This very excellent and virtuous resolution did not keep Done from Mary Kyley's tent, however, and he retained his relish for the revels there: the boisterous horseplay of the diggers, the dancing, the gay spirits of Aurora, her beauty and her music. He believed Aurora still loved him, but the recollection of her appearance that night, and the fury with which she had repudiated his right to interfere, contrasted with her attitude on the occasion when he championed her cause against Quigley, gave him moments of dubious reflection. Coming up from their claim one evening at sundown after a particularly hard day, the mates found Aurora busy at the fire preparing their tea. They hailed her with shouts of thankfulness and welcome. She was bare-armed and bare-headed; a snowy-white apron of Mrs. Kyley's covered her frock, and was, if anything, an additional adornment to her trim figure. The tea was made, and the big billy stood by the embers, while Aurora attended to the grilling of the steak. She made a charming picture, with the firelight on her face and gleaming in her hair, and the men watched her for some minutes in quiet admiration, Josh Peetree being particularly moved by the glamour of domesticity her presence threw over the camp, and throughout the evening ejaculated a fervent 'My colonial!' every time his eyes encountered the girl.

'Hello!' said Aurora. 'I've invited myself to tea, boys.'

''Pon my soul, you're good to see,' cried Burton feelingly.

'That's mighty kind for a man who doesn't waste much breath in compliments.'

This is magnificent!' said Jim. 'Why have you never thought of it before?'

'Hear him! Little he knows I'm just here to convince him what a model wife I'd make. Would you believe it, boys, all the time I've known the villain it never occurred to him to ask me?'

'I'd ask yer quick enough, b'gosh!' blurted Con.

Jim blushed. 'She wouldn't have me,' he cried in self-defence.

'At laste ye might have given a poor girl the refusal.'

'Take me, then,' said Jim through the soapsuds. He was washing over a bucket.

'I will not. You know you're safe, anyhow, when there's not priest or parson to be got for love or money. Come, hurry up, there's enough for all, and my contribution is an armful of Mary Kyley's hot scones.'

The butt of a tree lying a few yards from the fire served the diggers as table and on to this Jim lifted Aurora.

'That's your place,' he said, 'at the head of the board.'

'No, no!' cried the girl, slipping to the ground again. 'I am mistress. I mean to attend at table.' She served the men with the manners of a kindly hostess. 'There's milk for the tea!' she cried.

'Milk! I haven't seen the colour of it in Australia. Who work the miracle?' said Jim.

'Mary sent to a station out there by the ranges. She got a quart, and I cabbaged half for my tea-party.'

'You're an angel, Aurora!'

'There!' she laughed; 'and the trouble I've taken to keep it dark.'

'We'll be the envy of the whole field,' said Mike; and Con uttered a corroborative 'My colonial oath!' that was eloquent of a grateful heart.

Aurora poured out the tea and buttered the scones, and then, sitting on a gin-case with her plate in her lap, ate a good meal in cheeriest fellowship, adding to the felicity of the party with gay badinage and happy laughter. Aurora's laugh was a delightful thing to hear; it had never ceased to give Done a peculiar stir of joyance, whilst awakening something of surprise. It was the laugh of a merry child; its mirth was strangely infectious, strangely suggestive of an unsullied soul. Hearing it, Jim turned to her wonderingly, but he had long since acquitted her of the suspicion of dissimulation. She was the least self-conscious creature living, the least calculating. If she had really set herself the task of displaying to the best advantage the more gentle and womanly side of her nature, she would certainly not have succeeded as well as she did this evening, moved by one of the thousand vagrant impulses that lent such varying colour to her character. Her humour was more subdued, her gaiety was restrained within the limits of an almost conventional decorum. She helped the men with a graciousness that was wholly effeminate, and the diggers responded to its influence.

'Blast me if it don't make a cove feel religious!' was Harry Peetree's sober comment, after he had lit his pipe and settled his back comfortably against the log.

The night came while they were still at their meal, and sticks were thrown on the fire to provide light. Other diggers, attracted by the glow and the cheerful atmosphere of the party, sauntered up, and modestly disposed themselves in the shadows, where they lay smoking. Women of any kind were few on Jim Crow, and a scene like this was sufficient to stir the deeper feelings of many of the miners, particularly those in whose hearts long absence from hearth and home had served to invest domesticity with a reverent sentimentality.

Aurora insisted on washing up, but Josh dried the dishes, while the others lit their pipes, and, lying on their backs, with knees drawn up and hands clasped under their heads, gave themselves over to quiet enjoyment of the night. A big moon was stealing through the tree-tops; the denuded gully still lay in the lower gloom, dotted with camp-fires and illumined tents. But Aurora threw aside her domestic mood with her apron, and reappeared as the enemy of reflection and repose. Throned on her gin-case, where the ruddy light of the wood-fire glowed upon her, she chattered in her delectable brogue for an hour or more, the picture of animation. Then came Mary Kyley storming upon the scene.

