about, Jewson ? 
 And what 's that ? " 
 
 It was a small brown-paper parcel which the 
 steward had produced. 
 
 " Something you 're going to be so kind as 
 to post and register in Melbourne, sir. In 
 Melbourne, mind not in London, Captain 
 Devenish ! " 
 
 " But it 's addressed why, damme, it 's addressed 
 to Miss Merridew ! " 
 
 " I know that, sir." 
 
 " Who addressed it ? " 
 
 " The clever bloke who thinks he 's going to 
 marry her," answered Jewson through his artificial 
 teeth. " Clever he may be," he added, " and suc- 
 cessful he is, but he ain't so clever that he 's going 
 to succeed in that ! " 
 
 Devenish took heart from the cunning and con- 
 fident face raised so slyly to his. Yet his heart of 
 hearts sank within him, for it was still not utterly 
 debased, and his compact with this ruffian was a 
 heaviness to him. " What do you mean by asking 
 me to post his presents to her?" he demanded 
 angrily ; but his anger was due less to the request 
 than to the underlying subtlety which he felt he had 
 far better not seek to probe. 
 
 " I 'm not going to tell you, Captain Devenish. 
 You said you 'd leave it to me, sir." 
 
 " But it is something from him to her ? " 
 
 " That I promise you ; but it '11 tell its own tale,
 
 210 DENIS DENT 
 
 and you '11 hear it soon enough, once you get home 
 safe and sound." 
 
 The driver had mounted to his place, the five 
 horses had been put to. Devenish hesitated with 
 the little brown paper packet in his hand. 
 " And she really ought to have it? " 
 " It 's only due to her, poor young lady." 
 " But to me ? Is it due to me, man ? " 
 " It '11 do you more good, sir," said Jewson, raising 
 his crafty eyes, " than ever anything did you yet, in 
 that quarter, Captain Devenish." 
 
 Ralph put the packet in an inner pocket. 
 "Well, I'll think about it," said he. But he did 
 not take the hand that was held out to him. He 
 went from Ballarat with no more than a nod to the 
 man whom he was leaving there to play a villain's 
 part on his behalf. It was enough for Ralph 
 Devenish that he had soiled his soul.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 THE COURIER OF DEATH 
 
 DENIS passed many days underground, in 
 the fascinating pursuit of driving a tiny 
 tunnel due south from the bottom of the 
 shaft. That way ran the lead as traced already on 
 its outer skir f s, and that way burrowed Denis 
 through its golden core. The miniature corridor 
 which he made was but two feet wide, and not six 
 inches higher than its width. Denis could just turn 
 round in it by a series of systematic contortions. 
 
 He would have made the drive roomier but for 
 an early warning as to the treacherous character of 
 the red clay stratum immediately overhead. There- 
 after he confined his operations to the lower half of 
 the auriferous drift, which being gravelly, was more 
 or less conglomerate, and formed a continuous arch 
 corresponding with the brickwork in a railway 
 tunnel. The drive was not timbered like the shaft 
 which led to it, but at intervals props were wedged 
 against the walls, with flat wooden caps to support 
 the roof. Yet the task seemed to Denis too precari- 
 ous to depute, and worming every inch of his way, 
 it took him till February to penetrate fifteen feet. 
 Doherty was consoled by a position of much re-
 
 212 DENIS DENT 
 
 sponsibility above ground : he had the washing of 
 every bucketful which came out of the drive, and 
 he also was single-handed, but for some help at the 
 water-side from the friendly fellow with the black 
 beard, whose offices he was able to repay in kind. 
 The creek hereabouts was more populous now than 
 the partners had found it. Their success had had 
 the usual effect of attracting numbers to the gulley. 
 Some had taken possession of holes prematurely 
 abandoned the year before, and were working them 
 out in feverish haste ; larger parties with plant and 
 capital were rapidly sinking their seventy feet on 
 the very edge of the successful claim. " We '11 be 
 down on top of you before you know where you 
 are," said one of the newcomers when they heard 
 the direction in which Denis was driving. There- 
 upon he redoubled his efforts to such purpose that 
 Doherty could not keep pace with the output, and 
 a stack of untried wash- dirt grew up beside the shaft. 
 In spite of this the average yield in washen gold 
 was many ounces a day. And daily Denis took it, 
 his revolver in his pocket, to the Commissioner for 
 transmission to Geelong, where the accredited gold- 
 buyer had turned out so well that the partners no 
 longer received his payments in cash, but had 
 several thousands standing to their credit in his 
 books. 
 
 Jewson was much subdued. There was some- 
 thing uncanny in the way this fortune was growing 
 under his eyes, in spite of him. But he had his own
 
 THE COURIER OF DEATH 213 
 
 reasons for undiminished confidence in the end which 
 an undying grudge and innate cupidity alike de- 
 manded; meanwhile his honest emoluments were 
 not to be despised, and he continued to earn them 
 by the consistent exercise of his one accomplish- 
 ment. His cooking was as good as ever, his be- 
 haviour even better, since the nocturnal excursions 
 were a thing of the past. This circumstance was 
 too much of a coincidence to decrease Denis's sus- 
 picions ; on the other hand, nothing occurred to in- 
 crease them, and Denis was not sorry for that. The 
 man was invaluable. So much labour underground 
 must have been deadly in its effects without regular 
 supplies of proper food properly cooked. And 
 there the steward never failed. But Denis had his 
 eye on him, and was wise enough never to betray 
 whatever suspicion he had entertained with regard 
 to Jewson's complicity in the theft of the nugget 
 and the ring. 
 
 Jewson naturally thought that matter had blown 
 over ; but one morning, as he was happily occupied 
 with the duties which he really relished for their 
 own sake, the door darkened as a pair of broad 
 shoulders jammed between the posts ; and the stew- 
 ard found himself confronted by a blue-black beard 
 which contrasted invidiously with the unwilling 
 whiteness of his own. 
 
 " Well," said a voice of grim good-humour, " have 
 you found him yet ? " 
 
 " What are you talking about ? " replied the stew-
 
 214 DENIS DENT 
 
 ard, testily. " Who are you and what do you 
 want ? " 
 
 " Never you mind who I am," said the big man 
 at the door. " You 've seen me afore, and I Ve seen 
 more of you than you might think. What I want 
 is to know whether you ever found the Chinaman 
 you went lookin' for a month ago ; and that 's what 
 I be talkin' about. So now you know." 
 
 The steward stood at the table with his wicked 
 head on one side, considering rapidly while he af- 
 fected to ransack his memory. 
 
 " You mean the Chinaman who sold the doctored 
 beer?" 
 
 " I mean the Chinaman who sold you the beer 
 that got doctored." 
 
 No I never could lay hold of him," said the 
 steward, ignoring the pointed improvement upon his 
 phrase. 
 
 " Well, I have," said the big miner in the door- 
 way. 
 
 " You Ve laid hold of him ? " the other queried 
 in nervous incredulity. 
 
 The digger nodded a big black head that looked 
 as picturesque as piratical in a knitted cap of bright 
 scarlet. 
 
 " I 'd been lookin' for him, too, you see. You 
 were n't the only folks who had some beer off that 
 Chinaman the day he come along first ; me and my 
 mates had some, and it did us so little harm that 
 we 've always wanted some more. So I Ve been
 
 THE COURIER OF DEATH 215 
 
 lookin' for him ever since, and yesterday I found him 
 at the other end o' the diggin's, away past Sailor'^ 
 Gully. And why do you suppose he 'd never been 
 near us again ? " asked the big black man without 
 shifting a shoulder from either door-post. 
 
 " I do n't know," said the steward, sulkily. " How 
 should I ? " 
 
 " How should you ? Because you told him never 
 to come no more ! " 
 
 " He 's a liar," hissed Jewson, with a tremulous 
 oath. 
 
 "And why should you say he ever came at all ? " 
 
 " Some other lie, I suppose," said Jewson, with 
 another oath. 
 
 " Because you told him to : went to the other end 
 o' the diggin's to find him ; bought a bit of opium 
 from him, and told him to bring the beer next day. 
 Oh, yes, they may be all lies," said the big digger, 
 cheerfully, " but then again they may not. It 's a 
 rum world, mate, especially on the diggin's. I 've 
 known worse things done by coves I wouldn't 
 have thought it of; but by the cut of your jib I 
 should say you was capable of a good lot. Boss 
 down driving, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Like to go down and tell him now like me to 
 let you down ? " asked Jewson, with a venomous 
 glitter in his little eyes. 
 
 The digger laughed heartily in his face. 
 
 " No, thank you not without a third party handy 
 to keep you from meddling with the rope ! But I
 
 2i6 DENIS DENT 
 
 can wait, my friend, and I can come again. My 
 claim 's not so far away, and I '11 be back at dinner- 
 time if not before. Of course, they may be lies as 
 you say ; a Chinaman 's a Chinaman, and that 's 
 why I come along now to have a quiet word with 
 you first. But by the colour o' your gills, old cock, 
 I do n't believe they are lies. So now you know 
 what 's before you when your boss comes up. He 
 may believe you and send me to the devil, but he 's 
 got to hear my yarn and judge for himself. So 
 there it is. I like to give a man fair warning, and 
 that you 've got." 
 
 The hut doorway was no longer obstructed. It 
 framed once more a vivid panel of parched earth 
 and blinding sky with a windlass and a stack of 
 wash-dirt in the foreground. But the hut itself 
 held a broken ruffian whose ruin stared him in the 
 face. 
 
 One thing would lead to another, and the motive 
 for the crime be readily deduced from the crime 
 itself. Jewson saw his elaborate plot falling asunder 
 like a house of cards, and involving himself in its 
 destruction. Devenish had not been a month at 
 sea ; letters would chase him round the Horn, and 
 the truth would reach England almost as soon as 
 the lies. That marriage would never take place. 
 That .2000 would never be paid. That hold upon 
 a young married man of means and of position 
 would not be given to Jewson as a lifelong asset 
 after all. On the contrary, the petty theft might
 
 THE COURIER OF DEATH 217 
 
 be brought home to him, and he might go to the 
 hulks off Williamstown instead of back to England 
 with an assured competence for his declining years. 
 He did not believe this could happen to him he 
 was a far-seeing rogue but the rest would follow 
 as surely as Denis came up from the depths and the 
 informer returned to keep his word. 
 
 Flight seemed the only course ; a successful 
 flight would at least avert the most unpleasant 
 possibilities of the case. But darker thoughts 
 passed through the steward's mind, and took him 
 stealthily to the mouth of the shaft. A dull yet 
 distinct chip-chipping was audible far below and 
 out of sight along the drive. If only that sound 
 could cease forever ! If only the maker of the 
 sound were never to come up alive ! Then every- 
 thing would be simplified; and Captain Devenish 
 need not know of his death for years. Besides, it 
 was an accidental death of which Jewson was think- 
 ing ; he had looked at the rope with the bucket 
 hanging to it, but only to remember that one man 
 at least was prepared for even that villainy at his 
 hands. Jewson shook his head. He was not so 
 bad as all that. He was really only a potential 
 criminal, who had seldom put himself within reach 
 of the law. He might wish that the shaft would 
 fall in and bury his enemy, but he was no murderer 
 even in his heart. 
 
 Suddenly he gave a start, and then stood very still ; 
 stepping softly to the far side of the shaft, he had
 
 218 DENIS DENT 
 
 come suddenly upon a huge snake curled up and bask- 
 ing on the hard hot ground. It was not the sight, 
 however, that made Jewson shiver; that was not 
 particularly uncommon or untoward; the chilling 
 thing was the thought that had flown into the breast 
 which had not been that of a murderer before. 
 Now it was ; but even now the mean monster did 
 not realize that the temptation upon him was the 
 temptation of Cain ; and he yielded to it, villain as 
 he was, with eyes shut to the enormity. 
 
 The dangling bucket was gently lifted from its 
 hook, was nimbly clapped upon the sleeping ser- 
 pent, and kept in position with one foot ; striding 
 with the other to within reach of the heap of wash- 
 dirt, the steward filled his hat with this, and then 
 reversing the bucket with equal courage and dex- 
 terity, had the snake buried in the stuff in an in- 
 stant, and the bucket back on its hook in another. 
 A quick swing over the side of the shaft, and down 
 went the bucket of its own weight, with the snake 
 already hanging over one edge. But Jewson let 
 every inch of the rope run red-hot through his 
 hands, to lessen the noise of the windlass ; and yet 
 when it reached the bottom, gently, very gently, 
 there was the chip-chipping still to be heard in the 
 bowels of the drift. 
 
 Jewson held the bucket, as near as he could 
 judge, within a few inches of the bottom of the 
 shaft ; when it lightened he went to the handle of 
 the windlass and turned it slowly, so slowly that
 
 THE COURIER OF DEATH 219 
 
 it came up without a creak, but also so slowly that 
 minutes passed in the operation. When it was up 
 he flung out the wash-dirt, replaced the bucket on 
 its hook, and craned his neck over the lip of the 
 shaft, to listen, and to peer. 
 
 A very faint light came from the single candle 
 which Denis took with him along the drive ; it just 
 glimmered upon the floor of the shaft, and on the 
 wall opposite the drive ; but in the glimmer nothing 
 moved, and nothing shone. 
 
 The steward closed his eyes and put a hand to 
 either ear. The chip-chipping had ceased. There 
 was no sound at all. And then, but not till then, 
 did the criminal realize his crime. 
 
 He drew himself up with an uncontrollable shud- 
 der, and looked quickly on all sides of him. The 
 sun was high in the deep blue heavens. The white 
 tents in the gully shimmered in its glare. No one 
 was about on the next claim ; all were under- 
 ground, or at the creek ; no human eye had seen 
 the deed. 
 
 Yet the skin tightened on the murderer's skull, 
 a baleful dew broke out upon it, and the little eyes 
 for once grew large with horror.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 ATRA CURA 
 
 THERE are few more attractive houses 
 near London than one that shall be name- 
 less in these pages : enough that it lends 
 the beauty of mellow brick and sunken tile to a 
 hill-top already picturesquely wooded, but a dozen 
 miles from the Marble Arch, yet in the country's 
 very heart, on a main road where the inquisitive 
 may still discover it for themselves. They will 
 have to choose, it is true, between several old 
 houses of rosy brick, all of them overrun with the 
 rose itself, and all standing rather top near the road. 
 The house in question is the one that has no other 
 fault. It is the house with the plate-glass porch, 
 the wide bay on either side, the luniform bay behind ; 
 at the back also are a noble lawn, several meadows, 
 and a singular avenue, so narrow that the tall trees 
 meet overhead as one. Other features are a rose 
 garden, enclosed in the ripest of all the old red 
 walls, and a model farm. 
 
 To this pleasant English home Mr. Merridew 
 and his daughter returned in the month of February, 
 after a wearisome but uneventful voyage and a week 
 or two at the St. George's Hotel as a corrective. A
 
 ATRA CURA 221 
 
 distinguished physician had prescribed a month ; 
 but in ten days Nan had all the new clothes she 
 needed, had seen all the plays she cared to see, and 
 went in such fear of a certain topic of conversation, 
 forced upon her by the heedless, that it was 
 anguish to her to go about. So one of the 
 carriages came up from Hertfordshire, and on a 
 clear but chilly afternoon father and daughter drove 
 home together. 
 
 It was not a hearty homecoming. John 
 Merridew had been many years a widower, whose 
 only other child had died in infancy. But the old 
 red house looked warm and kindly; the servants 
 stood weeping through their smiles; the firelit 
 rooms were all unchanged, save in their new 
 promise of perfect privacy ; and in her home it was 
 grasped from the first that Miss Merridew could not 
 bear to speak about the wreck of the North Fore- 
 land and her own romantic rescue by one of the 
 officers. Thus she had no occasion to explain that 
 she was engaged to him ; and Mr. Merridew left the 
 announcement to Nan. 
 
 " She has nothing on her mind, has she ? " in- 
 quired old Dr. Stone after an early call as physician 
 and friend. 
 
 " She has the wreck on her mind," replied Mr. 
 Merridew promptly. " She can't even speak of it, 
 as you may have noticed." 
 
 " I did notice, and that 's why I ask. I saw the 
 child into this world, my dear Merridew, and I want
 
 222 DENIS DENT 
 
 to dance at her wedding before I move on to the 
 next. She didn't give her heart for her life, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " You must ask her that yourself, doctor," the 
 discreet father replied, meeting a penetrating look 
 with a laugh. And a firm old friend retired dis- 
 satisfied and rather hurt. But so the engagement 
 was kept a secret from the first. 
 
 It is none the less safe to assert that there was 
 not a waking hour of these early days in which 
 the girl was oblivious of her new estate. It 
 weighed on her mind far more than it had done 
 at sea, though there she had missed Denis dread- 
 fully, and sometimes with a resentment which she 
 could not help. She had formed a habit of thinking 
 in these moods of her last conversation with Ralph 
 Devenish; it was the only cure. But fresh cause 
 for displeasure awaited her in London. The voyage 
 had been so long that certain Australian packets 
 had given the Memnon a start and a beating ; when 
 Nan learned this she counted on a letter, but there 
 was none. She studied the shipping news in the 
 Times. More vessels arrived from Melbourne, but 
 from Denis never a word. Sometimes the disap- 
 pointment made her positively ill ; always it left her 
 tossing between the Scylla and Charybdis of 
 terrible alternatives. Either he was indifferent, or 
 else he was dead. And when she deemed him in- 
 different, there were things unforgettable that made 
 her almost wish him dead ; but when the terror of
 
 ATRA CURA 223 
 
 his death came over her in its turn, then she prayed 
 less for his love than for his life. 
 
 So the days passed, and the sea-bronze soon 
 faded from the piquant face, leaving it pale but 
 petulant. Nan had not lost her spirit ; she was one 
 to chafe rather than to fret, but to do neither more 
 openly than she could help. She kept herself up 
 by exercise and fresh air. It was hard, bright 
 weather, a little wintry still, yet with that promise 
 of spring inseparable from the longer day and the 
 lighter sky. There were even twigs with green 
 tips to them, and the chestnut branches ended in 
 sticky cones. But Nan thought of the spring be- 
 fore, when she had met with no adventures and had 
 not become engaged ; her obsession followed her to 
 all her favourite places ; and in her daily ride along 
 the hard, clean roads, the black imp kept its 
 perch. 
 
 Mr. Merridew was not the man to note all this 
 and hold his peace, for he had small tact where his 
 feelings were engaged ; but he was so little at home 
 that it was easy to deceive him ; and his first con- 
 versation with Nan on the subject was really started 
 in the city, where his partner, Ralph's father, had 
 been inveighing against the Dents with the unbridled 
 bitterness begotten of a family feud. 
 