'Do I pay a girl the wages of a princess to run a temperance meeting among my customers?' she cried.

'Go away, Mother Kyley, an' work yer own ould shebang,' replied Aurora, 'or else bring me fiddle wid ye, an' give us a step on the turf!'

'Not a step will I.'

'Then I'll lave divil a man in the shanty, dthrunk or dthry!'

Aurora sprang upon her box, and began to sing a rousing nonsensical song of the moment. The chorus was caught up, and swelled in the shadows. Waving her scarf as she had done in the dance-room in Melbourne on the night when Done first saw her, she sang again, and her clear soprano rang in the gullies like the call of a bird, and brought the miners from their tents and their arguments. When the song ended half the diggers on Jim Crow were gathered about Burton's camp-fire, and the loudest roar of applause came from Mary Kyley! Presently somebody out in the crowd commenced to play a flute, and slid from a few bars of' Home, Sweet Home!' into a rollicking jig. Half a dozen strong hands—Jim's first—were laid upon Mrs. Ben, and she was dragged to the front.

'Dance, alauna machree!' cried Aurora.

The flute piped higher, a hundred voices took up the cry, and Mary was conquered. Gathering a bunch of skirts in either hand, the big woman commenced a step. Aurora enlivened it with quaint, melodious Irish cries, the men roared encouragement, and presently Mary Kyley was dancing with heart and soul and every ounce of energy. Dancing was a passion with Mrs. Ben; she experienced a sort of delirium of movement once the swing of the melody took hold of her, and at such moments, despite her uncommon size, the woman became animated with a wild dignity and grace. Now, with head thrown back and face uplifted, her crimson petticoat flashing in the firelight, she danced like something wild, till she could dance no more, and Done took her in his arms and half carried her to the log, where he fanned her gallantly with his cabbage-tree, while the audience cheered again and again.

Aurora found a partner for a reel in Tim Carrol, and the fun grew warmer, a liberal digger having contributed a keg of rum, which was rolled from Kyley's shanty into the illumined circle. But at this point a man stepped forward from the crowd, and stood where the light fell full upon him, a strongly-built digger of about five foot nine, not yet thirty years of age, with a powerful face, not handsome, but uncommonly attractive in its blend of kindliness and rugged force. Done recognised Alfred Lambert, a voice of the disaffected—one of the little band of men who, animated with that ardent love of freedom which is bred of tyranny and fed on oppression, were ever busy fanning the embers of discontent, and striving to work the diggers up to the point at which it would be impossible for the Government to withhold from the vast majority of the people their liberties and civil rights. Lambert held up his hand to impose silence.

'I have a great bit of news, men,' he said. 'The day before yesterday, at five in the afternoon, the M'Ivor escort was stuck up on the corduroy road in the Black Forest, and the gang got away with all the gold.'

This information was greeted with a yell of amazement, in which Jim thought he detected no little exultation. It was the greatest coup executed by the gangs since the opening of the goldfields; its magnitude astounded everybody.

'The robbers came on the escort suddenly, shot their horses under them, and carried off the whole swag,' Lambert continued.

'Whose gang?' 'Who 're suspected?' A score of voices shouted questions.

'It is believed that the raid was headed by Solo!'

'No, no; Solo goes alone!' cried a foremost miner with absolute conviction.

'He has always worked alone before, but it is pretty certain that this raid was planned and carried out by Solo, and that he had behind him a gang of the coolest and most daring robbers in the colony He outwitted the troopers at every point; they had no more chance with him than so many sheep. The fools had their carbines strapped behind them, as usual. Before they could fire a shot they were at the mercy of the thieves.' The crowd yelled again-a yell of derision. The discomfiture of the troopers was a source of grim satisfaction. Lambert held up his hand once more.

'This Solo is a ruffian and a robber. When we say that he stops short of murder we say the best we can for him; but the Government that denies to citizens the rights of men, and enforces laws the people have no voice in making through a vicious and brutal constabulary, cannot look to citizens to respect those laws or feel any sympathy with its officers.'

'You're right, old man!' The crowd took advantage of the pause that followed to raise a clamour of fierce words.

'I have more news for you,' said the orator. 'The cause of liberty is spreading, deepening, strengthening. We are on the verge of civil war. Latest information from Ballarat, Bendigo, and all the large centres shows that the hour of strenuous resistance, of resistance to the death, has almost come. Even now it may have struck. As I speak, the men of Ballarat may be shedding their blood to rescue our adopted country from the foul and foolish rule of that pitiful handful of nominees in Melbourne, the despicable instruments of a far-off power that is as ignorant of our needs as it is careless of our sufferings. We are commanded to stand ready—commanded by God, I believe with all my soul—and those of us who have the aspirations of men and the spirit of true Britons must look to our arms. The commissioners of the various fields have been particularly venomous in their treatment of the poorer diggers of late. On all the fields license-hunting has been pushed to such an extremity of oppression that only dingoes and Chinamen could bear it. We must fight! Men, no human creature detests bloodshed more than I, but what else can your leaders ask of you but to fight? Every channel of peaceful progression is closed to you. You are a great population of strong men, the adventurous spirits of the world, and you are held under the lash by a stupid minority so weak that one free movement of your limbs may dash them to perdition. You are asked to confine yourselves to peaceful and legal forms in conducting this agitation, while those who ask you deny you a breath of power, an iota of right, and manifest their goodwill by riding you down like wallabies, or rounding you up like scrub-cattle, and tearing from you the scandalous taxes that go to pay the expenses of a robber Government that represents only your enemies.'

The spirit of the crowd had undergone a surprising revolution; the gaiety of a few minutes since had fled from every heart, and Lambert confronted a great crowd, the faces of which glowed whitely in the moonlight, a crowd that broke into vehement cheering and a babel of oaths and yells at every pause.

The quoted words were the opening sentences of a speech that lasted nearly an hour, and held the diggers by their heart-strings every second of the time. Done felt himself strongly moved—the vehemence, the lusty eloquence, and the unquestionable honesty of the speaker possessed him. He was filled with a longing for strife; the fighting spirit strong within him was up in arms. Like many another in the crowd, he was ready to carve out a republic with a pick-handle, even though a score came to resist him with rifles.

Lambert spoke of the simple rights of manhood, of the demands of the new democracy in the Old World, and the growing belief in the sacred right of a people to govern themselves according to their light, and finished with an impassioned description of a recent digger-hunt on Forest Creek, in the course of which a man had been killed. The crowd was slow to depart when the speech was ended, and broke into knots, the men feverishly discussing the great news of the robbery and the possibility of a riot extending over the whole of the rushes. Whilst sitting on the log thinking of what he had heard, Jim saw Aurora approach Lambert. She was visibly excited, and offered him an eager hand.

'Did I do well?' she asked.

Lambert seized her hand and pressed it warmly. 'Splendidly, my girl,' he said. 'A man couldn't want a better audience. Like a true Irishwoman, you're the twin sister of Liberty, Miss Aurora.'

Done drew Aurora to his side a few minutes later. 'So,' he said lightly, 'my Joy is a conspiratress.' 'It's the hard name, me darlin',' she answered, taking his hand between hers. 'I just promised Lambert to have the half of Jim Crow here to hear him an' I'm afther keepin' me word.'

XIV

THE rising Lambert had anticipated in August did not come off. For a few days the country trembled on the verge of civil war, but the blow did not fall. The trouble was averted; the anger remained in men's hearts. During the lovely spring weather that followed Done saw much of the Bush. He and Mike spent weeks prospecting about the Jim Crow district. They loitered away a few restful days among the ranges, and for the first time Jim saw a wattle-gully in full blaze, a stream of golden bloom sweeping along the course of a little mountain creek as far as the eye could see, each tree a huge bouquet, the whole mass foaming in the gentle breeze, a rich feast of colour, lit up by a glowing noonday sun, and bordered by the subdued green of the mountain gums. The delicate perfume stole up to where the mates lay on the side of the range in peaceful enjoyment of the scene, and Done, looking with half-closed eyes, day-dreaming, felt the inspiration that has since driven about twenty-five per cent of the native-born population of Australia desperately to poesy.

Beyond and below them stretched the Bush, an ocean of tree-tops, as level as the windless sea, and over this green expanse shadows of fleecy clouds chased each other. Presently Jim discovered a brown space in the distance, and detected a thin column of smoke rising on occasions between the vagrant winds. He called Burton's attention, and Mike turned experienced eyes in that direction.

'A settler's clearing,' he said. 'No; by Jove, it's Macdougal's homestead!'

'What!' cried Done, sitting up with a jerk. 'Donald Macdougal's station?'

'Yes, Monkey Mack's.' Burton rose to his feet and looked about him. 'There isn't a doubt,' he continued. 'That's Boobyalla all right. I was over the country to the west once with cattle.'

'And since we came to Jim Crow I have been so near.'

''Bout twenty mile as the crow flies. Why, old man, you look all caved in.'

'I'm greatly surprised. I thought Boobyalla was right away in the wilds.'

A pity this isn't wild enough for you.'

'Yes; but cut off completely from the people.'

'The people have been distributin' themselves a good deal o' late. Boobyalla was far enough out o' the runnin' till the rushes broke out at Forest Creek an' Jim Crow. As 'tis, I'll bet my boots the Macdougal's as lonesome down there as a sick sheep.'