 " To think of the son of that marriage sneaking 
 into our line, under his own accursed name ! It 's 
 so common ; and I had no idea the fellow was at 
 sea ; but now I know how we lost our ship. You
 
 224 DENIS DENT 
 
 may shake your head, Merridew ; was n't she lost in 
 his watch ? You do n't know the breed as I know 
 it, and I suppose you're grateful to the fellow. 
 But what good object could he have had in choosing 
 our line of all others ? " 
 
 " To rise in it," replied Merridew with some 
 warmth : " to be revenged on you that way, not 
 the other. And I happen to know, because he told 
 Nan." 
 
 " Told her that, did he ? After the wreck, I take 
 it, when decency obliged you all to listen to the 
 fellow ? By the Lord, but you were lucky if that 's 
 all he told her ! His father would have taken ad- 
 vantage of the situation, and married himself into 
 the family before you knew where you were ! " 
 
 It was no mere lack of moral courage that de- 
 terred John Merridew from the admission which 
 rose naturally to his lips. He no longer regarded 
 as inevitable the marriage to which he had con- 
 sented in his agitation after the wreck, and to men- 
 tion it to Ralph's father, when Ralph himself had 
 evidently not done so in his letters, seemed an alto- 
 gether needless indiscretion. He was, however, a 
 peculiarly conscientious man, who would have much 
 preferred to have stated the fact ; not having done 
 so, he had a curious desire to alter the fact to suit 
 his silence ; and so struck his first blow at Denis, 
 more heavily than he intended, that very night. 
 
 " No," said Nan in answer to his question. " No, 
 I have not heard from him yet."
 
 ATRA CUR A 225 
 
 " Not a word ? " 
 
 " Not yet, papa. Surely you knew ? You may 
 be certain I shall not keep it to myself when I do 
 hear." 
 
 There was a double reproach, of which her father 
 felt his share, in the sudden bitterness with which 
 the girl spoke. But John Merridew had now con- 
 vinced himself that he had a parental duty to per- 
 form, that cruelty was the only kindness, and some 
 little exaggeration justifiable to that end. 
 
 " It is most extraordinary," he murmured. " I 
 never heard of a more extraordinary thing ! " 
 
 " I do n't see that at all," replied Nan, hotly. 
 " You know what he is doing, and I know he is 
 doing it with all his might. What time can he 
 have for letters digging all day and what oppor- 
 tunity living in a hut ? " 
 
 " But that 's what is so extraordinary," pursued 
 Mr. Merridew. " That he should have elected to 
 stay behind to do all that ! " 
 
 " You know it was for my sake ! " exclaimed the 
 girl, tears in her eyes. " Oh, you are unkind to us 
 both ! He would not marry until he had something 
 to marry on, something of his own ; and there he 
 was where people were making fortunes in a day ! 
 Whatever I may feel, you ought to respect him for 
 doing what he has done. But it should n't have 
 been necessary for him to do it, and you were the 
 one to make it unnecessary." 
 
 " I ? " cried Mr. Merridew, quite taken aback.
 
 226 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Why, my dear child, what more could I have 
 done ? " 
 
 " You might have taken him into the office ; 
 you might have promised him a partnership one 
 day. If he does n't deserve well of you, I do n't 
 know who does ; and you know how clever he is, 
 and how he would have worked to deserve all the 
 more! It might have been an unusual thing to 
 do," Nan added, with a sudden sense that she was 
 talking wildly. " Nevertheless, I have always 
 thought it a thing you might have done." 
 
 She had, indeed, thought it for some time ; but, 
 after all, the notion had first occurred to Mr. Merri- 
 dew himself; and in all the circumstances he was 
 not disposed to suppress the fact another moment. 
 
 " My dearest Nan," said he, gently, " it is the 
 very thing I did ! " 
 
 She looked at him with blank, unseeing eyes. 
 
 " What do you mean, papa?" 
 
 " I actually offered him that very opening, with 
 every prospect of partnership that single partner 
 could hold out." 
 
 "When?" asked Nan after a further pause. 
 Her voice had changed. 
 
 " The first time I saw him after the wreck. It 
 was too late. He had heard of the diggings, and 
 he would hear of nothing else." 
 
 " Why did you never tell me before ? " 
 
 " My dear child, need you ask ? I thought it 
 would hurt you," said Mr. Merridew; and the
 
 ATRA CURA 227 
 
 tender compassion in his voice was not unmingled 
 with remorse, for Nan had turned very pale, and 
 her lip quivered. 
 
 " It does," she said, simply. " No doubt that 
 was why he did not tell me either," she added, and 
 the quivering lip curled. In a minute she crossed 
 over to her father's chair and kissed him without 
 emotion. " I am afraid I have been very rude, 
 besides misjudging you so strangely. But but 
 do n't let us misjudge anybody else until we must 
 or speak of him again until we hear." 
 
 But it was harder now to believe the best, harder 
 yet to look back without a passionate shame and 
 indignation which in their intensity surpassed all 
 that the girl had yet endured. She came down 
 paler and paler in the mornings. It was because 
 she had lain such a fiery red half the night in the 
 ti-tree thicket of her waking nightmare. She could 
 not know how her feelings had been foreseen, nay, 
 endured from the first on her behalf. She only 
 knew that never in the morning was there the letter 
 for which she looked and almost loathed herself 
 for looking nor yet ever toward evening, when 
 the postman came again, and Nan watched for him, 
 openly or in hiding as pride or passion might prevail. 
 
 All this time, but now more than ever, the girl 
 filled her life with a resolution which declared her 
 calibre. She regained touch with her friends 
 throughout the countryside. She visited the vil- 
 lagers, managed her father's house with increased
 
 228 DENIS DENT 
 
 capability, and no longer discouraged him from 
 entertaining, as her inclination had been for a time. 
 People who stayed in the house found its young 
 mistress brighter in a way than they had ever 
 known her. But that was the form of hospitality 
 Nan relished least. As spring advanced she was 
 more and more out of doors, on horseback or afoot ; 
 but in the open air she still preferred to be alone, 
 and would advertise the fact by carrying a book on 
 all her walks. She had taken to reading as she had 
 never read before, in a way at once desultory and 
 omnivorous. And it was in a tome from her 
 father's shelves, to wit Southey's " Early British 
 Poets," that a sudden beam of comfort and en- 
 lightenment shot into her soul from the immortal 
 lines of Lovelace to Lucasta : 
 
 " Yet this inconstancy is such, 
 
 As you too shall adore ; 
 I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
 Lov'd I not honour more." 
 
 Nan knew the lines as a quotation. Why, why 
 had she ever forgotten them ? Why had she never 
 once thought of them in all these weeks of doubt 
 and pain ? They put the case for Denis in a nut- 
 shell ; and the quatrains before the quotation were 
 hardly less poignant in their appeal, though Denis's 
 " new mistress " was not war but wealth. Ah, if 
 it had been war ! And war was already in the whole 
 air of England ; but on the gold-fields there was no 
 reason to think him other than safe and sound.
 
 ATRA CURA 229 
 
 So powerfully was she affected and inspired that 
 Nan showed the lines to her father that night. It 
 had often troubled her that he must think ill of 
 Denis ; that was a more hurtful thing than thinking 
 ill of him herself who had the right. So she 
 showed the open book to Mr. Merridew, counting 
 unconsciously on his sentimental side, and not in 
 vain. 
 
 " There," she said, " that is what I have been 
 wanting to say for him all these weeks. There 
 speaks Denis himself. He has called to me from 
 the other end of the world. I was thinking of him 
 when I went for a book, and I put my hand on this 
 one, and I opened it at this place ! " 
 
 Mr. Merridew was full of sympathy a quality 
 in which he was rarely deficient when there was 
 trouble in the air ; besides, he cherished the most 
 genuine desire for his daughter's happiness. If she 
 could be happy believing in Dent, well and good, 
 and it might all come right yet. The great thing 
 was that despite her energies she had been pensive 
 and wan for many a day, but that now she was 
 flushed and bright. 
 
 " Believe in him, dear ! " she whispered in her 
 father's ear, her arm round his neck. 
 
 " I always did, Nan," he answered, stroking her 
 hair. 
 
 " No, not always ; but you did once, and you will 
 again." 
 
 " Very well, Nan."
 
 230 DENIS DENT 
 
 " From this moment ! " 
 
 "No; not from this momer*," said Mr. Merri- 
 dew, characteristically seeking to justify his former 
 asseveration, " when not for a single moment have I 
 ceased to bless him for preserving my darling's life. 
 How could I disbelieve in him in my heart after 
 that ? If I have ever done so it has been when I 
 have seen you sad and sorry. But when I think of 
 all he did for you " 
 
 " Do n't ; please do n't ! " 
 
 Her face was hidden against him. He might 
 have felt its heat. But it was in the plain troubles 
 only that he was a sympathetic man. 
 
 " But I must," he rejoined cheerily. " We must 
 not forget all he did, and I am afraid we have. 
 Why, Nan, what is it ? " 
 
 " I am going." 
 
 " But why ? What have I said ? " 
 
 " Nothing nothing only I wish he had let me 
 drown I wish that ! " 
 
 And with this hard saying the girl was gone, 
 with tears that puzzled John Merridew to his dy- 
 ing day, and flaming cheeks that dried them as they 
 ran.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 BROKEN OFF 
 
 ONE afternoon Mr. Merridew came home in 
 a state of suppressed excitement which was 
 none the less manifest to Nan's first glance. 
 It was late in April, and he found her on the lawn 
 behind the house. Cuckoos were calling in the 
 narrow avenue, now faintly dusted with palest gold ; 
 lesser trees had reached the stage of emeralds, and 
 a horse-chestnut on the lawn was parading a thou- 
 sand pairs of light-green gloves. The radiant after- 
 noon sky changed into that of a serene evening as 
 father and daughter stood face to face. 
 
 " Who do you think arrived in London this morn- 
 ing ? Ralph Devenish ! " he said, speaking the 
 name in haste as her colour went. 
 
 " Indeed ! " she remarked, and bit her lip to 
 hide the hope that she had cherished for one 
 instant. 
 
 " Poor fellow," continued Mr. Merridew, with his 
 facile sympathy for the luckless, " he is terribly up- 
 set ! The last English news he had on sailing was 
 not later than last October ; of course they touched 
 nowhere, so he had no idea there was war with Rus- 
 sia until this morning. It is his battalion of the
 
 232 DENIS DENT 
 
 Grenadiers that went to the Black Sea with the rest 
 of the Guards two months ago ; and here he has 
 been cooling his heels in perfect innocence at sea ! 
 Of course he reported himself without a minute's 
 delay to the authorities, and now awaits their pleas- 
 ure in a perfect fever of disappointment and profes- 
 sional ardour. He says he has been in the service 
 all these years without hearing an angry shot, and 
 now after all he may miss the fun ! A gallant sol- 
 dier, Nan, whatever else he may be ! " 
 
 " I should hope so," the girl said, simply and 
 without scorn. Her mind had not crossed the seas 
 with Ralph. " Did he really go to the diggings?" 
 she asked in a constrained voice. 
 
 " Yes, and did very fairly there ; what is more, my 
 dear, he saw something of Denis Dent." 
 
 The girl was galvanized. " Was he well ? " she 
 whispered in a breath. 
 
 " Perfectly, when Ralph left, which was only in 
 January." 
 
 Nan filled her lungs, and for the moment her 
 soul sang praises ; but for a moment only. If he 
 was well, why had he never written ? Her indigna- 
 tion had free play for the first time in all these 
 months ; she could better have borne to hear he had 
 been ill, if only he were well again ; for then she 
 could have understood, then there would have been 
 nothing to forgive. 
 
 " He was not only well," continued Mr. Merridew, 
 with outward reluctance, not altogether an affacta-
 
 BROKEN OFF 233 
 
 tion, " but he was doing uncommonly well far bet- 
 ter than poor Ralph ! " 
 
 Doing uncommonly well ! And yet he could not 
 write. 
 
 " And where is Ralph ? " asked Nan, in a hard 
 voice, and with that old hard light in her hazel eyes. 
 
 Mr. Merridew stood covered with a guilty con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " Nan, would you see him if he came to see 
 you ? " 
 
 " Of course I would. Why not ? I should like 
 to see Ralph particularly." 
 
 " My dear, he did n't know ; he was greatly afraid 
 it would be just the other way. But since you say 
 that, I must tell you he is within a hundred yards 
 of where you stand, waiting in the road to know 
 whether you would see him or not." 
 
 Nan was annoyed at this ; it was giving romantic 
 colour to a meeting which should have been per- 
 fectly natural and dispassionate on both sides ; and 
 on hers it was too dispassionate, and not natural 
 enough, in consequence. Yet she wore -a flush 
 which might have flattered a less vain man than 
 Ralph Devenish ; and as for him he looked nicer 
 than she had ever known him, in the shabby suit 
 which was the best that remained of his Australian 
 outfit, with the deep bronze upon his sallow face, and 
 with inches added to his splendid whiskers. There 
 was also, in him, a strange absence of arriere- 
 pensee, psychologically more interesting than she
 
 234 DENIS DENT 
 
 dreamed ; it was he who told her of Denis, unasked, 
 in perhaps his second breath. 
 
 " Oh, I did decently," said Ralph, " and might 
 have done really well had I stuck to it. But that 
 cousin of mine that 's the man ! He had some 
 luck, though no more than he deserved ; but when 
 I came away he was the talk of his gully, to say the 
 least. If he has realized half the prophecies I heard 
 before I left he must be a wealthy man by this 
 time." 
 
 " Do you mean to say he has been lucky from 
 the beginning ? " asked Nan, her incredulity strangely 
 tinctured with disgust; and she brightened as per- 
 versely when she heard the truth. For it was the 
 truth about Denis, so far as he knew it, that Ralph 
 told Nan this April evening. He was cast for he 
 knew not what part of bold duplicity ; all he saw 
 clearly was the end, and to that he was prepared to 
 plough his way through all dishonour, as a traveler 
 steels himself against every obstacle between him 
 and the one light twinkling through the trees. The 
 light was very brilliant in this sweet spring dusk, 
 before his eyes yet not within his reach. It dazzled 
 him, the light of the face he loved ; and love he 
 did, the more passionately, not the less, for the 
 sacrifice of his honour that he had made already in 
 his heart. To look through the sweet English dusk 
 into her eyes, to hear her voice through the even- 
 song of the dear old English birds, was to feel a 
 final hardening of every unscrupulous resolve. And
 
 BROKEN OFF 235- 
 
 yet honour dies hard in the type to which Ralph 
 Devenish belonged ; it was dying so hard in Ralph 
 that he was glad to tell the truth while he might, 
 glad to speak well and kindly of the man he was to 
 thwart in life by fair means or by foul. 
 
 So Nan heard of Denis's early unsuccess, and 
 was thankful ; a proud silence she could understand 
 and might learn to forgive. And she was only less 
 grateful for the way Ralph spoke of him ; yet be 
 it remembered to Ralph's credit, or what was left 
 of it, that his tone, if assumed, was no device to 
 win Nan's gratitude as it actually did. 
 
 Her satisfaction diminished as she heard of the 
 wonderful doings on the new claim. Yet, after all, 
 he had only been there a fortnight when Ralph 
 left, and so immediate a success would in itself ac- 
 count for much. It must absorb every energy and 
 every hour. 
 
 " Hand over fist ! " said Ralph, laughing genially. 
 " That 's how the fellow was taking out the gold 
 when I came away ; at least, so I heard." 
 
 " Then you did n't see much of him yourself ? " 
 
 " No, not much." 
 
 He might have added " naturally " ; but the 
 word was implied in his tone, which itself was as 
 natural as could be. Nan noted and admired it. 
 She was becoming more and more impressed with 
 the general improvement in her companion. But 
 it was another thought that kept her silent as they 
 strolled to and fro upon the twilit sward.
 
 236 DENIS DENT 
 
 " I suppose it is all in gold-dust," she speculated. 
 " I know it is not in nuggets." 
 
 " Oh, is n't it ? " he said quickly. " Then you 
 have heard ? " 
 
 Nan bit her lip. 
 
 " No, I have not heard, and you know I 
 have n't ! " she exclaimed with more tartness than 
 discretion. 
 
 " My dear Nan, how could I know ? " he asked, 
 and with the utmost readiness, though her father 
 had lost no time in informing him of the fact. 
 
 " I thought you must know," she said with a sigh 
 that touched him and yet rankled. " I beg your 
 pardon, Ralph. As for the nuggets, he promised 
 to send me the first one he found, for luck ; and he 
 never broke a promise in his life." 
 
 " Perhaps it was too big to send," said Ralph, 
 with his new and kindly laugh. " Or perhaps," 
 he added, stopping in his walk, " perhaps this is 
 it!" 
 
 A parlour-maid was approaching with a small 
 salver. Nan raised her downcast eyes, and at a 
 glance stood rooted to the spot. There was no 
 letter on the salver, but there was a very small 
 brown-paper parcel, which Nan seized and held in 
 the half-light to her dancing eyes. And then for 
 one unconscious instant she pressed it with both 
 hands to her bosom. 
 
 " Oh, Ralph ! " she cried in a voice like the song 
 of a lark. " Did you ever hear of such a coinci-
 
 BROKEN OFF 237 
 
 dence in your life ? It is n't one it 's a miracle ! 
 Look : his writing, the Melbourne postmark : the 
 nugget he promised me, come as we were speaking 
 about it, from the other end of the world ! " 
 
 Ralph set his teeth grimly ; he had brought these 
 confidences on himself, and Heaven alone knew 
 how much more. He had not tampered with the 
 parcel which Jewson had given him before he left 
 the diggings ; here it was as he had posted it in 
 Melbourne, as it had lain in its mail-bag between 
 the same wooden walls which had been his own 
 prison for the last three months. He had no idea 
 what the parcel contained ; from Jewson's face and 
 manner, as he remembered them at the last, Ralph 
 did not think it was the nugget. But with a villain 
 like that you never knew : he might have gone 
 straight over to the other side, the richer side even 
 then. 
 
 Nan was too excited to notice Ralph's excite- 
 ment, and yet it was greater than hers. In her 
 heart there was no longer the least suspense. This 
 was the nugget. She was alive once more ; and 
 the world she had maligned in her heart, it was a 
 dear world after all. Neither was Ralph its least 
 dear denizen. Here was his penknife, out in a mo- 
 ment, one blade open ; she never noted how it 
 trembled as it cut the string. She was even 
 unaware that Ralph stood looking over her 
 shoulder, for it was by pure instinct that she had 
 turned away.
 