'Why do you think that?'

''Cause you can't keep white men on the runs these times; they prefer the rushes. Squatter, J.P., ain't the little god almighty he used to be when he held his hands as if they were niggers bought an' paid for.'

Done was silent and thoughtful for a few minutes. The knowledge of his proximity to Lucy Woodrow awakened mixed feelings, and contrition was prominent. He had promised to write to her. He remembered how anxious she seemed to win the promise, and how deep her interest in him had been. Suffused with a melancholy tenderness, he told himself he had never forgotten her; her image had lived in his heart as in a shrine, screened perhaps, but only for sanctity's sake. No thought of Aurora stole in to disturb his unconscious hypocrisy. He had an unexpected longing to see Lucy again.

'Fact is, Mike,' he said presently, 'there is a ship mate of mine down there at Macdougal's I should very much like to meet again. What do you say?'

'I'm on. This shipmate, is she married or single?' Mike accented the third person feminine.

'Single. She is teaching Macdougal's youngsters. I had no other friend aboard.' Aurora obtruded now, and he looked into his mate's face. It was suspiciously vacant. 'What the devil are you thinking of, Mike?' he said with warmth.

'A friend o' mine,' answered Mike.

'Oh!'

'Aurora!'

'The devil you are? It's an infernal impertinence, then, let me tell you.'

'That Irish girl would tear hair like a mountain cat,' continued Mike serenely.

'You're wrong, Mike, quite wrong,' said Jim impressively. 'This girl is—well, absolutely different.'

Done found the trip to Boobyalla very much longer than he had expected, but the mates reached the homestead at about two o'clock. The place was almost deserted. Two or three wolfish cattle-dogs ran from the huts, and barked at them in a half hearted kind of way; a black boy shouted from the shed, and two gins came to the kitchen door, watching them. On the shady side of the same structure a dilapidated, miserable-looking white man of about fifty lay in a drunken sleep, buzzed over by a swarm of flies. The dwelling-house was a wandering weather-board structure with shingle roofs and iron chimneys; a deep veranda, partly latticed, ran round three sides, and ebullient creepers of many kinds swarmed over the house at their own wild will. The homestead faced into a big garden spreading into an orchard, now green and gay with the verdancy and the blooms of spring.

'Didn't I tell you? Not a white man round but the motherless drunk there,' said Mike.

One of the cattle-dogs had returned to the side of the sleeper, and employed himself snapping at the greedy flies, yapping impatiently to keep them from the man's face.

'No boss sit down there, Mary?' said Mike, addressing the eider of the gins.

The aborigine grinned cheerfully. 'Boss him bin gone sit down longa Porkpine,' she said. 'Missus ride by Longabenna. Bill dam drunk, White feller all gone make it hole, catch plenty gold. Gib it 'bacca!'

Burton threw his half-plug of tobacco to the gin; she caught it deftly, the second one snatched, and the two set up a shrill yabbering, like excited monkeys.

'Miss Woodrow?' said Jim interrogatively.

'Teachy missie longa garden,' answered the gin, with illustrative pantomime.

'Better go and hunt her out,' Mike said. 'I'll find the black boy, and work him for drinks if possible.'

Done passed through a side-gate into the garden, found his way to the main walk, and looked about him.

'Well?' called a voice from the veranda.

He turned quickly. Within a few feet of him, in the space between the vines where the steps led up to the doorway, a little dark-eyed girl of about seven, the miniature of Mrs. Macdougal, peeped round her skirts at the stranger. Lucy did not recognise Jim in a moment.

'Lucy!' he said.

'Jim!' Her face crimsoned; she sprang down the steps, extending two hands.

He took both in his, and looked at her. She had changed and strengthened—he could see that. Evidently she had lived much in the sun; the pallor had gone from her face, and it had warmed to a tender olive-brown, pure and soft, deepening to a ruddier tint on the cheeks. She was much stouter, too, and carried herself with more character. There was a swing in her movements, hinting at hearty exercises in the open. She was looking at him, and saw a wonderful difference. There was a short, thick, youthful beard upon his chin, a slight moustache upon his lip, both heightening the Grecian quality of his face; his tan had taken a deeper tone; he was the picture of health and strength, she thought.

Done saw that she was greatly disturbed, and regretted having come upon her so suddenly. There was no questioning her delight; her colour came and went half a dozen times as they stood thus, hand in hand; her eyes were misty with tears, but she laughed through all.

'Well?' he queried.

'Oh, I am so glad to see you—so very glad!'

'And is it to be Jim and Lucy still?'

'Yes, to be sure. How changed you are! Come, come, sit down and talk. Talk till my senses come back to me. I am bushed!' She laughed a little hysterically.