 238 DENIS DENT 
 
 Nor was there much for Ralph to see : what he 
 first perceived was the difference in Nan. She was 
 standing as in stone or wax, as breathless, as 
 motionless, as unbending, as unalive to the eye. 
 Over her shoulder, as in a waxen palm, he saw the 
 glint and glimmer of a ring with three small stones 
 of different hues. Then something fell, and he 
 stooped to pick it up. In an instant her heel was 
 on it, crushing it into the soft grass, but not before 
 he had looked upon a plaited guard of finest hair. 
 The shade was her own dark-gold; it seemed to 
 Devenish that the very curl of her ringlets was pre- 
 served in the plaited wisp which he saw for an 
 instant in the grass. He had the tact to pretend he 
 had not seen it, to turn away and search further 
 afield. But in his heart he was raging and railing 
 against the author of this unforeseen infamy. 
 What a devilish dodge ! What a cruel and what a 
 dastardly deception ! Had he known of it he 
 never would have posted the thing ; and yet, now 
 that he did know, was he to tell her ? If so, what 
 was he to tell ? 
 
 The parcel might have been made up by Denis, 
 for all Ralph actually knew. Denis might be false 
 for all he knew, the traditional sailor with the wife 
 in every port. Ralph's heart lightened at the 
 thought ; after all, how could he know ? It was 
 the triumph of a diabolical genius that he could 
 know nothing absolutely, that he could lay this 
 unction to his soul at every step, if he lacked the
 
 BROKEN O t FF 239 
 
 pluck to look his villainy in the face. And for the 
 moment his embarrassment made Ralph Devenish 
 as mean a villain as crawled the earth. 
 
 Nan was speaking. She might have been yards 
 away instead of inches. He heard her faintly as he 
 groped. 
 
 " What are you doing ? I found what I dropped. 
 Thanks for troubling. I am going in, I think. 
 There there was no letter after all." So she ex- 
 plained the heart-break in her voice ; nothing else 
 would have betrayed her. 
 
 She found herself in her room. The candles were 
 lighted. Yes, that was her face, and she could look 
 in it calmly, more calmly than many a time in her 
 suspense. Her shame was not deeper than it had 
 been ever since the day of her deplorable escape 
 from kindly death. To know the worst is often less 
 terrible than to fear it. That is one of Nature's 
 mercies, and Nan felt it in a moment. She was 
 blessed with the strong heart and the clear eye. 
 She saw everything that was to be seen of her case, 
 and she flinched at nothing that she saw. Only, as 
 she sat before her glass in the chilly candle-light, 
 she seemed to be looking upon another person, and 
 into another heart. 
 
 An hour later she was shining with a hard ra- 
 diance at the little dinner-table. Fine wines were 
 brought up in the wanderer's honour ; for once Nan 
 let them fill her glass. Her mood was not unlike 
 that of Ralph. He was equally determined to talk
 
 240 DENIS DENT 
 
 and not to think. They rattled on together like the 
 oldest and the warmest friends. She sympathized 
 with his disappointment and anxiety about the war, 
 but hoped they would not send him out too soon, 
 and could have groaned when he told her with airy 
 cunning that it was quite on the cards that they 
 might not meet again. He took her out of herself; 
 he also gave her an unreasonable sense of retalia- 
 tion. She certainly desired to see him again, and 
 told him so frankly when he left. 
 
 Mr. Merridew was too puzzled to enjoy the other 
 sensations which knocked for admittance to his 
 mind. Devenish had told him nothing of the 
 garden incident, partly from instinctive discretion, 
 partly from a reluctance to enlarge the circle of his 
 dupes before he must ; but no sooner was he gone 
 than Nan beckoned her father into the drawing- 
 room and shut the door behind them both. 
 
 " Here is a ring," she said. " I want you to 
 keep it for me in your safe at least, for Mr. 
 Dent." 
 
 It was not the ring that had traveled back to her 
 from Ballarat. It was his father's ring, that Denis 
 had lent her. And she had worn it about her neck 
 since landing in England, because that was the way 
 he was forced to wear hers, and it was nearer her 
 heart, but away from prying eyes. Mr. Merridew 
 took it between finger and thumb. 
 
 " Mr. Dent ! " he echoed. " What in the world 
 has happened ? "
 
 BROKEN OFF 241 
 
 " Nothing terrible ; only our engagement is 
 broken off." 
 
 " You have heard from him, then ? " 
 
 " Yes, this evening." 
 
 " And this is how he breaks his insulting 
 silence ! " 
 
 Already the father was trembling with rage and 
 indignation ; the girl was curiously serene. 
 
 " He does n't even break it," she said. " He 
 simply does what we arranged that either of us 
 should do if we ever changed. And he is quite 
 right." 
 
 " Right ! " cried Mr. Merridew. " Quite right ? 
 Is the girl gone mad ? The heartless blackguard, 
 the insolent snob ! But you are well rid of him, 
 you are well rid." 
 
 Nan recoiled, stricken but roused. " You hurt 
 me once by reminding me of things," she said 
 quickly, in a low and passionate voice. " Do n't 
 hurt me more by forcing me to remind you of 
 them. We made our own arrangement in the after 
 saloon on board the Memnon when we said good- 
 bye. It has nothing to do with anybody else, 
 and nobody else can say a word against him if I do 
 not." 
 
 " And do n't you ? " he cried. " And do you 
 mean to say you do n't ? " 
 
 " Not a syllable," said the girl. " He has done 
 the honest thing." 
 
 " The honest thing ! "
 
 242 DENIS DENT 
 
 " He could not pretend if he would." 
 " And you do n't despise him for it you have 
 no contempt for him ? " 
 
 Nan looked steadily on her father's horror. 
 
 " I honour him for it, as I always have," she said.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 DEATH'S DOOR 
 
 CHIP, chip, chip, rang the driving-pick along 
 the top of the drive, as it pricked its way 
 from left to right, leaving a chain of holes 
 in the rude right-angle under the arch ; and chip, 
 chip, back the other way, between the holes, 
 till they united in one curved crevice, wherein the 
 fingers could be passed from wall to wall, and the 
 continued stability of the roof felt with the knuckles. 
 Then a spell of harder and less cautious hitting, an 
 interval of falling chunk and showering gravel, a 
 period of irritation to throat and eyes. Presently a 
 downward stroke, with more power behind it the 
 lower one got ; and in the end an advance from top 
 to bottom of as many inches as the introductory 
 crevice had been deep. So slaved Denis in his 
 drive; so was he slaving when Jewson just heard 
 him from above, on the /th of February, 1854. 
 
 It meant lying prone in the earth by the hour 
 together, an elbow pillowed in the morning's debris, 
 the body aching in every inch. It meant a com- 
 plete skin of the mud of dust and dirt and copious 
 perspiration. It meant an atmosphere heated and
 
 244 DENIS DENT 
 
 poisoned by the flame of a single candle, a tickling 
 throat, a trickling eye, an intermittent rigour of the 
 lower limbs, a daily foretaste of paralysis. But it 
 also meant a continuous excitement and an endur- 
 ing satisfaction which to Denis were worth all these 
 evils at once and at their worst. The drift was as 
 rich as ever ; and now it needed neither pan nor 
 cradle to tell him so. He knew it at a glance, 
 knew it by the light of his solitary candle. So far 
 the wash-dirt had yielded a little more or a little 
 less to the tub ; its outward characteristics had not 
 altered ; but they always might. At any moment, 
 after the next blow with the driving-pick, or the 
 next or the next a change might be observable. 
 It could hardly be a change for the better; thus 
 each unchanged handful was to the good, and the 
 uncertainty of every minute its fascination. Leads 
 and gutters were notoriously capricious, and Denis 
 was prepared for any caprice but the one that he 
 encountered this very morning. 
 
 He had prolonged the roof a few more inches ; 
 the new chain of holes had resolved itself into an- 
 other semicircular crevice, and to the knuckles the 
 fresh roof was as firm as the old. Denis was deal- 
 ing the random blows which were always a relief to 
 him after this niggling work, when suddenly noth- 
 ing fell, but the pick-handle dragged at his hand. 
 The point of the pick had stuck ; he gave it a 
 gentle unavailing tug, but it was high up under the 
 arch, and he had to alter his position before he
 
 DEATH'S DOOR 245 
 
 could pull with any power. By this time he was 
 trembling like a leaf; and still the pick stuck 
 fast. 
 
 He drew his legs up under him, left the pick em- 
 bedded, and began prodding near it with his knife. 
 Presently the knife stuck too ; this was some inches 
 under the pick, and he had to work the blade back- 
 ward arid forward to release the point. 
 
 Denis could hardly breathe. 
 
 It must be a nugget it must it must and if 
 a nugget then the largest found on Ballarat for a 
 twelvemonth. 
 
 It might even rival the two giant nuggets, worth 
 thousands apiece, got from Canadian Gully at the 
 beginning of the previous year; the nuggets of 
 which Doherty had spoken after the wreck ; the 
 nuggets which first inflamed them both ! 
 
 With fingers and knife he scraped down to it, 
 then felt it with his fingers, then scraped it with his 
 knife"; and the point of the knife, held close to the 
 candle, showed a filament of virgin gold upon the 
 steel. 
 
 Denis closed his eyes and breathed thanksgiving ; 
 then to the handle of the pick once more, to prize 
 the great mass loose in its gravelly bed. A shower 
 from the roof at once deterred him. There was no 
 guessing the size of a nugget like this. Its incon- 
 tinent removal might cause such a subsidence as 
 to bury him alive in the moment of his triumph ; 
 cautious even then, Denis blew out the light, screwed
 
 246 DENIS DENT 
 
 himself round on his own acrobatic principle, and 
 began a trip to the top for props. 
 
 What time was it? Had Doherty returned? 
 Could he trust Jewson to raise him in the 
 bucket. He was looking pathetically far ahead ; 
 but there was the mouth of the drive glimmer- 
 ing within a few feet of him, and as yet Denis 
 had not noticed any novelty in the intervening 
 ground. 
 
 Now he noticed it; there was a lump of some- 
 thing, and the lump was moving. Then it lay still, 
 but strangely extended. And two glittering little 
 eyes were gazing into his at not more than eighteen 
 inches' range. 
 
 Denis knew them on the instant for the eyes of 
 an enormous snake. The tapering tail ran back 
 into the light at the tunnel's mouth, as a river reap- 
 pears beyond its woods ; it was beautifully marked 
 to its gracefully writhing tip; its glossy scales, 
 where the daylight caught them, were as a suit of 
 silver mail. All this Denis noted without taking 
 his eyes from the small malignant pair in the zone 
 of darkness between him and the light. And he 
 thought of everything ; that he was stripped to the 
 waist, and utterly unarmed ; that he had left his 
 very knife behind him, and why he had taken it 
 out, and what else he was leaving for men to find 
 beyond his body. What a death to die ! What an 
 inglorious end ! Its bitter and gratuitous irony 
 was a redeeming point rather than an aggravation
 
 DEATH'S DOOR 247 
 
 to a mind already distorted by such a strain in such 
 an hour. 
 
 His eyes still gazing into the eyes of death, 
 he thought of the two pioneer prospectors of 
 California who wandered finding nothing until one 
 died by the way ; the other had just strength to dig 
 his grave ; and in so doing his pick stuck into such 
 a nugget as Denis himself had found, only to lose 
 it with his life. He was not a very egotistical man. 
 Yet it was a certain satisfaction to him to feel that 
 he would pass into history with the other poor devil 
 who changed places with the other nugget. 
 
 Whether minutes or only moments flew in such 
 thoughts, Denis never knew; but at last the other 
 eyes rose suddenly, as the serpent arched its neck 
 to spring. Instinctively Denis followed suit, was 
 felled to his face by the roof of the tunnel, and lay 
 stunned as mercifully as beast for slaughter. 
 
 Much more mercifully ; for the snake recoiled, first 
 in fright, finally in disgust. The snake must kill its 
 own. Denis owed his respite to that law of reptile 
 nature ; he seemed dead enough already. 
 
 But he was sufficiently alive long before he 
 dared betray sign of life. Luckily he remembered 
 everything in a flash ; and so lay waiting for the 
 last. One thing seemed certain : he had not been 
 bitten yet. There was no sense of pain or swelling ; 
 no heavy coil oppressed his flesh ; no jets of baleful 
 breath played upon his skin ; and in his near 
 neighbourhood nothing stirred. But far away he
 
 248 DENIS DENT 
 
 fancied he could hear the slightest of sibilant 
 sounds, and by degrees he opened his eyes. In his 
 position he could not see many inches in front of 
 him, but they were inches of bare ground. He 
 raised his head imperceptibly : the snake was 
 circling round the patch of daylight at the bottom 
 of the shaft, gliding half its length up its slippery 
 sides, darting its forked tongue out and in, and 
 slowly moving its head as if seeking for some 
 hole. 
 
 Denis considered without moving a muscle. If 
 he were armed he would creep on his belly like the 
 snake itself and trust to his dexterity to strike the 
 first blow. But he was not armed. He had no 
 weapon of any sort ; the one good weapon in the 
 drive was fast in the nugget ah ! The nugget ! 
 He had forgotten it ; the remembrance was like a 
 glass of spirit. There behind him, within reach 
 almost of his feet, was the only weapon worth 
 thinking about worth an effort worth a risk. 
 
 Very slowly, very laboriously, he crawled back- 
 ward until his foot did touch the wooden haft of 
 the driving-pick. The snake was still circling at 
 the bottom of the shaft. Turning suddenly, seizing 
 the haft with one hand, and the unburied end of 
 the pick with the other, Denis twisted it as a 
 gimlet, and had it out at one wrench. Simple 
 though the expedient, it had only occurred to him 
 as he crawled backward for his life. 
 
 Now he was crawling forward again, feeling his
 
 DEATH'S DOOR 249 
 
 way with the pick, his open knife between his teeth ; 
 and he crawled with less caution, savouring the 
 fight. The pick rang against a stone. The snake 
 was aroused. Its body writhed in angry knots and 
 circles, still in the square of daylight, but now with 
 tongue darting and eyes piercing into the mouth of 
 the tunnel at each contortion. Denis felt its body 
 was about to follow, made the rush himself on 
 hands and knees, frightened the enemy by so doing, 
 and next instant had its neck nailed to the ground 
 at one lucky blow ; but as he scrambled out its folds 
 flew round his leg, crushing it horribly and 
 irresistibly drawing it towards its head. The blood 
 ran down Denis's chin as he plucked the open 
 knife from his teeth. Then the strong blade sawed 
 through the slimy body a foot below the head. 
 But for long the headless coils wrung the slayer's 
 leg, while the forked tongue played in and out of 
 the bleeding remnant on the ground. 
 
 At last he leaned lame but unencumbered 
 against the side of the shaft. The sun was in the 
 zenith ; it lit the slabs on two sides half-way down. 
 Denis knew the sunlight was there, though he 
 could not lift his head to look on it again. He was 
 sick, dizzy, and in pain ; with more space or a less 
 loathsome litter he would have stretched himself 
 out where he was. As it was he hugged the slabs 
 in a standing swoon until a voice came down to 
 him from the mouth of the shaft. 
 
 " Mister ! Mister ! Dent ! Denis ! "
 
 250 DENIS DENT 
 
 He reeled and raised a ghastly face. 
 
 " What 's the matter down there ? " 
 
 " Nothing ; only I was nearly killed by a snake." 
 
 " A snake ! " 
 
 " A carpet snake ; but I killed it, thank God." 
 
 " A carpet snake ! " 
 
 " Nearly eight feet long." 
 
 " Why, there 's one up here about the same size, 
 must be its mate. That one must have fallen 
 down. I 've killed this one ! " 
 
 But the raised voice quavered ; the lad was 
 whimpering, shivering against the sky. Denis be- 
 came himself. 
 
 " Let down the bucket, Jimmy." 
 
 " Oh ! Oh ! I have n't got the strength to draw 
 you up, I know ! " 
 
 " What 's happened what else ? " 
 
 " It 's Jewson," the boy's voice came blubbering 
 down. 
 
 " What 's happened to him ? " 
 
 " The other snake was round him and he does n't 
 move ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 BEAT OF DRUM 
 
 THE imbroglio with Russia had at this time 
 scarcely earned the name of war. Half- 
 hearted hostilities there had been for 
 months ; but a halting diplomacy had not altogether 
 abandoned its ineffectual functions, and even at the 
 latter end of April a hope was breathed from the 
 highest quarter that peace might still be restored 
 between the contending countries. Little as yet 
 was heard of the Crimea, much less of its invasion 
 by the allies. But the Brigade of Guards was ac- 
 tually on its way from Malta to Scutari. 
 
 The uncertainty in the official mind was exempli- 
 fied in the case of Captain Devenish, who, though 
 unfeignedly eager to join his fortunate battalion on 
 the Bosphorus, was provisionally attached to one of 
 those remaining at Wellington Barracks. It is true 
 that he was ordered to hold himself in readiness to 
 embark at the shortest possible notice ; but in the 
 constant society of disgusted officers, who consoled 
 themselves with the conviction that there would be 
 no serious fighting after all, Ralph soon absorbed 
 their views, and began to look upon himself as a 
 permanent ornament to the streets of London and
 
 252 DENIS DENT 
 
 the lanes of Hertfordshire. It was only in Hert- 
 fordshire itself that he affected a different feeling, 
 openly congratulating himself each week on his ar- 
 rival, and seldom departing without some half-hope- 
 ful and half-heartbroken hint that it was very likely 
 for the last time. 
 
 Not a week, in the beginning, without one of 
 these visits ; but erelong, scarcely a day. The ex- 
 travagant fellow would arrive in hansoms at all 
 hours, and go rattling back to barracks through the 
 silent country in the middle of the night. Often he 
 would stay ; his room was always ready for him ; 
 but his goings and his comings were alike erratic, 
 and that was part of their charm. In the very be- 
 ginning he was never without some offering for 
 Nan. She soon put a stop to that. The bustle and 
 clatter and high spirits which he still brought with 
 him, these were enough for the girl, who little 
 dreamed of what nervous tension they were the out- 
 ward and reactionary sign. Yet such was the ex- 
 planation of the boisterous animation which so im- 
 proved Devenish in her eyes, and it dated from the 
 time when his visits became more frequent and ir- 
 regular. 
 
 One lovely morning in early May, after a whole 
 long Sunday spent with Nan, the visitor had been 
 first abroad before breakfast, and by merest chance 
 had met the postman at the gate. Without an evil 
 thought, Ralph had taken the letters from him, only 
 to behold one from Denis to Nan on top of the pile.
 
 BEAT OF DRUM 253 
 
 He stood where he was until the postman's steps 
 rang away into silence along the hard highway. 
 It was Denis's writing, without a doubt : the super- 
 scription on the fraudulent parcel was written indel- 
 ibly in Ralph's brain ; this letter was directed in the 
 same hand ; it bore the new Ballarat postmark ; and 
 until the sight of it Ralph had almost forgotten there 
 was such a place, or such a person as Denis Dent. 
 He had been equally absorbed in town and in the 
 country. The cloud of war had obscured the past ; 
 the sun of love had blinded him to its consequences. 
 Even the soul-destroying thought of the packet he 
 had posted the packet with which Jewson had ob- 
 viously tampered the packet on whose changed 
 contents he himself was trading every day even 
 the thought of that had quite ceased to bother 
 Ralph. He was not a man of much imagination. 
 Dent and Jewson were at the opposite end of the 
 world, a hundred days' sail at a flattering average ; 
 what was the use of bothering about Jewson or 
 Dent ? Yet on Jewson he had been relying more 
 than he knew until this moment. The dirty work 
 had been left in Jewson's hands ; but until now, 
 when he saw an important branch of it neglected, 
 Devenish had not chosen to realize what the dirty 
 work would be. Here was a letter from Denis to 
 Nan. It should never have been allowed to reach 
 the post. Jewson was not to be trusted after all. 
 