'I have startled you.'

'No, no, it's pure gladness—it is indeed. It was good of you to come.'

'You are changed, too. Have you stood to your determination to be happy?'

'I am not unhappy.' She had seated herself beside him, and passed an arm about the shy child, of whom little more than one dark eye was visible, peeping at Jim from the other side, and yet that one eye recalled humorous impressions of Mrs. Donald Macdougal of Boobyalla. He expected to see it start revolving coquettishly.

'You are stronger. You have grown,' he said.

'Yes, I ride a lot with the children. It is good for me. I love it. This life agrees with me well. But it is not only a change in you, it is a transformation. Why, you can laugh!'

'Come, come! I could always laugh.'

She shook her head. 'Not convincingly. You love the new land? You have prospered?'

'Yes,' he answered, 'I have had a wonderful spell of life.'

'And the people—you find you can like them?'

The question gave him rather a shock; he had to think a moment to recall her optimistic advice and his old frame of mind.

'Like is too feeble a word,' he said presently. 'The thought of them warms my heart.'

'Ah, that is good!' She clasped his hand impulsively. 'That is best of all. I was afraid you might cling to your mistrust, and shut the kindly people out of your life.'

'Before it was the people shut me out.'

'Are you sure?'

He had never doubted, now the question set him wondering for a minute. He looked at her again. Certainly she had developed observation, acuteness. Or had he? Once more he wondered. He watched her with new interest. She was not so pretty as she had seemed on the Francis Cadman; the ethereality was gone, but Done liked her the better for it. He felt his whole physical being to be in sympathy with vital things, and, after all, how often the poets, in their rhapsodies on spirituelle and unearthly women, were merely rapturously apostrophizing the evidences of dissolution! He met her now without a doubt in his heart, with a soul free to respond to his natural emotions, and she filled him with delight. Unconsciously he was wooing her—not with words, but with accents more eloquent, and the girl felt it instinctively, with a sense of triumph.

'I can't take my eyes off you,' he said. 'In what are you so different?'

She smiled pleasantly. 'I am dreadfully sunburnt; I am no longer thin; I do not brood.'

'No, no; it is a difference of spirit. Where is that constraint we felt?'

'The constraint was wholly with you.' She blushed again.

The kissing episode had been recalled to both. He laughed gaily, feeling very comfortable, quite forgetful of his mate.

'Yes, I was certainly a humourless, gloomy young fool he said.

'Only an unhappy boy,' she murmured, 'and my wonderful hero.' She, too, spoke as if it were a matter of long years ago, when she was a silly slip of a girl.

'And is there no hero now?'

'I have found no other.'

'Ah, that is something! Do you still pray for the old one, Lucy?'

'But you have no faith in prayers.'

'I may have in the prayer.'

'Well, then, I do. You see, you can never be wholly undeserving in my eyes.' With Lucy, as with many girls in whom gratitude is the precursor of love, most of the sentiments due to the kindling affection were credited to gratitude.

'You have not blamed me for neglecting to write.'

'No; I have had no anxiety for some time. I knew where you were and how you were.'

'You knew!'

'I knew that you had made friends, that you were on pay dirt at Diamond Gully, and that the good Australian sunshine had warmed your heart.' She smiled mysteriously.

'Ah, I know,' he said after a moment's thought—'Ryder.'

'Yes, Mr. Walter Ryder. He wrote me that he had come across you at Diamond Gully. He seemed quite interested in you.'

'And I am interested by him. He is a peculiar personality.'

'Yes, so flippant; and behind it all you seem to feel something iron-like, strong and impenetrable.'

Flippant! Ryder had appealed to Jim as anything but a flippant character.

'He is a man of good family. He came to Australia seeking change and adventure. He is rich—very. He did Mr. Macdougal some service, and we saw a good deal of him in Melbourne. Mrs. Macdougal thinks he is an earl at least, and has woven quite a romance about him. She will be glad to see you.'

Done's mind had flown to Burton's estimate of Ryder, and Lucy's evident admiration of, him gave him a little uneasiness.

'Is Mrs. Macdougal of Boobyalla quite well?' he asked.

'Quite. But you must not laugh at her. One gets to like her.'

'If one is quite determined.'

'Whether or no,' persisted Lucy. 'One would care for nobody if one were resolved to see only the bad points.'

'That serves me right. The little girl is very like her.'

'Eva is my boon companion, my confidante, my guide, philosopher, and friend—aren't you, dear?'

'My oath!' said the child in a grave, sweet voice. Jim started at the incongruous expression, and looked inquiringly at Lucy.

'Your teaching?'