 Standing there in the fresh May sunshine, his 
 ears filled with the morning song of birds, his nos-
 
 254 DENIS DENT 
 
 trils with the thousand scents of the countryside, 
 Ralph Devenish, annoyed and nonplused as he well 
 might be, was still a comparatively honest man. A 
 certain element of self-deception lingered in his dis- 
 honour. At the worst he had been a passive traitor 
 to this point: nor was the next step downward 
 taken in cold blood. A window opened behind his 
 back, and Nan's voice hailed him from her room. 
 
 " Anything for me, Ralph?" 
 
 He wheeled about, but approached the house 
 slowly, shuffling the pack on his way. 
 
 " I 'm afraid not ; but there 's one for me." 
 
 And he pocketed her letter under her eyes. 
 
 "A bothersome one?" she asked, looking down 
 from her window upon his bent head and rounded 
 shoulders. 
 
 " I 'm afraid so, Nan." 
 
 He had not looked up. 
 
 " But you did n't open it, did you ? " 
 
 No that 's why ! " he cried grimly ; and pleased 
 with his own readiness he could look up now and 
 meet her eyes. " They sha' n't badger me down 
 here," said Ralph. " It can keep until I get back 
 to town." 
 
 But it kept as insecurely as skeleton in open 
 cupboard ; not a moment was the letter off his 
 mind. He lodged it in his innermost pocket, yet 
 could not restrain his fingers from feeling if it were 
 there; he buttoned up his coat, only to feel out- 
 side. A bank-note for a thousand pounds would
 
 BEAT OF DRUM 255 
 
 have burdened him less ; for his embarrassment went 
 beyond the moment ; the worst part of it was undoubt- 
 edly to come. But he must know the worst, and to 
 get at it he must glance at the letter first or last. 
 That was an absolute necessity of the situation, and 
 the exigency itself was to Ralph Devenish the worst 
 of all. Was it not written that his honour was 
 dying hard ? It was not quite dead yet. 
 
 He must get back to town first thing, so he told 
 them at the breakfast-table; but Nan, seeing his 
 trouble, inveigled him into the garden for a last 
 turn (it might always be the last indeed), and in 
 the narrow avenue, now nearly covered in for the 
 summer, abruptly asked him if he had opened his 
 letter. 
 
 " Not yet," he answered hoarsely. " It can keep 
 till I get back." 
 
 " But it is bothering you." 
 
 " I know." 
 
 " It may not prove as unpleasant as you imagine." 
 
 " That is unlikely." 
 
 " If I were you I should prefer to know the 
 worst ; and if I trusted any one as you say you trust 
 me " 
 
 " Trust you ! Nan, I " 
 
 He had halted abruptly; but it was her face 
 that stopped his tongue. 
 
 " Hush ! " she commanded. " I have heard 
 enough of all that, enough to last me all my life ; 
 but if you trust me as a friend, as you 've said you do
 
 256 DENIS DENT 
 
 and promised you will, you might take me into your 
 trouble, open your letter, and let us face whatever 
 it contains together." 
 
 His tongue clove in his head; with a ghastly 
 laugh he managed to refuse at last. Her curiosity 
 was now on fire. And to gratify the sudden pas- 
 sion she stooped to a level of which she was very 
 soon and very bitterly ashamed. 
 
 " If you ever want me to feel differently toward 
 you ever, ever, when we are both middle-aged 
 people you must begin by trusting me now ! " 
 
 So spoke Nan, as unworthily as she was prompted, 
 on the spur of a moment which marked an epoch 
 in her life ; but even the immediate effect was suf- 
 ficiently sensational ; for with a cry that was almost 
 a sob, the conscience-stricken wretch broke away 
 from her, and fled through the checkered sunlight 
 of the narrow avenue, like the madman her words 
 had made him. 
 
 Nan was puzzled and displeased, first with him, 
 afterward and more seriously with herself. She re- 
 membered and deplored what she had said. If she 
 had given him ground for hope ! That would be 
 terrible unpardonable an offense against God and 
 man. And yet the evidence of his passion dis- 
 pleased her least ; and least of all the indirect evi- 
 dence contained in a few lines of explanation which 
 a private messenger brought her during the day ; 
 for while they accounted for his conduct of the 
 morning, they displayed an intention so in accord-
 
 BEAT OF DRUM 257 
 
 ance with her wishes as to relieve her mind of many 
 misgivings. 
 
 " I made sure it was my orders to sail," wrote 
 Ralph, with a wise brevity. " I was wrong, but I 
 made sure I was right, and yet I could not trust 
 myself to know it for certain without telling you, or 
 to tell you and then say good-bye as you would 
 have me say it ! Forgive me if you can. It was a 
 sudden madness, and as it turns out there was little 
 or no justification for it. Still, as a matter of fact, 
 they do talk of sending me out with a draft next 
 month. That will be soon enough. Yet in one 
 way you know it could not come too soon for me. 
 Oh, Nan, I am torn two ways ! " 
 
 And yet this glib liar had not then summoned up 
 the moral or immoral courage to open her letter ; 
 part of the glibness sprang from that last grain of 
 virtue. He might not open it after all, could not 
 all that day, with officers and gentlemen jostling 
 him at every turn. It was only late at night, in the 
 privacy of his own quarters, that the absolute 
 necessity presented itself with fresh force, and 
 with a sudden oath the envelope was ripped open ; 
 but even then the letter itself was glanced at rather 
 than read. 
 
 Endearment and protestation this reader could 
 indeed afford to skip ; but what he could not help 
 seeing in this kind at once hardened and inflamed 
 his heart. He called her his. His, forsooth, his ! 
 Ralph ran a blazing eye over all that, tried another
 
 258 DENIS DENT 
 
 page, read a little, caught his breath, read back- 
 ward and then forward in a skin of ice. Jewson 
 was dead, killed by a snake ! That was bad enough, 
 but it was a trifle to what followed ; for much had 
 since come out, and more was suspected of the dead 
 man. He had drugged some beer and stolen a 
 nugget which Nan should have received a month 
 ago. That much was proved. The nugget had 
 been found ; there could be little doubt that he had 
 stolen the letter which was to have accompanied it. 
 And here Denis reproached himself with having 
 written so seldom, not once a month as yet ; but in 
 the first few weeks of abject failure he had never 
 had the heart to write, but once, and for reasons 
 given he could not be sure that even that letter had 
 not fallen into the same dead hands. 
 
 Devenish held his breath. Was he suspected 
 also ? Yes, he could see that he was ; he could 
 read it between the lines; and his heart reviled 
 the writer for suppressing his suspicions. There 
 was no generosity in Ralph, and he wanted none 
 from Denis. 
 
 " You will be seeing something of Ralph Dev- 
 enish," the innocent could write. " You might ask 
 him whether Jewson, to Ralph's knowledge, ever 
 called at our first camp. He never did when I was 
 there, but I remember thinking of him when 
 Moseley told me a strange digger had offered to 
 take our letters. He bore me a grudge as you know. 
 But I can still hardly think he bore me such a grudge
 
 BEAT OF DRUM 259 
 
 as that, or you any grudge at all. I should be glad 
 if you had an opportunity of speaking to Ralph 
 Devenish on the subject. The wretched man was 
 his servant at the time, so perhaps he could en- 
 lighten us a little. If he can I am sure he will." 
 
 Sure, was he ? Sure of Ralph ? What was the 
 use of such transparent lies ? Ralph himself was 
 only enraged by them ; they accentuated his mean- 
 ness and the other's magnanimity. He forgot 
 that they could not have borne such significance to 
 Nan, that she would have suspected nothing, and 
 that the letter after all was written to her. He read 
 on as though it had been written to himself; and 
 the end left him icy sick. Not because Denis had 
 already made several thousands out of his fabulous 
 claim, and upward of ,2,500 by a single nugget 
 found in the hour that was so nearly his last. He 
 was welcome to his filthy gold. It was neither rec- 
 ord nor assurance of monetary success that froze 
 Ralph's blood; it was Denis's promise to make 
 amends in the matter of correspondence, to write 
 in future by every possible ship, and to post his let- 
 ters with his own hand. 
 
 Ralph felt easier when he had destroyed this one ; 
 he was only thankful he had read it now ; to have 
 destroyed it unread would have been his ruin. But 
 it was only the first. What of all the rest ? Could 
 he hope to intercept a series ? Was there no post- 
 man or postmaster whom he could suborn to inter- 
 cept them for him ?
 
 260 DENIS DENT 
 
 No that was far too dangerous. No more as- 
 sistant rascals for Ralph ! Henceforward he would 
 do his own dirty work ; he approached it forthwith 
 without a qualm, but, on the contrary, with the spir- 
 ited intelligence of a bold nature and an educated 
 brain. 
 
 His first care was to arrange with Lloyd's for im- 
 mediate advice upon the signaling of any home- 
 ward-bound Australian packet at the Lizard or 
 other Channel station ; in each case, separate post- 
 office inquiries were the next step ; and it was from 
 this point that Ralph's appearances in Hertfordshire 
 became as delightfully erratic as the Merridews 
 found them. So far everything was plain sailing. 
 It was the actual interception of the letters which 
 was fraught with inconceivable difficulty and inces- 
 sant danger. 
 
 Its unforeseen variety was its greatest curse. If 
 the letter came in the morning, well and good ; but 
 once it was only due by the evening delivery, and 
 then Devenish fetched all the letters from the vil- 
 lage post-office on some impudent pretext. He al- 
 ways met the early postman at the gate. 
 
 " You see they know where to put their finger on 
 me now," he said to Nan, in presumed reference to 
 the War Office. " Since that one fright I got down 
 here I want to know the worst at the earliest possi- 
 ble moment. Yet but for you it would be the best, 
 and even in spite of you I can't tell you how I burn 
 to go. If only you would let me leave you on the
 
 BEAT OF DRUM 261 
 
 one footing which would make me a happy 
 
 man 
 
 For it had come to this : he had proposed re- 
 peatedly and gained the stage of receiving a fair 
 hearing and some faint encouragement. " Some 
 day perhaps ! " she said, with a stress which indi- 
 cated a very distant day indeed ; and that, of course, 
 was no promise ; nor was the pale prospect accom- 
 panied by any hope on Nan's part that she could 
 ever love him as she should. Her heart was dead 
 or numb ; he heard it again and again, without loss 
 of confidence in his power to quicken it in the end. 
 And this self-confidence stood Ralph in equal stead 
 with Nan and with his own soul : not from the first, 
 yet in a very few weeks, he was playing a winning 
 if a waiting game. He learned from her lips how 
 he had improved in her sight ; and though unable 
 to believe there had been so much room for improve- 
 ment, he was careful to keep the ground thus won 
 in her regard. It was so at every point of his ad- 
 vance. Here and there the gain was trifling, but he 
 never lost an inch. 
 
 Ralph had an open and yet silent ally in Mr. 
 Merridew ; of old he had always wanted this mar- 
 riage, and now he wanted it more than ever. Nan 
 was not happy ; it was the one thing to make her 
 happy. He would have told her so every day but 
 for a plain word in the beginning from Ralph him- 
 self. " Din me in her ears," said he, " and I am 
 done ; leave it to her, and there is a chance for me.
 
 262 DENIS DENT 
 
 But never another word against Denis Dent ; if his 
 name comes up, make excuses for him. You do n't 
 know women as I know them, sir, or I would n't 
 presume to offer you such advice." 
 
 It was followed, however, with all loyalty and de- 
 votion to their common cause. Not for weeks did 
 the father venture to express any further opinion in 
 the matter ; and when he did break silence the oc- 
 casion justified him. Captain Devenish was ordered 
 out at last. Typhus, dysentery and ague had de- 
 scended upon the Guards' camp at Aladyn close to 
 Varna ; thither Devenish was to sail before the end 
 of June, in charge of a draft to replace those fallen 
 in this unfair fight. 
 
 It was Mr. Merridew who brought the news home 
 from the City, and capped it with the conviction, 
 now indeed general, that there would be hard fight- 
 ing somewhere before the end. The resolution to 
 attack Sebastopol was not yet taken, but the proba- 
 bility had long been in the air, and Mr. Merridew 
 spoke of it as an absolute certainty. It might be a 
 short campaign ; but from the character of a map 
 which he spread out Mr. Merridew was not of that 
 opinion. Nan took but a perfunctory interest in 
 the map ; she knew very well what had been in her 
 father's mind for weeks, and she was entirely pre- 
 pared for what was coming now. 
 
 " Whatever may be before them, you may depend 
 the Guards will be in the van," said Mr. Merridew, 
 grandly. " The chances are that many of them
 
 BEAT OF DRUM 263 
 
 will never come back ; but we won't think of that. 
 Suppose they are away a year. Think of Ralph 
 and of yourself. Imagine his torments all that 
 time, fighting for his country, and yet uncertain of 
 you ! How can you expect him not to do his 
 duty, for that we know he will but to be as ef- 
 ficient as a soldier with a single and a settled 
 mind ? " 
 
 " He is certain enough," said Nan, sulking sweetly, 
 " if he can wait." 
 
 " But nothing is so uncertain as such a future ! " 
 
 " Well, I can't marry him before he goes, can I ? " 
 
 It was said flippantly, yet with a certain feeling 
 far back in the mind. 
 
 " I do n't know about that. Would you if you 
 could, Nan ? " 
 
 " It might save complications, if he is to be 
 away a year ! Suppose some one else were to come 
 home during the year, you know ! " added Nan, 
 with undiminished flippancy ; yet this was the 
 thought at the back of her brain, and she was enter- 
 taining it in bitter earnest. 
 
 " Ah, poor Dent ! " said Merridew, advisedly, as 
 he grasped her meaning. 
 
 " You need n't pity him ; he will come back rich, 
 if not with a wife," said the girl whom Devenish 
 knew so well. 
 
 Mr. Merridew came back to his point, after a 
 pause intended to break the thread of painful asso- 
 ciation, as it did.
 
 264 DENIS DENT 
 
 " But would you marry Ralph if there was time ? '' 
 
 " There is n't time." 
 
 " I do n't know. I wish I knew the date he sails. 
 It may be later than we think." 
 
 And the budding strategist dropped the subject 
 with a tact which was growing on him with the 
 conduct of this affair. But first thing next morning 
 Ralph and he were closeted in his private office. 
 
 " Splendid ! splendid ! " cried the younger man. 
 " Another word from you might have spoiled every- 
 thing. I will run down this minute and say the 
 rest for myself." 
 
 " But is it possible, Ralph ? " 
 
 " With a special license it would be possible to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " And how long have you ? " 
 
 " I hope a month. Time enough for banns, if 
 you like. We can get them put up this Sunday." 
 
 John Merridew looked at the young man sitting 
 before him, his dark face flushed, his dark eyes 
 sparkling handsome, eager, and exultant without 
 a misgiving or a qualm for mortal eye to see. 
 
 " You are very confident, Ralph ! " 
 
 I am."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 . HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 TH AT very month of May saw Denis deep 
 in an orderly determination of his Austra- 
 lian affairs. These were in a state scarcely 
 credible, but for the fact that his case was not 
 unique. Denis was not the only lucky digger of 
 his day, but he was one of the few who made the 
 most of their good fortune. Half the blood in his 
 veins was averse from squandering, but every drop 
 was on fire for his reward. Suffice it that the sweat 
 rolled off him until he had his ten thousand safe, 
 and enough over to carry him home ; there fol- 
 lowed civil strife between the two distinct natures 
 whose union in one body made Denis what he 
 was. He must sail by the first ship. He must 
 stay to set his house in order. He could not do 
 both. Yet half the house was his, however come 
 by, and it went against his Yorkshire grain to give 
 it up altogether. The claim was still paying hand- 
 somely. A second tunnel had been driven north ; 
 and it was to be a longer tunnel, since that good 
 neighbour with the black beard had pegged out on 
 the northern boundary of the claim, to obviate a 
 hostile encroachment back and front, on the very
 
 266 DENIS DENT 
 
 natural understanding that he should join Doherty 
 when Dent was gone. And yet Denis was loth 
 to go. 
 
 It was not for the financial sacrifice, though he 
 was sufficiently alive to that. What was ten thou- 
 sand pounds to take to Nan ? It seemed almost 
 criminal to go to her with so little when in a few 
 more months he might have doubled it. Yet there 
 was more to urge on the other side, and it was not 
 the gold that he was grieved to leave. It was the 
 work of his hands. The claim was largely that ; 
 the two tunriels were that and nothing else. Much 
 had been given him, but it had been given into the 
 right hands. Denis had carried on an excellent 
 and shrewd bit of work with a thoroughness and 
 an intelligence at least worthy of his predecessor ; 
 they were alike in this, that both had a soul aside 
 from the mere gold ; and Denis took as much pride 
 in every inch of his two drives as the sinker had 
 taken in every slab of his splendid shaft. 
 
 The others realized how much was due to the 
 outgoing partner, and it was they who first begged 
 him to retain a share. At first he refused. " Very 
 well, mister. Then I come with you," said Doh- 
 erty ; and that was an argument ; for Denis did not 
 want the lad in England, much less at first, strongly 
 attached as they had become. He had to listen after 
 that, and at last consented to reap a small profit till 
 the year's end, " in case," he said to Doherty's new 
 mate, " things are not as I expect to find them in
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 267 
 
 the old country, and I should want to come straight 
 out again. Then I should be back for Christmas ; 
 and it would be like coming home." He said it 
 with a smile, yet it was significant that he did not 
 say it in Doherty's hearing ; and the mere possi- 
 bility of the thing he voiced, however remote, turned 
 Denis sick at heart at the very time when Ralph 
 Devenish was most confident in London. 
 
 His arrangements were concluded with some 
 abruptness, but they showed a sound foresight in 
 every detail. He had a draft on the Rothschilds 
 (from the Montefiore then in Melbourne) for his 
 entire savings of nearly eleven thousand pounds ; 
 one duplicate he took with him in the ship, another 
 was to follow in the next vessel carrying mails. 
 And there was now no dearth of ships, for Melbourne 
 in these seven or eight months had evolved from 
 the colossal encampment into the rudimentary 
 city. 
 
 Of course Doherty came down to see him off, 
 which he did with the liveliest lamentations ; but 
 already Denis had his eyes fixed on the old world, 
 and his chief trouble was the time that it must take 
 to get there. 
 
 " I '11 follow ye, dear old mister ! " whimpered the 
 lad. " I '11 be after you before the year 's out un- 
 less I hear as you 're on your own way back ! " 
 
 He stood on the quay, but a ragged young boor 
 unlettered child of felons unshriven son of the 
 soil yet worth twice his weight in gold in all
 
 268 DENIS DENT 
 
 senses of the homely phrase. And the troubled 
 face, with the tears rolling grotesquely over the 
 tan, was the last that Denis looked on in a land 
 as rich in such contrasts as in the precious metal 
 itself. 
 
 The voyage took a hundred and thirty days, and 
 was the longest Denis had ever made ; but it must 
 have seemed so to him in any case, for the gold- 
 fever had passed its crisis, and now there were more 
 sailors than enough to man the many ships, so that 
 he found himself a passenger perforce for the 
 first time in his life. And after a fortnight of 
 heavenly rest, the idleness became more irksome to 
 his temperament every day. Instead of reveling in 
 the luxury of seeing others staggering in dripping 
 oilskins, of hearing the starboard watch piped on 
 deck, and of turning over on the other side, Denis 
 would sooner have paid the second officer to 
 change places with him. He missed the crowded 
 hours, and the sense of responsibility so long as- 
 sociated with the sea ; they had made his former 
 ships fly their latitudes like hurdles, where this one 
 crawled and climbed. 
 
 The voyage was quite uneventful, but of petty in- 
 cident there was the usual supply. Denis himself 
 incurred the displeasure of the captain by his pro- 
 fessional interest in every move, but in a rough-and- 
 tumble round the Horn he made certain amends, 
 and won further favour in the tropics. There they 
 were becalmed three weeks. The ship was full of
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 269 
 
 returning diggers, mostly unsuccessful, and discon- 
 tent in the steerage was fermented by the harsh 
 treatment of offenders upon whom the thwarted 
 skipper wreaked insensate vengeance with the irons 
 which are a snare to so many of his kind. It was 
 Denis who remonstrated in the captain's cabin and 
 reasoned between decks, and it was Denis who 
 forthwith initiated the various interests which re- 
 deemed the remainder of the voyage. Here, how- 
 ever, he received valuable aid from a hard-bitten 
 old sergeant of the Black Watch, named Thrush, 
 who had thus far been an unpopular advocate of 
 steerage discipline. From organized games these 
 two worked up to a daily drill, owing a plausible 
 existence to the pirates with which the seas were 
 still infested in those days, and a corporeal to 
 the valuable money-prizes which Denis put up. 
 This passed a lot of time. The captain looked on 
 approvingly from the poop. Sergeant Thrush 
 bellowed and swore in his old element. Denis 
 drilled humbly with the rest. In the channel he 
 was thanked by the captain in a public speech, and 
 so cheered by every throat on board that he must 
 have stepped ashore in a glow, even with no Nan 
 Merridew in the world. 
 
 As it was he was naturally anxious, more nervous 
 than he could have believed, yet full of simple- 
 hearted faith and trust. God had been very good 
 to him : disloyal and impious to anticipate aught 
 but goodness at His hands. And yet it was eleven
 
 270 DENIS DENT 
 
 long months and more! And yet not a letter 
 from his love in all that time ! 
 
 This, however, was his own fault rather than hers ; 
 there had been no time for answers to the few let- 
 ters he was justified in hoping she had received. 
 No one therefore was to blame, except himself. 
 But yet much, only too much, might happen in 
 eleven months. 
 
 Denis went straight to Rothschilds' (for it was a 
 Saturday morning), presented his draft, and was 
 still wise enough in his excitement to open an ac- 
 count then and there. Fifty pounds he drew in 
 cash, and the business was concluded in ten min- 
 utes. But it took Denis some hours, driving about 
 in a cab, to render himself temporarily and approx- 
 imately as presentable as he burned to be ; and the 
 afternoon was advancing when he stopped the cab 
 on a country road, to jump out a new man, whose 
 beard was trimmed beneath his changeless tan, but 
 all else about him only too fresh from the shop. 
 
 In his heart he regretted his comfortable rags, his 
 old hat, his easy boots, even his flowing beard ; but 
 he felt it would have been the greater affectation to 
 go out to Hertfordshire just as he had left the dig- 
 gings ; and so you see him well upon the road, yet 
 with a three-mile tramp still before him, deliberately 
 chosen to calm his soul. 
 
 It happened to be the last day of September. 
 The countryside lay porous but peaceful under a 
 delicate film of mist and chastened sunlight. Trees
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 271 
 
 showed to less advantage in limp leaves of a lack- 
 lustre shade between living green and dying glory ; 
 but to Denis the hour was still worthy of his dreams ; 
 it was for him to prove worthy of the hour. The 
 rich scent of decay was not only perfume in his 
 nostrils ; it braced the brain like strong salts ; and 
 the sharp touch of autumn in the air had the like 
 effect upon his blood. He strode out with the greater 
 gusto for his long confinement aboardship ; the day 
 could not well have been more restful, more reas- 
 suring, more inspiriting withal. 
 
 Presently a village a village so utterly English 
 in its great length, its red roofs, and the signs and 
 archways of its many inns, that Denis could have 
 tarried there merely to gloat over his native land. 
 But he only inquired the name of the place, and 
 was off with a nod on hearing it was Edgware. It 
 could only have been Edgware ; he knew where he 
 was to a mile and less, though he had never before 
 been there in the flesh. The spirit had atoned. 
 Was it not Nan herself who had taught him the 
 road she knew so well ? Had she not told him ex- 
 actly how to come, the very next time he was in 
 docks ? Ah, that was in the early days, in tropic 
 nights on the North Foreland, yet how well he re- 
 membered one and all ! How he could seethe fresh 
 young girl, so far from her home, but so full of it ! 
 Not Nan to him then only Miss Merridew ! It 
 seemed a great many years ago. 
 
 But she had told him how to know the house, by
 
 272 DENIS DENT 
 
 its plate-glass porch and its dear red bricks; she 
 had prepared him for the first sight of the sacred 
 spot, the line of trees to be seen against the sky from 
 a certain dip and sudden bend in the road. Great 
 heaven ! Could those be they ? Denis was standing 
 in such a hollow at such a bend. A file of trees ran 
 into the sky like a giant hedge : even so had Nan 
 described the first prospect of that narrow avenue 
 in which Denis had done everything but walk. 
 
 Somehow his legs carried him up the last hill, and 
 so to the low wall which made no pretense of shield- 
 ing the front of the house from the road. Of 
 course it was the house ; the old red brick glowed 
 as softly as in his dreams ; the distinctive porch re- 
 flected a gentle sunset with all the sharp fidelity of 
 plate-glass. Denis was glad to lean on the low wall, 
 to peer through the shallow shrubbery on its inner 
 side ; he felt as though the muscles had been drawn 
 out of him. 
 
 But as he leaned the reflected sunset was momen- 
 tarily disturbed, and the next moment a figure stood 
 in the doorway, gazing toward the west itself. It 
 was Nan. The sunset lit her ringlets to warmest 
 gold. It gave her some colour, too, yet still her 
 face was paler than of old, as it was certainly far 
 thinner and older. Its appeal to Denis was all the 
 more potent and instantaneous. His muscles tight- 
 ened almost with a twang. No running round by 
 the gate for him ! He vaulted the wall, burst 
 through the bushes, stood panting at her feet.
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 273 
 
 Nan's hands clutched post and door ; the sun- 
 light turned ghastly on her face; but she could 
 look steadily down on him from the step, she was 
 so much the calmer of the two. 
 
 " I have been expecting you so long ! " she could 
 say with but a break in her voice. " Oh, Denis 
 . . . Denis!" 
 
 And her right hand lay cold in his. 
 
 " Come in ! " she cried, wrenching it from his 
 lips. Something rang on the flags of the porch 
 as she pushed him before her. " No, no, through 
 into the garden," she went on. " It 's stifling in the 
 house." 
 
 Yet firelight flickered in the rooms they passed, 
 and it was really chilly on the lawn where Nan had 
 walked with Ralph, also toward dusk, at the break 
 of the leaf now floating back to earth. 
 
 " I found the house in a minute," he went on as 
 they trod the soft turf together. " We only got 
 ashore this morning, and I drove out nearly all the 
 way ; but I felt I must walk the part I seemed to 
 know so well. This time yesterday we were off 
 the Isle of Wight : such a voyage, a hundred and 
 twenty-nine days from pilot to pilot ! I 'd have 
 given a thousand pounds to knock off the twenty- 
 nine ! " 
 
 That was his only allusion to his success, and it 
 was unintentional. She was sadly embarrassed ; he 
 saw it with some pain, but supposed it natural after 
 so long a separation. After all, they scarcely knew
 
 274 DENIS DENT 
 
 each other ; they only loved ; but Denis was not 
 going to force the love upon her all in a moment. 
 His instincts did not fail him in his great hour. 
 Yet the hour was not quite as he had foreseen it. 
 He had foreseen two extremes : to be chatting 
 in this fashion and ignoring all that mattered to 
 him in life struck Denis at the time as scarcely 
 credible in himself. Yet he kept it up for several 
 minutes, in a tone light beyond his nature, with a 
 heart cooling into solid lead. He would not even 
 ask if she had got his letters ; it was not for him 
 to remind her of anything that had ever been, to 
 take the continuance of anything for granted. He 
 might have to begin all over again. That was 
 nothing. In less than a minute he was resigned to 
 that. 
 
 " And I seem to have found you alone," he re- 
 marked at last. It was his first wistful word. 
 
 " Papa is remaining in the city," replied the girl. 
 " He has been asked to the Sheriffs' Dinner at the 
 London Tavern. So I suppose I am alone." 
 
 She glanced over her shoulder at the firelit win- 
 dows overlooking the lawn. 
 
 " That avenue ! " exclaimed Denis standing still. 
 " It was my first landmark, as you said it would be. 
 You might let me see it before it 's dark ! " 
 
 Nan pointed to the screen of trees beyond the 
 kitchen-garden. 
 
 " There it is. You do see it." 
 
 " But properly ! "
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 275 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 She led the way. His voice had trembled ; a 
 deep compassion softened hers. In a minute they 
 were in the avenue. It was narrower even than he 
 had thought. The trees in their autumn tatters still 
 met above their heads. But it was a place of pre- 
 mature twilight, where faces were already hard to 
 see. Figures are often more eloquent. He stood 
 in front of her with his arms unconsciously flung 
 wide, and she stood drooping just beyond his reach. 
 
 " Nan ! " 
 
 His voice choked with doubt and apprehension. 
 
 " Yes ! I suppose you may call me that," she 
 said, sadly. 
 
 " Call you that ? Call you Nan ? " His arm flew 
 round her at last, but the bright bowed head for- 
 bade a kiss. " My darling, what in the world has 
 happened ? " 
 
 An alien voice came from the hidden lips. 
 
 " I am not your darling, Denis." 
 
 " No ; that I have seen ! " he cried bitterly, re- 
 leasing her. " You do n't love me any more. I 
 saw it in a moment ... is there anybody 
 else ? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Are you engaged to some one else ? " 
 
 No no." 
 
 " I must have the truth." 
 
 " I dare not tell you the whole truth." 
 
 And she drooped to break it to him.
 
 276 DENIS DENT 
 
 " You have nothing to fear, Nan." 
 " I don't know how to tell you. . 
 " I am ready for the worst." 
 " Then . . I am married."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 THE GREAT GULF 
 
 THE words died away in the still air. They 
 had been but faintly whispered, and now 
 for many moments there was no sound at 
 all in the quiet shelter of the trees. Then for a lit- 
 tle the absolute silence was broken by short and 
 laboured breathing through clenched teeth ; then it 
 became absolute as before. Denis was mastering 
 himself as best he might ; his whole being was as a 
 knotted muscle ; but by degrees that also relaxed, 
 and he stood once more like a thing of flesh and 
 blood, only swaying a little on his feet. But Nan 
 had neither stirred nor made a sound. It was as 
 though her dress supported her, as the dresses of 
 those days almost might, yet there was never a 
 rustle from its silken dome. And in the narrow 
 avenue it was almost dark. 
 
 " Devenish, of course ? " he said at last, but so 
 hoarsely that he had to say it twice. 
 
 It was worth the effort. It made Nan look up ; 
 it brought her back to life. 
 
 " Yes," she whispered in simple horror. Yes 
 " I am married to that villain ! " 
 
 Their eyes met through the dusk, as in a lane of 
 light. His face reflected the unmixed horror so re-
 
 278 DENIS DENT 
 
 markable in hers. Yet already some bell was ring- 
 ing in his heart. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " 
 
 " I loathe him ! " 
 
 " Yet you are married ? " 
 
 She spread out her hands in a gesture that was 
 no answer to his incredulity. Quick as thought he 
 caught her left. 
 
 " Where 's the ring ? " 
 
 " Yours is quite safe." 
 
 " But the wedding-ring your wedding-ring ? " 
 
 " I took it off the moment we met. It dropped 
 in the porch. I couldn't let you find out that way." 
 
 Her hand also dropped out of his. He turned 
 heavily away from her. It was as though for a 
 moment he had cherished some mad hope ; now he 
 stood broken and aloof, shaken with sobs that never 
 reached his throat ; oblivious alike to the rustle of 
 the silk dress behind him, to the fluttering feather- 
 weight of her hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Oh, Denis, Denis, if I could die ... if I 
 could die ! It is worse for me. You are not married ; 
 you are not tied for life. But I deserve it all, all, 
 all. . . . There 's no excuse for me, none. Yet 
 there is some explanation poor enough, God 
 knows ! Won't you listen to that ? Won't you 
 listen to me at all ? " 
 
 He turned slowly round, and looked upon Nan 
 with the unseeing fixity of the blind. " Go on," he 
 said. " I am listening, and will listen."
 
 THE GREAT GULF 279 
 
 " He cheated me ! " she cried, passionately. " He 
 took your letters, and he told me lies. But I al- 
 lowed myself to be cheated," she added, miserably, 
 " and I believed the lies ; so I deserved not to find 
 him out till it was too late ; and I deserve this, 
 Denis, I deserve it all. If only, only I could die ! " 
 
 He soothed her as best he could, taking her hand 
 in one of his, and stroking it mechanically with the 
 other. The action might have reminded them of 
 something long past ; but the present absorbed both 
 their minds. It was all that they would ever have 
 together. It was their life. 
 
 " Do n't tell me unless it helps you," he said, 
 gently. " I begin to understand. And it was my 
 fault mine for leaving you as I did." 
 
 " Your fault ! Yet if you had written if you 
 only had written ! " she cried, loudly exonerating 
 him in one breath, softly reproaching in the next. 
 
 " I know. That was pride," he said bitterly. 
 " I was so desperately unsuccessful up to Christmas ! 
 I did write in November, but I was always afraid 
 that letter never went." 
 
 " I never got it. Not a word of any sort, dear," 
 she said, simply, " did I have from you till nearly 
 May. And then " 
 
 " And then ? " he repeated as she paused. 
 
 " Have you no idea what I am going to tell you ?" 
 she asked, a new twinge in her tone. She could 
 scarcely have explained her feeling, but the least 
 inkling in him would have implied some slight ex-
 
 28o DENIS DENT 
 
 cuse for her, would in any case have helped her to 
 confess the climax of her late credulity. 
 
 " None whatever," said Denis. 
 
 " Yet it was your writing. I can show it you, for 
 I have it still." 
 
 " What writing do you mean? " he inquired, quite 
 in the dark. 
 
 " The address on the parcel." 
 
 " What sort of parcel ? " he exclaimed, as the 
 truth flashed across him. " Quite small ? Brown 
 paper ? Quick ! Quick ! I want to know ! " 
 
 " Yes yes and you do n't know what was in 
 it! Oh, Denis!" 
 
 " I know what should have been," he said, 
 grimly : " my first nugget according to promise. 
 But it was stolen, and afterward found." 
 
 " And you do n't know what was put in instead ? 
 Did you lose nothing else ? " 
 
 Denis stood stock-still in the deepening dusk. 
 No, he had never thought of that; even now his 
 simplicity could not credit it until he had drawn 
 every detail from Nan's lips. The ring had 
 possessed intrinsic value. He had always looked 
 upon that as an ordinary theft. The discovery of 
 the stolen nugget on Jewson's body had puzzled 
 him, but it was partially accounted for by another 
 strange fact which had come to light after the man's 
 death, namely, that the nugget had been purchased 
 by Jewson in the first instance, elsewhere on the 
 diggings, and deliberately planted at the bottom of
 
 THE GREAT GULF 281 
 
 the shaft where Denis found it. And not till this 
 moment, months afterward, had Denis penetrated 
 the dead man's design. 
 
 " You have indeed been cheated," he said, 
 bitterly. " Yet to believe me capable of behaving 
 like that without a word ! To have known me as 
 little as all that ! Why, there was trickery on the 
 face of it. But how can I talk ? They took me 
 in, too decent people do n't dream of such vil- 
 lainy so I was fair game at one end, and you at 
 the other. I begin to see the whole thing. Do 
 you remember when we said good-bye on board 
 your ship ? " 
 
 " Do I remember ! " 
 
 " It was then you gave me what I wore night 
 and day until it was stolen and sent back to you." 
 
 " Oh, Denis ! " 
 
 " And it was then you made me promise to send 
 
 it back to you if ever Oh, what a fool I 
 
 was!" 
 
 " It was my doing all. You did n't want to 
 promise ; it vexed you and hurt you, and it was all 
 my fault." 
 
 " But I promised, and I was overheard, by the 
 villain who is gone," said Denis. " He was in my 
 cousin's cabin at the time, for I distinctly remember 
 seeing him there as we went on deck. And he re- 
 peated every syllable to a ten times greater villain 
 than himself, who is alive to answer for his crime ! " 
 and he ground his teeth, little dreaming that he had
 
 282 DENIS DENT 
 
 done the living criminal a double injustice in one 
 breath. 
 
 " I am not sure that he is alive," faltered Nan, 
 above her breath, but that was all. 
 
 " You are not sure ? " 
 
 " I have not seen him since our wedding day ! " 
 
 Denis was dumfoundered, but enlightened. 
 
 " So you found out just too late," he groaned. 
 
 " Yes ; and the hard part was that I might have 
 found out in time," she said sadly but only sadly, 
 as if telling of some other person. " There were 
 such a lot of letters for me that morning," she went 
 on, " and there was so little time. I did n't even 
 look at them; I said I would read them in the 
 train ; but after all I looked through the envelopes 
 as they were dressing me to go away." 
 