'How dare you? No; that is the teaching of rouseabouts and gins. I am trying to unteach it. Poor kiddies! I found them queer, wild, little Bush animals, with no childish companions, so I became a child myself, and we are the best mates in the world. The other is a boy, a monkey and a rip, but we are civilizing together. Do you know the funniest things in the world? Children like these and half-grown dogs. I discovered that at Boobyalla.'

'The world is a pretty good sort of place, after all eh?'

'Yes.' She did not wonder at its seeming so very delightful to her just then. 'But you do not tell me. Talk, talk! I want your Australian history.'

He talked, describing his life, pleased with his own fluency, and not a little surprised at it. In half an hour she knew his story since the day he left the Francis Cadman, with certain judicious reservations and emendations. Aurora's name did not appear once in the narrative. This suppression was quite instinctive? Lucy told something of her existence on the station, and they chatted cheerfully of the people on shipboard and the incidents of the voyage, avoiding only the most sensational incident of all—the rescue from the sea.

'Dear me I' cried Lucy; 'I am playing the hostess badly. I have offered you nothing, and you must have had a long tramp.'

'And I've forgotten poor Burton.'

'Go, bring him while I get tea. I must know your mate. Of course you drink tea? Here everybody drinks tea at all hours.'

Jim found Mike admiring a wonderful big bay horse, the astounding virtues of which stimulated the black boy to an incoherent flow of yabber.

'Don't mind me,' said Burton. 'I've had a drink an' a sleep, and I've seen the loveliest animal that was ever lapped in horse-hide. Look at him!'

'We were chatting away in there, and I forgot you, old man. But come along; we are to have tea and grub on the veranda.'

'Not me!' Mike looked wildly for a way of escape.

'Here, here! but you must, Mike—I promised.'

'There's a dirty trick to serve 'a man!' Burton was genuinely alarmed. 'Yarding him up with a mob of old women! I'm hanged if I do it!'

'There's no mob. There's only one, and she's young and pleasant. Come along, I'll stand by you.'

'Gi' me your solemn oath you'll break away as soon as possible.'

'I do, I do.'

Mike was led on to the veranda and introduced to Lucy, who gave him a pleasant welcome. He placed his hat by his chair, drank his tea quietly, said very little and ate less, flipped his fingers once or twice at the little girl in a friendly way, looked quite imperturbable, and all the time was painfully ill at ease, and raging inwardly at Jim's delay. When Lucy left them in quest of fruit, he turned furiously on his mate.

'What's that she says about staying?'

'She wants us to take a shakedown in one of the huts for to-night. Mrs. Macdougal will be home before dark. She wishes to see me.'

'By the big blue Bunyip, if you stay I'll bush you in the next scrubby gully, an' leave you to do a three days' perish!' Mike's tribulation was pitiful, but Jim laughed derisively.

Done did not accept Lucy's invitation, however. To tell the truth, although it would have been a great pleasure to remain near the girl, he had no desire to meet Mrs. Macdougal. He made suitable excuses. Mike said it would require smart travelling to bring them to the camp where their tools and swags were left, and, having shaken hands with Lucy, sauntered away.

'You will come again?' said the girl to Jim.

'Yes, if I have the chance; but Burton is the Bush man. I could never find you without his help.'

'In any case you will write?'

'I am bound to.'

They parted with a handshake, but fingers unclasped reluctantly and with a clinging appeal.

Done and Burton, on returning to Jim Crow, found that Harry Peetree, quietly prospecting in the vicinity of the rush, had opened up a new gully. The 'find' was kept dark pending Mike's return, and when the Peetrees had secured their ground, the mates were given the pick of the lead. The discovery leaked out as soon as the friends started operations, and a little rush from the original field followed. Jim was now a mile and a half from Mrs. Kyley's shanty, and derived some satisfaction from that fact. His feelings towards Aurora had undergone another change. Lucy's image loomed to the almost total eclipse of that of her rival, and yet he could not spend ten minutes in the company of the girl at the shanty without being won by her buoyant spirits and the kindliness of her soul. He had some dread of growing to hate Aurora now that Lucy had reestablished herself—a dread founded more on some familiarity with popular fiction than on a knowledge of his own heart.

Christmas came, and there was a rough attempt to celebrate it on Jim Crow, an attempt by which Mrs. Ben Kyley profited largely, as she and Aurora were kept working at high pressure for two days, making Christmas puddings, for which the diggers cheerfully paid half a guinea apiece. Rich plum-pudding, hearty eating, and heavy drinking, the proper concomitants to an English Christmas as the miners understood it, were not compatible with merriment during an Australian Christmas-tune, with the glass at one hundred degrees in the shade; but trifling considerations of that kind were not allowed to interfere with the uproarious festivities at Jim Crow. January passed quietly. The dirt at One Tree Gully proved highly remunerative, and the mates worked hard. Done had discovered an object beyond the rapturous enjoyment of the moment, and showed himself more anxious to win gold. He was living a comparatively quiet life, and the locket containing Lucy Woodrow's picture was restored to its rightful place next his heart. There was a time when the thought of such an act of flagrant and foolish sentimentality would have made him groan aloud.