 He heard her shuddering, and his lips moved. It 
 was black night in the avenue now, and deepest 
 twilight through the trees on either hand. So he 
 never knew how meekly she stood before him in 
 this bitter hour ; even the striking humility of a 
 voice so memorable for its spirit was lost upon a 
 mind too absorbed in the sense to heed the 
 sound. 
 
 " Your letter was among them," she went on. 
 " Which letter I cannot say ; it was the first that 
 ever reached me, and I was in two minds whether 
 to read a line of it or to tear it up unopened ; 
 but I could not bring myself to do that, nor yet 
 resist just looking to see what you said. And there
 
 THE GREAT GULF 283 
 
 in the first few lines I saw it was but one of many 
 letters that had gone astray ! It was the letter in 
 which you began by saying how often you had 
 written lately, though you had never yet had a 
 single word from me. But how could I write when 
 / never had a line to tell me where you were ? " 
 
 " I do n't blame you for that," said Denis. " I 
 never blamed you in my life before to-day ; when I 
 know all I may not blame you yet. I understand 
 nearly everything as it is." There was a slight em- 
 phasis on one of the last words, but it was very 
 slight : in their common misery he was now as un- 
 emphatic as she. 
 
 " It was the letter," continued Nan, " in which 
 you told me how splendidly you were doing, and 
 how soon you hoped to sail ; I think it must have 
 come in a much quicker ship than yours ; but it was 
 a long time before I read that part. I nearly fainted 
 not quite but they sent downstairs for our doctor. 
 It was a very small party everything was hurried 
 and quite private but Dr. Stone has known me 
 since I was born, and fortunately he was there. I 
 told him everything, and what I suspected in a 
 moment. He tried to talk me over, but I refused 
 even to see my husband until my suspicions were 
 set at rest, and appealed to him to stop a scandal. 
 He did so there is no public scandal to this day. 
 He went downstairs and declared that the hurry 
 and excitement had proved too much for me ; that 
 it was nothing serious, but I could not possibly go
 
 284 DENIS DENT 
 
 away that day. That emptied the house, and 
 gave me time to think. But they all pressed me 
 to see Captain Devenish, so at last I did see him. 
 And in my misery I came down to his level, and 
 pretended not to care if he would only tell the 
 truth." 
 
 " And did he ? " 
 
 " How can I tell ? He told me a tale, and he 
 brazened it out. I believe it was the truth. The 
 fraud was not begun by him, but first he counte- 
 nanced it and then he had to carry it on. He had 
 taken your letters systematically for weeks ; when- 
 ever a mail came in, here he was, on the spot, and 
 ready for the worst. He boasted of it, gloried in it, 
 said he would play the same game again for the 
 same stake ! That was the end. I never looked at 
 him again, though he stayed in the house a week to 
 save the appearances that were so dear to him and 
 to my father ; but it was I who saved them, little as 
 I cared. Next day I was really ill, and before I 
 came down again he was gone." 
 
 " Gone where ? " 
 
 " To the Black Sea. You see, he had to go in a 
 week, in any case." 
 
 " I do n't understand." 
 
 " To the war with a draft of the Grenadiers." 
 
 The war ! Denis had never heard of it until the 
 night before, when the pilot came aboard his ship, 
 and since landing his own affairs and his own anx- 
 ieties had filled his mind down to this cruel culmina-
 
 THE GREAT GULF 285 
 
 tion. So Ralph Devenish, traitor and thief, had fled 
 to fight his country's battles because he had not the 
 pluck to stand and fight his own ! Denis could not 
 be fair for a moment to such an officer and such a 
 gentleman ; it was not in his allowance of very hu- 
 man nature. 
 
 " Now you have told me everything," he cried, 
 " I can understand all but one thing. I can under- 
 stand your disbelieving in me, your resentment of 
 my silence, your failure to see that what you re- 
 ceived without a line of explanation could never 
 have been sent by me. It was your idea that I 
 should send you back your ring if I changed if / 
 changed ! You thought I would take you at your 
 word without a word of my own to ask so much as 
 your forgiveness. Well, you were at liberty to 
 think what you liked of me ; you little knew me, 
 and it was a poor compliment to what you did 
 know ; but all that I can understand. What I can- 
 not and never will understand is how you flew round 
 the compass and married that fellow within two 
 months ! " 
 
 What had Nan to say ? She had long been ut- 
 terly unable to understand it herself. Ralph had 
 never seemed so nice ; she herself had been wretched, 
 reckless, wounded, numbed ; nothing had seemed to 
 matter any more, except to show that she did not 
 care ; and that was her wicked way of showing it. 
 Oh ! she had been wicked, wicked ; but see her 
 punishment ! See the shipwreck of her whole life !
 
 286 DENIS DENT 
 
 He who understood so much Denis dear Denis 
 could he not forgive the mad sequel ? 
 
 " Forgive ! " He laughed out harshly. " Oh, 
 yes, I can forgive you ; but that 's the end. We 
 must never see each other again. This is good- 
 bye ; and the sooner it 's said the better for one and all." 
 
 He was actually holding out his hand. Nan 
 caught it and clung to it with both of hers. 
 
 " Good-bye ? " she almost screamed. " You are 
 not going away like this ? You would n't leave me 
 more desolate and desperate than I was before? 
 You '11 stay, or at least come back to see my father 
 to see me ? " 
 
 Denis did not hesitate for a moment. " No," said 
 he, firmly ; " no, it 's not a bit of use my staying to 
 see anybody or any more of you ; and the sooner 
 you let me go the better and easier for us both." 
 
 " But where will you go ? " she asked, partly to 
 gain time ; yet the desire to detain him was not 
 greater than the dread of sending him she knew not 
 whither. 
 
 " God knows ! " he answered. " Not to my death, 
 if I can help it, and if that 's what you mean, but 
 very likely back to Ballarat. I was making a small 
 fortune there. I might go back and double it, or 
 lose it all. What does it matter now? " 
 
 Even while he spoke, the vision of his mates on 
 the claim in Rotten Gully rose warmly to his mind ; 
 and yet, even before he ceased speaking, he knew 
 that he could never go back to them now.
 
 THE GREAT GULF 287 
 
 " Do n't go ! " she urged piteously. " Denis, 
 Denis, do n't leave me so soon. You are always so 
 ready to leave me, and see what came of it before ! 
 I never could forget it I never could it made 
 all the difference in the end. But now you are 
 the only one I have to look up to in the world ; 
 stay and help me ; be my friend. Oh, Denis, you 
 once saved me from the sea. Stay do stay, for 
 God's sake, Denis and save me from myself!" 
 
 It needed heart of flint and will of adamant to re- 
 sist so wild and touching an appeal ; but Denis had 
 soon formed his own conception of his duty, and 
 every moment since he had been subconsciously 
 hardening himself to its performance. All his char- 
 acter came into his resolve : strength, promptitude, 
 unflinching courage, undeniable obstinacy, and 
 withal a certain narrowness, a matter of upbringing 
 and of inexperience, in questions of right and 
 wrong. She had married another man ; there was 
 an end of it, and let the end come quickly. It 
 would be wrong to see more of her, wrong even to 
 remain her friend. So he had argued in his heart ; 
 so he answered her now, kindly, tenderly, with much 
 emotion, but with more fixity of purpose and finality 
 of decision. 
 
 " But it is n't the end ! " cried Nan, wildly. " It 's 
 only the beginning because I was cheated into 
 marrying him, and because . . . / love you, 
 Denis, and only you ! " 
 
 It was long before Denis remembered how he
 
 288 DENIS DENT 
 
 broke away from her ; how and where he left her 
 came back to him slowly after hours. It was in the 
 house. He had carried her there. She loved him. 
 He could not leave her out there to creep in through 
 the dark alone, even if she could have crept half the 
 way unaided. But the struggle came before all 
 that. The rest made no immediate impression on 
 his mind. He was a mile on his road before his 
 brain began to clear, on the crest of a hill, where a 
 sudden night wind searched his skull. Under his 
 eyes, and a rising moon, the road he had to traverse 
 fell almost from his feet, to glimmer away into a flat 
 and open country, and to remind him of the ship's 
 wake on a calm night ; only it was no longer the 
 wake ; it was his course. On the horizon the faint 
 glow of the metropolis was just discernible, and to 
 ears fresh from the incessant noises of the ocean, 
 the hum of the great human hive seemed not ab- 
 solutely inaudible in the young night's stillness. 
 Yet every now and then there was a rattle of 
 parched leaves, as if the quiet earth stirred in its 
 sleep ; for some minutes Denis also heard his own 
 heart beating from the speed with which he had 
 come so far ; and as this abated, somewhere in the 
 nether distance, on the way to London, a clock 
 struck seven.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 
 
 THERE was a fascination in returning stride 
 by stride to the rattle and roar of the metal 
 tyres upon London's stones. Denis felt it 
 through the depths of his blank misery and impo- 
 tent rage; he only wondered that the noise had 
 never struck him in the morning. Now he picked 
 it up plain at Hendon, and it reminded him of its 
 miniature the first far sound of Ballarat as it 
 seemed to rise with each ringing step he took. His 
 body was bathed in perspiration ; never had he 
 walked so many miles at such a rate. But a vague 
 object had developed on the way. By half-past 
 nine he was in London's throat ; and now he might 
 have been walking on cotton-wool. 
 
 Never had he heard such an uproar : it was Satur- 
 day night. Edgware Road was a vast trench of stalls 
 and barrows, lurid with naked flames, strident with 
 hoarse voices, only Denis was not Londoner enough 
 to know that it was Edgware Road. He had the 
 vaguest ideas as to where he was, until, on asking 
 his way to the London Tavern, he was invited to 
 take his choice between the glaring illuminations of 
 several London taverns before his eyes. After that
 
 290 DENIS DENT 
 
 he applied to a constable, and next minute sat cool- 
 ing in a hansom cab. 
 
 The hansom beat up into the east in a series of 
 short tacks, grinding endless curbstones as she went 
 about, but at last emerging into latitudes less un- 
 known to Denis. There was St. Paul's Cathedral, 
 perhaps his westernmost landmark, though he had 
 once or twice threaded Temple Bar : so the London 
 Tavern was somewhere in the city. The sailor be- 
 gan to feel at home. The offices of Merridew and 
 Devenish were in one of these silent streets. How 
 silent and deserted they were! What a change 
 from the Edgware Road ! And this was London's 
 hub, that he had imagined deafening and congested 
 at all hours of the twenty-four : that sleeping palace 
 was the Royal Exchange : this black monolith the 
 Bank. At the first oasis of light and life the cab 
 drew up. 
 
 " London Tavern, sir," said a voice overhead. 
 
 Denis dismissed the cab and found himself con- 
 fronted by an overpowering Cerberus, who desired 
 to know what he could do for him, but Denis 
 scarcely knew himself. His impressions in the cab 
 had been acute but superficial. The mind's core 
 was still stunned. He had to think hard in order 
 to recall the resolve which had brought him 
 hither ; a burst of applause through the tall lighted 
 windows came to his aid in the nick of time. 
 
 " I want to see a gentleman who is dining here." 
 
 " What, now ? " sniffed Cerberus.
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 291 
 
 " Before he leaves." 
 
 " I could take in your card," condescended the 
 other, who had probably heard the thanks which 
 Denis had earned from his cabman, " when the 
 Lord Mayor's said what he 'as to say, if it 's any- 
 think very important." 
 
 " To me it is," said Denis, " and I pray that it 
 may prove equally so to him ; but it will be time 
 enough after the banquet, and I can take care of 
 myself meanwhile." 
 
 He crossed the street slowly, pondering his re- 
 solve, which was simply to impress his daughter's 
 despair upon John Merridew's mind; to implore 
 him not to leave her too much alone, but to find 
 her some bright companion without a day's delay, 
 to keep watch and ward over her from that day 
 forth. 
 
 That was the motive of which Denis found him- 
 self aware ; if in the bottom of his heart he yearned 
 for a word of unforeseen sympathy, of inconceivable 
 comfort, of wildest hope, the thought never rose to 
 the surface of his mind. 
 
 But he was distracted from all his thoughts by 
 cheer upon frantic cheer from the great hall across 
 the road. This was no ordinary after-dinner 
 enthusiasm. The lighted windows rattled in their 
 leads. A crowd was forming in the street. A 
 whisper was running through the crowd. 
 
 " The Lord Mayor 's there," said a voice near 
 Denis. " He came on foot not five minutes ago.
 
 292 DENIS DENT 
 
 It's something worth hearing, you mark my 
 words ! " 
 
 Denis marked them with the listless interest of 
 one who had realized neither his country's peril nor 
 his countrymen's excitement. It was impossible 
 that he should. He had forgotten that England 
 was at war. 
 
 " Here he comes back again ! " exclaimed the 
 same excited voice. " That 's his lordship, him in 
 the gold chain. See the papers in his hand; see 
 the face on him ! It 's a victory, boys, and he 's 
 going to give us the news ! " 
 
 The Lord Mayor wore a frilled shirt-front behind 
 the massive chain of office, and between its tufts of 
 whisker his well-favoured face shone like the sun. 
 But he did not deliver his message from the steps 
 of the London Tavern ; attended by one or two 
 members of his household, he led the way on foot 
 toward the Royal Exchange. A handful of diners 
 were at his heels, and the gathering street-crowd at 
 theirs ; but Denis did not think of joining them un- 
 til among the former he recognized John Merridew, 
 himself brandishing some missive and gesticulating 
 to his friends. 
 
 It was Merridew alone whom Denis wished to 
 keep in view, yet as he slowly followed in the civic 
 train he experienced a reawakening of that imper- 
 sonal curiosity which had possessed him in the cab. 
 What had happened ? What was going to happen 
 now ? The answer came in the blare of a bugle,
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 293 
 
 even as Denis reached the steps of the Royal Ex- 
 change. 
 
 The bugle sounded again and again, waking the 
 echoes of the silent streets, filling them with an- 
 swering cries and the shuffle of hastening feet. 
 Meanwhile the Lord Mayor had climbed the few 
 steps, and taken his stand under the grimy portico, 
 behind the footlights improvised by half-a-dozen 
 policemen with their bull's-eyes. 
 
 " Fellow-citizens and gentlemen," he cried, " I 
 have to announce to you the intelligence of a 
 splendid victory obtained by the Allied forces over 
 the Russians in the Crimea ! " 
 
 A wild roar rose into the night, and the speaker 
 himself prolonged it by calling for cheers for the 
 Queen before going any further. Heads were un- 
 covered and hats waved madly. Cheer after cheer 
 rang to its height and dropped like musketry in 
 single shouts. The converging streets were alive 
 with running men. The blood was draining back 
 into the City's heart. 
 
 Denis wondered to find a moisture in his eyes ; it 
 brought back the heart-break which had occasioned 
 him less outward emotion, and he was carried away 
 no more. The Lord Mayor, indeed, was departing 
 from the point ; he had paused to enlarge upon the 
 delightful character of his duty before completing 
 its performance. Some few months since it had 
 fallen to his lot to announce that war had been pro- 
 claimed between that country and Russia ; he had
 
 294 DENIS DENT 
 
 now the great satisfaction of making known to them 
 that the Allied forces had taken the first step to- 
 ward reducing to reasonable limits the barbaric 
 Power against which they were engaged. He could 
 not help adding that he considered the interests of 
 humanity, and the happiness of the whole human 
 race, were all deeply concerned in the victory. 
 
 Denis did not join in the renewed cheering. His 
 brow was contracted, but not from want of sympathy 
 with the excellent sentiments expressed. He was 
 himself engaged against the sudden onslaught of an 
 impossible thought. 
 
 " I will now read to you," continued the Lord 
 Mayor, " the letter with which I have been honoured 
 by the Duke of Newcastle. ' My Lord,' he writes, 
 ' I have the honour and high gratification of send- 
 ing your lordship a proof copy of an extraordinary 
 Gazette containing a telegraphic message from 
 her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople, by 
 which the glorious intelligence of the success of the 
 Allied arms in a great battle in the Crimea has been 
 received this morning. I am, my lord, your lord- 
 ship's obedient humble servant, Newcastle.' And 
 this, fellow citizens," the Lord Mayor proceeded in 
 higher key, " and this is the text of that message : 
 ' The intrenched camp of the Russians, containing 
 50,000 men, with a numerous artillery and cavalry, 
 on the heights of the Alma, was attacked on the 
 2Oth inst., at I p. M., by the Allied troops, and 
 carried by the bayonet at half-past three, with the
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 295 
 
 loss on our side of about 1 ,400 killed and wounded, 
 and an equal loss on the side of the French. The 
 Russian army was forced to put itself in full re- 
 treat.' " 
 
 There was perhaps one second of profound 
 silence. 
 
 " Fourteen hundred ! " said an awed voice. 
 
 And then arose such a storm of shouting and of 
 cheering as Denis had never heard in all his life ; 
 and he was roaring with the lustiest, roaring as if to 
 expel his thoughts in sound. But in the first pause 
 another voice said, " Fourteen hundred ! " and the 
 figure passed below the breath from lip to lip till 
 one exclaimed, " The poor Guards ! " Thereat 
 the creases cut deep across Denis's forehead so 
 deep you might have looked for them to fill with 
 blood and he asked the man next to him if the 
 Guards were in it. 
 
 " In it ? " cried the man next Denis. " In the 
 thick and the front of it, you may depend ! " 
 
 The Lord Mayor had not finished. He was 
 thanking one and all for their attendance. He 
 was expressing a pious belief that this victory of the 
 Alma would promote the civilization and happiness 
 of the world more than anything that had happened 
 for the last fifty years. He was bowing to the 
 cheers that echoed his remarks. He was proposing 
 the cheers for our soldiers. He was leading the 
 cheers for the French. He was descending with 
 dignity from the portico, with the policemen's Ian-
 
 296 DENIS DENT 
 
 terns still playing upon his great gold chain and 
 rubicund face, a hearty figure in spirited contrast to 
 the dark colonnade at his back. 
 
 But Denis bent glowering at the flag on which he 
 stood. His neighbour's answer to his query about 
 the Guards was still rattling in his head ; he had 
 heard nothing since with that part of the ear which 
 communicates with the brain. 
 
 The group of gentlemen from the London Tavern 
 followed the Lord Mayor down the steps ; one of 
 them passed close to Denis, waving a telegram as 
 if it were a flag. 
 
 " He must have got it off with the dispatches," 
 said he. " It has been delivered at my office this 
 evening, but fortunately the housekeeper knew 
 where I was." 
 
 " And your son-in-law has come through safe and 
 sound ? " 
 
 " Safe and sound, thank God ! " 
 
 It was Mr. Merridew, still flushed and flustered 
 with sentiment and satisfaction ; as he passed, Denis 
 scanned the smug, well-meaning face ; but he had 
 withdrawn deliberately from the path of the man 
 whom he had driven across London to see. Talk 
 to him about Nan ! 
 
 " Now, sir, move on, please ! " 
 
 The swollen crowd was streaming down Cheap- 
 side, shouting, cheering, and singing " Partant pour 
 la Syrie," as it bore the great news westward. 
 Already the sounds came faintly to the steps of the
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 297 
 
 Royal Exchange, where Denis was the last man left 
 to blink in the rays of the last policeman's lantern. 
 
 " All right, constable ; but I only landed from 
 Australia this morning, and I wish you 'd tell me a 
 thing or two first." 
 
 " Indeed, sir ? " said the policeman. Denis felt 
 in the pocket that was full of notes and gold. 
 
 " About this war," he pursued : " you see I never 
 heard of it before to-day. Can you tell me which 
 of the Guards have gone ? " 
 
 " Coldstream and Grenadiers, sir." 
 
 " But not all of them ? " 
 
 " The first battalion of the Coldstream and the 
 third of the Grenadiers." 
 
 The man's prompt answer drew Denis's attention 
 to the man himself. He was over six feet in height, 
 and not an inch of it thrown away. But still more 
 noticeable was a peculiar pride of countenance 
 some secret enthusiasm which added a freshness to 
 the patriotic emotion to be found in any other face. 
 
 " An old Guardsman ? " inquired Denis. 
 
 " An old Grenadier, sir ! " cried the policeman. 
 " And I would give ten years of my life to be with 
 them now ! " 
 
 " Do you suppose they have lost very heavily ? " 
 Denis was searching the old soldier's face. 
 
 " If the losses altogether are fourteen hundred I '11 
 back ours to run well into three figures ! " 
 
 " But they '11 keep the regiment up to strength, I 
 take it ? "
 
 298 DENIS DENT 
 
 " No doubt they '11 send out a draft as soon as 
 possible." 
 
 " Of course there 'd be no chance for a recruit in 
 such a draft ? " 
 
 Denis had hesitated, and then forced a grin. 
 The old Grenadier shook his head. 
 
 " I doubt it, sir ; but a very good man, who knew 
 his drill, they might take him over the heads of 
 others. They want all the good men they can get 
 in time of war. Why, sir, that 's a sovereign ! " 
 
 " It was meant to be ; it 's not a night for less. 
 And now can you tell me where the rest of the 
 Grenadiers are ? " 
 
 " Wellington Barracks, sir." 
 
 Denis fell into his natural smile. 
 
 " I do n't know London very well. Will you do 
 one more thing for me before I move on ? " 
 
 " That I will, sir." 
 
 " Will you tell me how to find my way to Well- 
 ington Barracks ? "
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 GUY FAWKES DAY 
 
 A COMPANY officer was making his round 
 of an outlying picket of Grenadiers ; the 
 black hour before a drizzling dawn effect- 
 ually shrouded moist features and sodden whiskers, 
 as bearskin and greatcoat served to modify an 
 erect yet incorrigibly casual carriage. It was Ralph 
 Devenish, however, and he was performing his 
 duties with some punctilio. The sentries stood 
 their twenty paces apart, all but invisible to each 
 other, sundered links waiting for the dawn to com- 
 plete the chain. And at each link the officer halted 
 and beat his foot. 
 
 "All's well." 
 
 " Except your rifle, eh ? " muttered Devenish to 
 one or two ; from a third he took the man's drip- 
 ping piece, and from the nipple poured a tiny jet 
 of water into the palm of his left hand. " Keep it 
 covered if you can, or it will never go off," was his 
 audible injunction to that sentry and the next. One 
 who knew him would have marveled at such zeal 
 and such initiative in Ralph Devenish. 
 
 One who knew him did. 
 
 " All 's well."
 
 300 DENIS DENT 
 
 " Except your musket, I expect. Let 's see it. 
 You know my voice ? " It had dropped with the 
 question. 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " I suppose you thought I did n't recognize 
 you ? " 
 
 " I did n't know." 
 
 " Well, I did, and had you put on this picket on 
 purpose to get a word with you ; but do n't you 
 raise your voice any more than I 'm raising mine," 
 whispered Devenish in one breath, with a louder 
 comment on the condition of the rifle in his next. 
 " What are you doing here ? " he added in his 
 strenuous undertone. " When did you land in 
 England ? " 
 
 " The last morning of September." 
 
 " So it made you enlist." 
 
 " The same night." 
 
 " Yet you got out in the draft." 
 
 " I knew my drill. It 's a long story." 
 
 " It must be ! You Ve been bribing the ser- 
 geants, or somebody ; but I do n't blame you for 
 that. Try to keep the nipple covered," said the 
 zealous officer, returning the piece. " Why the 
 devil did you choose my regiment?" whispered 
 Ralph. 
 
 " It was the night the news came of the Alma 
 and I hoped you were killed ! " 
 
 " No wonder." Ralph chuckled harshly. 
 
 " It was one to me ; but I could n't help it, and I
 
 GUY FAWKES DAY 301 
 
 felt in every other battle it would be the same. So 
 I enlisted that night." 
 
 " To make sure, eh ? " sneered Ralph. 
 
 " To run your risks ! " said Denis through his 
 teeth. " The chances are that one of us will go 
 back. The chances are less that we both will ! " 
 
 The rain took up the whispering for the next few 
 seconds. 
 
 " I see ! " said Ralph at length. " The latest thing 
 in duels ! Well, my congratulations must keep till 
 next round." And he marched on nonchalantly 
 enough, with a final chuckle for Denis's salute ; but 
 the note was neither so harsh nor so spontaneous as 
 before; and Denis was left to glory in his last 
 words, to regret them, and yet to glory in them again. 
 
 The rain sank into his bearskin, pattered on his 
 shoulders, and made quite a report when it beat 
 upon a boot ; the next sentry was to be heard an- 
 swering questions about his rifle, and Denis won- 
 dered if he himself could be the sole cause of the 
 unusual inquisition. The officer passed on out of 
 earshot ; other noises of the waning night returned 
 to recapture the attention. The dismal watches 
 had long been redeemed by a series of exciting 
 sounds from within the enemy's lines. The belfries 
 of Sebastopol had first united in discordant peals ; 
 and from that hour the outposts had heard low rumb- 
 lings, distant, intermittent, but now more distinct than 
 ever, and something nearer to the ear. A dull gray 
 light was beginning to weld the links in the chain
 
 302 DENIS DENT 
 
 of bearskins and greatcoats that stretched across the 
 soaking upland. And by degrees the dark night 
 lifted on a raw and dripping fog, almost as impene- 
 trable as itself. 
 
 A patter of invisible musketry sounded in the di- 
 rection of Inkerman heights, increased to a fusillade, 
 but came no nearer ; the Grenadier outposts were 
 withdrawn, and in the misty dawn the company fell 
 in with other two of the Guards Brigade. As they 
 did so a level rainbow curved through the fog, and 
 some one shouted " Shell ! " Every man stood his 
 ground upright, but as the shell skimmed over their 
 heads, and sank spinning into the soft ground be- 
 yond, a number flung themselves upon their faces, 
 and lay like ninepins until it burst without hitting 
 one. 
 
 " Stand up, stand up ! " cried a sergeant with 
 a cheese-cutter on the back of his red head. 
 " You 're not in the trenches now, and that 's sugar- 
 plums to what you 're goin' to get. Look over 
 there ! " 
 
 On the plain beneath the high plateau occupied 
 by the three companies, the Russian cavalry could 
 be seen below the rising fog, advancing obliquely 
 on the northern heights, preceded by a cloud of 
 skirmishers. Nothing threatened the outpost of 
 Guards ; no more shot or shell fell among them ; 
 and word came for them to march back to camp in 
 order to draw cartridges and exchange their drip- 
 ping muskets for dry.
 
 GUY FAWKES DAY 303 
 
 It was no welcome order to the picket, already 
 further from the action than their gallantry could 
 bear. Heavy firing on the northern heights con- 
 vinced them that the bulk of the Brigade were al- 
 ready hotly engaged. Yet a whole company of 
 Grenadiers and two of the Coldstream had to start 
 the day by turning their backs upon friend and foe 
 and din of battle. 
 
 " Never mind, boys," cried the sergeant in the 
 cheese-cutter. " It '11 be your turn directly, and 
 meanwhile you can say your prayers, for you '11 be 
 smelling hell before you 're an hour older ! " . 
 
 Denis, for one, would have given a good deal to 
 have been spared this delay before battle of which 
 he had heard so much. He found it as trying as 
 report maintained. He could not but think of 
 his last words to Ralph Devenish, and as Ralph 
 marched aloof he looked as though he might be 
 thinking of them too. Denis began to suffer from 
 a sort of superstitious shame : he deserved to be 
 the one to remain upon the field. He was grateful to 
 his rear-rank man, a Cockney, and a consistent 
 grumbler, for a running commentary of frivolous 
 complaint. 
 
 " I 'ope they '11 give us time for a cup o' cawfee 
 if yer call it cawfee," said he. " Green cawfee- 
 beans ground between stones I call it muck. 
 But 'ot muck 's better 'n nothink w'en you Ve 'ad 
 no warm grub in yer innards for twenty-four hours. 
 But wot do you 'ave in this God-forsaken 'ole?
 
 304 DENIS DENT 
 
 Not a wash, not a shave, no pipe-clayin', no but- 
 ton-cleanin', no takin' belts or boots off by the 
 day an' night together ! " 
 
 The deserted encampment was far from an in- 
 spiriting spectacle. Denis kept outside his tent; 
 the idea of a farewell visit was not to be resisted ; 
 but a tough biscuit munched in the open air, and a 
 dry rifle handled as the rain ceased falling, were 
 solid comforters. At last the companies fell in, 
 and swung out of camp with a cheer, greatcoats 
 and bearskins, red plumes and white, as briskly and 
 symmetrically as through the streets of Lon- 
 don. 
 
 " ' Remember, remember, the fifth o' November ! ' " 
 said the red-haired sergeant. " So you never knew 
 Guy Fawkes was a Rooshian ? You hark at 'em 
 keepin' the day ! " 
 
 Indeed, the firing was growing louder every 
 minute. It was still nearly all in one direction, 
 on the heights where the fog clung thickest, and 
 whither the three companies were now tramping 
 through the fog. 
 
 " I wish they 'd remember the seventh day, an' 
 keep it 'oly," grumbled Denis's rear-rank man. " I 
 s'pose you godless chaps 've forgot it 's yer Sunday 
 out? I don't forget it's mine, darn their dirty 
 skins ! " 
 
 A horse's hoofs came thudding through the fog, 
 a scarlet coat burst through it like the sun. 
 
 " The Duke says you 're to join your battalion,"
 
 GUY FAWKES DAY 305 
 
 cried the staff-officer to Devenish. " They 're hard 
 pressed at the two-gun battery up above." 
 
 Devenish wheeled round, and his handsome face 
 was transfigured as he waved his sword. 
 
 " They want us with the colours ! " he shouted. 
 " They can't do without us after all ! " 
 
 And with a laugh and a yell the men sprang for- 
 ward, the sergeant's face as red as his hair, even the 
 grumbler pressing on Denis's heels, and perhaps 
 only Denis himself with a single thought beyond 
 coming at once to the rescue of the regiment and 
 to grips with the shrouded foe. But Denis had 
 been near Ralph when he turned, near enough to 
 note the radiant look, to catch the smiling eye, and 
 his country's enemy was blotted out of mind by his 
 own. Had he done Devenish justice after all ? 
 Was his behaviour as base as it had seemed? 
 Was that shining and fearless face the face of a bad 
 man and a coward ? Handsome, joyous, and brave, 
 as strangely ennobled as some faces after death, could 
 any woman have seen this one now, she might rather 
 have forgiven it any crime ! 
 
 So thought Denis to himself as he marched in 
 chill silence among his yelling comrades. He had 
 not been with them at the Alma. It was his first 
 battle, and as yet it had only begun to the ear ; not 
 a man had been hit before his eyes, not a flash had 
 penetrated the pale mist ahead upon the heights. 
 Yet the mist was paler than it had ever been ; and 
 to the right, over the green valley of the Tchernaya,
 
 306 DENIS DENT 
 
 whence it had risen in patches, there was a faint 
 round radiance in the pall. None noticed it ; all 
 eyes were straining through the haze in front of 
 them ; but of a sudden, as the bearskins breasted a 
 ridge, the sun broke forth upon an astounding 
 tableau. 
 
 Under a canopy of mist and smoke, belt-deep in 
 sparkling bushes raked by the risen sun, a thin line 
 of Guardsmen were holding their own against dense 
 masses of the enemy. Between the Russians and 
 the lip of the plateau in their rear, over which they 
 were still swarming by the battalion, rose the dis- 
 mantled redoubt whose empty embrasures were 
 open doors to the attacking horde. Weight of 
 numbers had wrested the work from the British 
 but that was all. Instead of pressing this advan- 
 tage, the enemy had set his back to the parapet of 
 sandbags, overlapping it in dense wings, and so 
 standing at bay in his thousands against a few hun- 
 dred Grenadiers. The lingering mist and the smoke 
 of battle were doubtless in favour of the few ; only 
 the remnant of their own brigade, approaching 
 obliquely from their rear, could see how few they 
 were ; and for an instant the sight appalled them. 
 It was a hedge of bearskins and cheese-cutters 
 against a forest of muffin-caps and cross-belts, and 
 between them a road narrowing to a few yards at 
 the end nearer the relieving handful. Rifles flashed 
 and smoke floated along either line ; uncouth yells 
 were answered by hoarse curses and by savage
 
 GUY FAWKES DAY 307 
 
 cheers ; and Guardsmen who had fired away their 
 sixty rounds were hurling rocks and stones across a 
 lane so narrow that there was scarcely a yard be- 
 tween the sprawling dead of either side. 
 
 Such was the grim gray scene upon which the 
 three companies appeared. The rank and file were 
 in their greatcoats almost to a man ; but here and 
 there were a scarlet tunic and a flashing sword ; and 
 in the centre of the line, in the swirl of smoke and 
 mist, staggered a crimson standard and a Union 
 Jack. 
 
 " Our colours ! " screamed Devenish, racing ahead 
 of his men. There was no need for him to tell 
 them. The gray pack were yelling at his heels, 
 and Denis saw but dimly as he ran roaring with the 
 rest. 
 
 The thin line heard them ; a couple of officers 
 glanced over their epaulettes, saw the red plumes of 
 the Coldstream outnumbering the white plumes of 
 the Grenadiers, and tossed their swords in a sudden 
 passion of jealousy. " Charge again, Grenadiers ! " 
 they roared, and leaped into the lane with the 
 whole gray wave rolling after them. And with 
 bayonets down and wild hurrahs the battalion drove 
 straight into the redoubt, trampling the dead, and 
 driving the living through the two embrasures as a 
 green sea is emptied through lee scuppers. 
 
 Simultaneously the mass of Russians to the north 
 of the battery were routed by a charge of the Scots 
 Fusiliers at the far end of the line of Guards ; and
 
 3 o8 DENIS DENT 
 
 now the Coldstreamers blooded themselves upon 
 the companion wing extending from the southern 
 shoulder of the redoubt; but Devenish and his 
 Grenadiers had followed their own into the redoubt 
 itself, and Denis was leaning with his back against 
 the parapet, brushing the sweat from his forehead 
 and cleaning his bayonet in the earth. 
 
 There was no more moisture in his eyes. The 
 emotional effect of the spectacle had yielded in an 
 instant to the ferocious frenzy of the deed. Yet, as 
 he leaned panting in the momentary pause, there 
 was enough still to be seen, and more than enough 
 to do. A quartermaster-sergeant arrived with a 
 tray of refreshments on his shoulders, and a 
 Grenadier in the act of helping himself was shot 
 down as though by one of his own comrades. An 
 officer wheeled round and fired his revolver in the 
 air, whereupon a dead Russian came toppling from 
 the parapet with a fearful thud almost at Denis's 
 feet. But the fierce fellows struggling for the bis- 
 cuits took no notice of either incident. Stained 
 with powder, caked with blood, bearded, tattered, 
 torn, they fought with their rough good-humour, 
 for their first food since the night before, and with 
 their mouths full rallied each other on their appear- 
 ance. 
 
 " You ain't fit for Birdcage Walk," panted one. 
 " I 'd like to let them nursemaids see you now ! " 
 
 " It 's about time I fired a round," said another, 
 snapping caps to dry his nipple. His bayonet was
 
 GUY FAWKES DAY 309 
 
 bloody to the muzzle. A third was replenishing 
 his pouch from that of a dead comrade, with grim 
 apologies to the corpse. There was less levity 
 among the officers. It was at this period that Lord 
 Henry Percy twice scaled the parapet, a simple 
 slope to the enemy in order to clear it with 
 his sword. Each time a well-aimed fragment of 
 rock threw him backward over; the second mis- 
 adventure left him senseless where he fell ; and 
 Denis, who was now reloading, sprang with others 
 to his assistance. 
 
 " Get yourself something to eat," said a brother 
 officer of the fallen Colonel, brushing the private 
 aside. 
 
 " Thank you, sir, I had plenty in camp. I 'm 
 waiting for the next charge ! " said Denis, with his 
 cartridge between his teeth ; and he bit off the end, 
 dropped the powder into the muzzle of his piece, 
 reversed and rammed home with no other thought 
 in his heated head. He had been speaking to the 
 gallant officer who had led him into his first action. 
 He did not realize that it was Ralph Devenish. He 
 had forgotten that there was such a being in the 
 world.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 THE SANDBAG BATTERY 
 
 DENIS had not long to wait. There was a 
 sudden agitation at the northern shoulder 
 of the redoubt. Shouts and shots rose in 
 an instant to the continuous din of desperate com- 
 bat, as the strokes on a gong ring into one. A 
 sulphurous cloud brooded over the struggling 
 throng, worked its way down the inner wall of the 
 battery, and clung to the angle of the first em- 
 brasure ; inch by inch the bearskins were overborne, 
 and between them pressed the cross-belts and the 
 infuriate sallow faces in the peaked caps. Just then 
 Denis saw a handful of his comrades, not actually 
 in the path of the Russian avalanche, forming for a 
 flank attack upon the intruders ; in an instant he 
 was one of them, and in another they had leaped 
 upon the enemy with ball, butt, and bayonet. The 
 Russians were pinned against the wall of the work. 
 Those whom they had been driving rallied and 
 drove them. Murderously assaulted in front and 
 flank, the invading battalion turned and fled as they 
 had come, leaving the ground thick with their dead. 
 Again Denis stopped to breathe. His bayonet 
 was bent nearly double; he put his foot in the
 
 THE SANDBAG BATTERY 311 
 
 crook, detached it with a twist, and was about to 
 replace it with the bayonet of a ghastly Grenadier 
 when he found the butt of his own piece plastered 
 with blood and hair. So he exchanged muskets 
 with the dead man, but wiped his hand without a 
 qualm. He remembered whirling his Minie by the 
 barrel when the bayonet bent ; he could remember 
 little else. Of his life before the fight, of his own 
 identity, he had lost all sense ; his ordinary being 
 was in abeyance ; he was a fearless and ruthless mad- 
 man, smothered in blood and gasping for more. 
 