One night in the following March, returning to their tent from the shanty, where he had left Burton deep in a game of euchre, Jim was startled to see a stream of light flash momentarily across the canvas wall. His first thought was of thieves, and, drawing his revolver, he stole noiselessly to the entrance and peeped in. He saw the figure of a man seated at the head of Mike's bed. On the small table between the two bunks at the end of the tent was a lighted candle, which the man was screening with his hat. Before the intruder the small tin-box in which Done's few heirlooms and papers were stored lay open, and the man was absorbed in its contents.

'If you stir a hand I'll fire!' said Jim, presenting his revolver.

Instinctively the other smothered the light, but after that he sat quite still.

'I can see you distinctly,' said Jim, 'and I'm a fair shot!'

There was silence for a moment, the thief making no attempt to escape.

'I am going to light the candle,' said a voice.

'Light it, then; but no tricks! I'll shoot to kill!'

XV

A MATCH was struck, and in its glow Done recognised his visitor. It was Ryder. The latter lit the candle, and then turned towards Jim. He was quite composed, apparently. Not so Done; the revelation amazed him. The hand containing the revolver sank to his side. He stood for some moments awaiting an explanation. None was offered.

'Is Mr. Walter Ryder a tent thief?' he asked bitterly.

Ryder shook his head. 'No,' he said.

'It looks strangely like it.'

'It does.'

'And I purpose raising the camp, and submitting the matter to the men.'

'You won't do that.'

'Why not?'

'Because I can satisfy you that I have a very excellent excuse for being here and for prying into your affairs.'

'I'll wait two minutes for that.'

'It won't take one, Jim. I am your brother, Richard Done!'

The revolver dropped from Jim's hand. He did not speak; every particle of him thrilled with intense emotion. For half a minute he stood rooted, speechless, and then he strode forward and seated himself on the bunk, staring closely into Ryder's face by the dim light of the candle.

'You will want proof?' said Ryder.

Jim shook his head. Ryder's declaration, abrupt and dramatic as it was, had struck him with absolute conviction. He was amazed, but he did not doubt. He understood now the origin of the deep impression this man had made upon him.

'That is proof enough,' he said, laying a trembling hand upon the miniature of his mother upon the table.

'Almost,' answered Ryder, 'but not enough. We are both very like poor mother.'

'We are very like each other.' Jim's faculties were stunned for the time; there was a dreamlike unreality in their positions.

Ryder nodded. 'We are.'

'It must have been that and your resemblance to my mother impressed me. I was impressed without consciousness of the reason.'

'Miss Woodrow noticed the resemblance, and when I heard your name and your age I thought it very likely that you were my brother. When I saw you that night in the shanty I was almost convinced. These satisfied me.' He indicated the scattered articles upon the table.

Jim made no demonstration; he sat with his eyes fixed upon the miniature, still dazed by the blow. There was something in his had—something he wished to know, but his ideas were all out of control. The thought centred with a shock.

'Good God, no!' he cried, clutching Ryder with a nerveless hand. 'They hanged my brother!'

Ryder's face was perfectly bloodless; it looked cold. He shook his head slowly.

'I was condemned to be hanged. They altered it to transportation for life.'

'But they all believed—'

'Mother must have known. It would have made little difference. The horror of it was a little greater than the horror of hanging. It probably gave her no comfort.'

'She died of it all.' Jim spoke without volition. 'Yes,' responded Ryder dully. 'She was the kind of woman who would. I was transported, and for all those years I lived in hell.'

'For murder!' said Jim sharply.

Ryder shook his head again. His voice was quite even. 'I did no murder. There was no murder done.'

'The body—what of the body?'

'There was none. The man for whose murder I was condemned still lives. Stony is the man!'

'Stony!' Jim peered into the other's face again. 'Stony!' he cried. 'It's not possible. You are lying. It's utterly incredible. Stony! Then this explains?' He did not doubt even while the words of unbelief were on his lips.

'This explains. My coming upon you that night in the Black Forest was not so extraordinary as it seemed. I was following you both. I had been to Melbourne on Stony's track, having caught a glimpse of him one night at Ballarat. I ascertained that he had started for Forest Creek. Meanwhile Mrs. Macdougal and Miss Woodrow had told me of you. It was reasonable to assume that you also had started for the field everybody was talking of. At our first meeting I did not see you: I was too deeply interested in Mr. Stony.'

'Stony was not the name.'

'Stony is an assumed name. Cannon is his real name—Peter Cannon.'

'That is the name. But I cannot understand. My head fails me. I am utterly bewildered!'