 Comparatively calm intervals he had throughout 
 the fight, intervals in which for one reason or an- 
 other he was a momentary spectator of the scenes 
 in progress all around him. It was these scenes 
 that lived in his memory ; even at the time they 
 moved him more than those in which he had a 
 hand. Once the Guards were fighting on the other 
 side of the Sandbag Battery, between it and the 
 long lip of the ravine ; he had to wait for accounts 
 of the battle long afterward to learn how they had 
 got there, or what relation this phase of the action 
 bore to the whole. At the time he was one of a 
 handful of furious Grenadiers, fighting for their 
 lives in the fresh fog which their powder had 
 brought down upon them, and a moment came 
 which Denis felt must be his last. He had tripped 
 headlong over a dead Russian, and a quick Russian 
 stood over him, aiming his bayonet with one hand 
 while the other grasped the stock high above his
 
 312 DENIS DENT 
 
 head. But a British officer flung out his revolver 
 within a few feet of the deliberate gray-coat, and it 
 was the sensation of being shot from behind at such 
 a moment that Denis anticipated more poignantly 
 than that of being transfixed where he lay. The 
 man fell dead on top of him. Anon he saw his 
 friend the red-headed sergeant, being led captive 
 down the hill by two of the enemy, suddenly wrest 
 the carbine from one of them, club them both with 
 it, and bayonet one after the other before they could 
 rise. That also made Denis shudder. And yet he 
 was biting a cartridge at 'i\\c moment, having killed 
 with his last, at arm's length, a splendid fellow who 
 had grasped his bayonet while he poised his own. 
 
 Now the Sandbag Battery seemed out of sight, 
 because it was quite another thing from this side, 
 and now they were back in it, sweeping the 
 Russians out once more. Denis did not know that 
 the work had changed hands, half-a-dozen times 
 before his company came into action, but even he 
 saw the uselessness of a redoubt from which our 
 soldiers could only see one way, and that in the di- 
 rection of their own lines. The dead, indeed, now 
 lay piled to the height of any banquette. No 
 wilful foot was set on them. It was only the living 
 for whom there was neither shrift nor pity on that 
 bloody field. 
 
 This was the last that Denis saw of the Sandbag 
 Battery ; he was one of those who, led by a bevy of 
 hot-headed officers, incontinently scaled it as one
 
 THE SANDBAG BATTERY 313 
 
 man, flung themselves upon the ousted enemy, and 
 hunted him down-hill in crazy ecstasies. A hoarse 
 voice in high authority screamed command and en- 
 treaty from the crest where the Grenadier colours 
 drooped in the haze, deserted by all but a couple of 
 hundred bearskins. It was as though the curse 
 of the Gadarene swine had descended on this herd 
 of inflamed Guardsmen. Down they went, if not to 
 their own destruction, to the grave peril of the rem- 
 nant up above. An officer in front of Denis was 
 the first to recognize the error ; he checked both 
 himself and a rough score of the rank "and file ; and 
 together these few came clambering back to the 
 colours on the heights. 
 
 Breathless they gained the edge of the plateau, 
 to swarm over as the Russians had so often done 
 before them, and to find matters as grave as they 
 well could be. The crimson standard and the 
 Union Jack swayed in the centre of a mere knot of 
 Guardsmen, already sorely beset by broken masses 
 of the enemy. And even now a whole battalion 
 was bearing down upon the devoted band, march- 
 ing to certain conquest with a resolute swing and 
 swagger, and yet with the deep strains of some 
 warlike hymn rising incongruously from its ranks. 
 In a few minutes at most the little knot of Grena- 
 diers must be overtaken, overwhelmed, and those 
 staggering and riddled colours wrested from them 
 for the first time in the history of the regiment. 
 But the officer whom Denis was now following was
 
 3H DENIS DENT 
 
 one of the bravest who ever wore white plume in 
 black bearskin ; and he had the handling of a team 
 of heroes, some of whom had fought at his side 
 against outrageous odds at an earlier stage of the 
 battle. 
 
 " We must have a go at them, lads," said he ; 
 " we can keep them off the colours if we can't do 
 more. Are you ready ? Now for it, then ! " 
 
 Denis had come to himself; here at length was 
 certain death ; and for the last moments of conscious 
 life he had turned his back upon the battle's smoke 
 and roar, while his eyes rested upon a clear and tran- 
 quil patch in the green valley of the Tchernaya, 
 with tiny trees and a white farmhouse set out like 
 toys. His thoughts were not very clear, but they 
 were flying overseas, and as they still flew the 
 officer's voice rang in his ears. So this was the 
 end. A few Russians in loose order led the col- 
 umn ; they were soon swept aside ; and into the 
 real head of the advancing multitude the twenty 
 hurled themselves like men who could not die. 
 
 Denis never knew what happened to himself. 
 He remembered his captain being bayoneted 
 through the folds of his cloak, and cutting down 
 two Russians at almost one stroke of his sword; 
 he remembered longing for a sword of his own, as 
 his piece was wrenched from his grasp by a dead 
 weight on the bayonet. Yellow faces hemmed 
 him in, their little eyes dilating with rage and mal- 
 ice ; he remembered striking one of them with all his
 
 THE SANDBAG BATTERY 315 
 
 might, seeing the man drop, being in the act of 
 striking another. . . . His fists were still doubled 
 when he opened his eyes hours later on the moonlit 
 battle-field. 
 
 A great weight lay across his legs, so stiffly that 
 Denis thought the dead man a log until his hand 
 came in contact with damp clothing. His own throat 
 and mouth were full of something hard and horri- 
 ble. His moustache and beard were clotted with 
 the same substance. One side of his face felt numb 
 and swollen ; but his sight was uninjured, and the 
 pain not worse than bad neuralgia. He got 
 upon his hands and knees and looked about him. 
 
 The day's haze had vanished with the smoke of 
 battle ; it was a still and clear night, brilliantly 
 lighted by the moon. The Tchernaya lay like a 
 tube of quicksilver along the peaceful plain whereon 
 Denis had gazed before the end ; he could see a 
 light in the white farmhouse. The heights of Ink- 
 erman twinkled all over with scattered weapons, 
 and all over were mounds more like graves than 
 bodies waiting for the grave. The Sandbag Battery 
 rose sharply against the moonlit sky. Denis was 
 not near enough to see the fearful carnage there, 
 but he remembered what it had been quite early in 
 the day, and he had only to listen to hear the 
 groaning of the wounded who had yet to be disen- 
 tangled from the dead in the shadow of those ill- 
 starred parapets. The night was so still that a 
 groan, nay, a dying gasp, could be heard even
 
 316 DENIS DENT 
 
 further than sight could penetrate through the 
 rays of that glorious moon ; and yet it was so light 
 that the glimmer of lanterns round about the fatal 
 battery was not at first apparent to the eye. 
 
 When Denis saw the lanterns, he got up and 
 tried to stagger toward them, but collapsed at once, 
 and had to lie where he fell until they came to him. 
 
 " Come on, boys, I see a Rooshian ! " called 
 Linesman, holding his lantern level with his shako. 
 
 " Wait a bit, here 's one of our chaps," replied a 
 voice that Denis knew. " S' help me if it ain't our 
 old sergeant. I 'd know him by his ginger nob a 
 mile off! And him in such a stew to get at 'em 
 this morning ! It 's more 'n ever I was, though I 'd 
 as lief be on that job as this. . . . ugh ! " 
 
 Denis soon attracted their attention, and in a few 
 more moments his original rear-rank man was 
 stooping over him. 
 
 " Why, you 're stuck through the face ! " he 
 cried, screwing up his own behind the lantern. 
 " But the glue seems set, and do n't you go for to 
 move and melt it. There 's a wounded officer 
 wants to see you." 
 
 . Denis whispered something inarticulate. It was 
 his first attempt to speak. 
 
 " What 's that ? Yes, it 's our captain," said the 
 other, " and he 's waitin' to hear if you 're alive. 
 If you 're sound below the teeth we can give you an 
 arm apiece and take you to him in ten minutes. 
 He 's on'y in one o' the Second Division tents."
 
 THE SANDBAG BATTERY 317 
 
 Denis could ask no questions, but he had strength 
 enough to act upon this suggestion, and in a few 
 minutes he was among the lighted tents. They put 
 him vividly in mind of his first night at Ballarat. 
 That was the last time he had spoken to Ralph 
 Devenish until the morning of this dreadful day. 
 
 Now Ralph was lying in a military tent, a candle 
 and a tumbler of champagne on the service trunk 
 at his elbow, and an army surgeon on a camp-stool 
 beside the bed. 
 
 " Is that the man you want to see ? " asked the 
 surgeon, but bundled Denis from the tent next in- 
 stant, and made his conductors hold both lanterns 
 to his face. " Do n't you try to speak ! " he went 
 on to Denis. " Your wound has practically frozen ; 
 and we must keep it so as long as we can. Hold 
 this wad to it till you come out. I ought n't to let 
 you go in but he 's worse than you." 
 
 The caution was repeated to Ralph ; then Denis 
 took the camp-stool, and the two were left alone. 
 
 " I am glad to have seen you again," murmured 
 Ralph in hollow tones. " Do you know when I 
 saw you last? I never thought of it till this mo- 
 ment. It was on the far side of the battery. Some 
 fellow was going to bayonet you where you lay, 
 and I I was just in time." 
 
 Denis was nodding violently. He also had re- 
 membered. He stretched out a trembling hand. 
 But Ralph drew his beneath the blanket. 
 
 " Wait a bit," he whispered. " You see, I never
 
 318 DENIS DENT 
 
 thought of its being you ; but I 'm rather glad it 
 was. Badly hurt, I 'm afraid ? " 
 
 Denis shook his head. 
 
 " I am. Lungs. I 'm afraid it 's a case. Do you 
 remember this early morning ? " 
 
 The disfigured face made a ghastly protest. 
 Devenish only smiled. 
 
 " It was a good sort of duel," he whispered. 
 " And you see, you 've won ! " 
 
 He stretched out a deathly hand for the cham- 
 pagne. Denis reached it for him. 
 
 The surgeon stood in the opening of the tent, 
 advanced a step, shrugged, and retired unseen. 
 Ralph had not hidden his hand again. Denis held 
 it in both of his. 
 
 " Ask her to forgive me," gasped the shallow 
 whisper. " No. ... I can't ask you. . . . 
 I do n't. But you might tell her when it came to 
 this sort of thing " 
 
 And the deathly face lit up with such a smile as it 
 had worn that morning, when Ralph Devenish waved 
 his sword, and led his company to the succour of 
 their comrades before the Sandbag Battery.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 TIME'S WHIRLIGIG 
 
 JOHN DENT was a Yorkshire yeoman, born in 
 the last years of the eighteenth century, of that 
 hardy northern stock which is England's biceps 
 to this day. As a very little boy he was sent to 
 Richmond Grammar School, and there event- 
 ually educated beyond the needs of his vocation, 
 which was to live all his days upon the land of his 
 fathers. John Dent was quite prepared to do so 
 when he had seen something of the world ; and by 
 thirty he had not only seen more of it than was 
 usual in those times, but had fallen in love on his 
 travels with a young Irish girl of a social station in- 
 dubitably above his own. What was more impor- 
 tant, the young Irish girl had fallen in love with 
 John Dent, who was handsome, huge, and gentle, 
 with no great sense of humour, but of tenderness 
 and strength compact. 
 
 Being what he was, John Dent came to his point 
 with startling directness, was accepted, left the party 
 which he proposed to deplete, and traveled like the 
 crow to Dublin, where a perfect old gentleman sent 
 him about his business in the sweetest imaginable 
 brogue. John Dent returne-d to Yorkshire with 
 hardly a word, set his affairs in order, ascertained
 
 320 DENIS DENT 
 
 his income to a nicety, chartered a little ship at 
 Whitehaven, and landed in Dublin with his business 
 books under his arm and certain family documents 
 in his wallet. This time he sent a note to Merrion 
 Square, and was content to beard the perfect old 
 gentleman in his official quarters. But to no pur- 
 pose ; he was not even suffered to produce his books 
 or his papers ; neither deed, document, nor yet bank- 
 er's reference, he was smilingly informed, would 
 recommend the match to which he aspired. John 
 Dent replied that he was sorry, as he certainly meant 
 to realize his aspiration, and since his beloved was of 
 age, at the earliest possible moment. Dogged as 
 could be seen, but more enterprising than was sup- 
 posed, he went straight aboard his vessel, where 
 Nora Devenish actually awaited him ; and in two 
 or three days they were leaving Gretna Hall as man 
 and wife when a Carlisle coach rattled over the 
 bridge and up the hill with the perfect old gentle- 
 man screaming curses from the box. 
 
 Such was the story of the marriage of Denis's 
 parents in the last days of George IV. Right or 
 wrong, justified or unjustifiable, it led neither to 
 long life nor to prosperity. Nora Devenish had the 
 spirit to cut herself off from her own flesh and blood, 
 but Nora Dent had neither the heart nor the health 
 to bear a permanent severance. They never forgave 
 her, and it broke her heart. Meanwhile the perpet- 
 ual care of an ailing wife combined with the new 
 Corn Laws to impoverish John Dent's estate. He
 
 TIME'S WHIRLIGIG 321 
 
 did not live to see the repeal of the measures which 
 had helped to ruin him; and he too died unfor- 
 given, not only by his wife's family, but by himself 
 for her early death. And the last thing that John 
 Dent foresaw from his deathbed was the reunion of 
 his name with that of Devenish in the very next 
 generation. 
 
 Nevertheless, just as John Merridew had himself 
 foreshadowed in a moment of emotion on the Aus- 
 tralian coast, the place that was made for Denis in 
 his firm led almost at once to a junior partnership. 
 But the new partner was now enabled to bring in a 
 little capital, and that at a time when the growing 
 need of steamers was involving every line in large 
 expense ; his few thousands, however, were as noth- 
 ing compared with his practical knowledge of the 
 sea ; and so, still in the 'fifties, a Devenish and a 
 Dent were hand-in-glove. 
 
 Denis and Nan were not married until the winter 
 before the Indian Mutiny, because Denis made a 
 quick enough recovery to abide by an impulse, as 
 he had always done, and to fight through the rest 
 of the Crimean War. He was a sergeant of that 
 ragged remnant of the Guards Brigade which 
 marched through London on a midsummer's day 
 and which the Queen welcomed from the bal- 
 cony of Buckingham Palace. Thereafter Denis had 
 quickly and quietly bought himself out, and it was 
 as a civilian, once more shorn of his picturesque tat- 
 ters, that he drove down to Hertfordshire for the
 
 322 DENIS DENT 
 
 second time in his life. He looked several years 
 older. His habitual expression was a little grim and 
 wary, the movement of head and eyes something 
 staccato. But that wore off. And many people 
 never noticed that the curve of one nostril was much 
 deeper than the other, though it was there a Rus- 
 sian bayonet had been driven through his face. 
 
 They lived in London, if the part that was still 
 Old Kensington could be so reckoned at that time. 
 But in summer they took a cottage near Mr. Merri- 
 dew, partly because it was called The Fortune, and 
 was yet one of the smallest fortunes in the world, 
 and partly because Nan loved roses, which grew on 
 that rich soil as on no other. Shortly after Mr. 
 Merridew's death his house, being sold, was turned 
 into a school ; after some years it became a great 
 school ; and their boys, the grandsons of the old red 
 place, went back there on the way to Harrow. 
 
 Denis kept in touch with his first partners on the 
 gold-fields, though it was some years before he saw 
 either of them again. Doherty did almost as well 
 as ever for some time after his departure, but the 
 life was no longer what it had been, and the lad 
 gave it up on hearing from Denis that there was no 
 chance of his return. He went back to the station 
 on the craggy coast where the North Foreland had 
 met her doom. Denis next heard of him as a pio- 
 neer squatter in the Riverina country, and a partner 
 of his former master, the kindly Kitto ; and when 
 they did meet in after life the younger man hap-
 
 TIME'S WHIRLIGIG 323 
 
 pened to be the richer of the two. His career was 
 checkered but honourable, and his memory is one 
 of the few green things in the district of his adop- 
 tion. Denis saw more, however, of a bland clergy- 
 man who called on him in the City one fine May 
 morning : he had come in for a family living in 
 East Anglia, where the Dents found Parson Moseley 
 as great a success with his crass parishioners as he 
 had proved a failure among the quick and energetic 
 diggers of the early days. 
 
 There was one other figure of those days whom 
 Denis encountered twice in the 'fifties, once for a 
 minute in Pall Mall, when an ill-advised expression 
 of gratitude on the part of Denis curtailed an inter- 
 change of much interest, and a few years later at a 
 social function of some magnitude to which Nan 
 enticed her husband. She recognized the tall and 
 lazy-looking gentleman who recognized Denis ; in 
 point of fact he was a public man, and far less lazy 
 than he looked ; but as Nan did not know him she 
 withdrew to the nearest ottoman, where she looked 
 very beautiful under the glass chandelier of the 
 period (in spite of its unregenerate skirts) during 
 the little conversation which Denis was careful not 
 to cut short again. 
 
 " I hope you saw the news ? " said the tall man, 
 as though he and Denis had been meeting every day. 
 
 " The news from where, sir ? " 
 
 " Black Hill Flat, if you happen to recollect 
 such a place."
 
 324 DENIS DENT 
 
 " I should think I did ! " cried Denis. " But I 
 have n't seen anything about it in the paper." 
 
 " I knew you had a good memory," said the tall 
 man, smiling a little over his beard. " I suppose it 
 does n't by any chance hark back to what I told 
 you would some day happen on Black Hill Flat ? " 
 
 " Rather ! " cried Denis again. " You used to say 
 that gold would be found there sooner or later." 
 
 " It was found the other day, within a few feet of 
 the top." 
 
 " You said it would be ! " 
 
 " On the Native Youth side, and plenty of it, in- 
 cluding a solid lump nearly as big as the one you 
 got out of my old shaft. They call it the Nil 
 Desperandum Nugget, which amuses me, because 
 I never met another man who did n't despair of the 
 place. I 'm surprised you had n't heard of it," said 
 the old deep-sinker, and with his old nod passed on. 
 
 Nan was immensely excited under the glass 
 chandelier ; and excitement and bright lights still 
 became her ; but Denis had never known his wife 
 so bad a listener. 
 
 " But you know who it is ? " she asked him both 
 at beginning and end. 
 
 " Indeed I do n't." 
 
 " You know that man to speak to, and you do n't 
 know him by name ? " 
 
 " No ; who is he ? " 
 
 And she told him with bated breath. 
 
 THE END
 
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