'You'll hear Stony's story? He is in his tent.'

'Not now. You have overwhelmed: me. For God's sake, give me time to straighten things out!'

Jim sat in silence for some minutes, but the excitement lingered. He drifted into questions, and plied the other like a cross-examining lawyer eager to trap a witness; but Ryder knew every detail of the family history. He told Jim of a birthmark on his own body. He described the furnishing of the home in Chisley much as it remained within Jim's memory.

'You have not mentioned our sister,' he said.

'She killed herself.' Jim spoke with blunt brutality. He had no energy for equivocation.

Ryder accepted this piece of news in the spirit of a man steeled to the keenest strokes of Fate.

'She was a beautiful girl,' he said. 'I remember I loved her dearly.'

'You speak as if it were fifty years ago.'

'I have been in hell since, I tell you.'

Jim looked closely into his brother's face again, but it baffled him; it betrayed no more feeling than a stone.

'Why have you divulged this now?' he asked.

'You forced it from me. I did not expect you to return. I saw you playing cards at the shanty. But it is as well. I should have told you later.'

'There is something behind?'

'Much; but till you have heard Stony tell his part I shall say no more. And for the present let this be our secret.'

'Burton may come in at any moment.'

'Good-night, then.'

'No; I'll go with you. I cannot face Mike in this condition. He would think me mad.'

'To Stony's tent?'

'If you like. In Heaven's name, man, why are you so cold? Why am I like a stunned brute? We are brothers. We may shake hands.'

Ryder made no advance. 'Better hear the story out,' he said.

It was a two-mile walk from where Jim and Mike were now camped to Stony's tent, and the hour was midnight. The two men walked in silence, Jim with his head bowed, racked with nervous excitement, his mind running from point to point, grasping nothing wholly, seeing nothing clearly, the other erect and calm. When the tent was reached Ryder entered unceremoniously, and, striking a match, looked about him for a candle. There was a slush-lamp on a box by the bunk, and this he lit. Jim saw Stony start up in bed, and stare at the intruder with a look of mortal terror.

'I have brought you a visitor,' said Ryder.

The apprehension faded from the hatter's face when he Jim.

'A nice hour!' he grumbled.

'I have not studied your convenience,' answered Ryder. 'Here is the man to whom you are to tell the story of Richard Done and Peter Cannon. Tell it briefly, as you told it to me.'

Ryder seated himself on a block near the tent entrance, his back half turned to the others, and neither spoke nor moved throughout the narration. Stony looked from one to the other, and then commenced his story. He told it in a monotonous voice, with a dull face and eyes heavy with drink.

'We were always enemies, Dick Done and I—enemies as boys at school at Chisley, fighting over everything, picking at each other from morn till night. As young chaps we remained enemies. It seemed as if God or the devil had sent us to plague each other. Our enmity grew with us. In manhood we were as bitter as death. Then the woman came. We both wanted her. It was just natural of us to get set on the same girl. She liked him—she didn't care a snap of her fingers for me; but I didn't give up. I followed her, plagued her, persecuted her, and hated Done worse than poison. With all my soul I hated him! Of course, we quarrelled over her, and Done went so far as to talk of killing. He didn't mean it, perhaps, but it told against him later. One bright night I came on him and her sitting on Harry's Crag. 'Twasn't an accident. I'd been told they'd gone down to the sea, and I followed. I interfered, furious at heart, but making a show of civility, knowing that would madden him. He was soon up in arms. He tried to drive me off, struck me. I used my stick, and we fought there and then—fought like madmen on the cliff edge, two hundred feet above the sea. The girl, frightened almost to death, ran away. Done got my stick from me, and we fought with our hands. He could beat me at that game, and at length struck me a blow that stunned me; then he left me lying there, and went after the girl.'

Stony paused for a moment, and, drawing a bottle from the back of his bunk, took a long drink. Then his eyes wandered to Ryder again, and he went on:

'When I came to I was alone. I crept a little further from the edge of the cliff, and lay down again. I was pretty badly knocked about; my nose was bleeding freely. Presently, moving my hand, I struck a knife—his knife! It was closed. I opened it, looking at the long blade. The idea had already formed in my mind. I smeared the blade with blood, and dropped the knife, open as it was, over the cliff, being careful that it should fall on the ledge about twenty feet below. Then I smeared blood upon the brink, tore a scrap from my coat, and left it there, throwing the coat with the hat into the sea. I was never seen in Chisley again. I walked all that night. In London I read of the arrest of Done on a charge of murder. They had found my hat and my coat and the knife. The girl had told her story. Done was condemned to death; and then I stowed away in an Australian boat, and was allowed to work my passage out I thought Richard Done had been hanged till I saw him that night at the camp in the Bush. The man sitting there is Richard Done.'

Stony fell back upon his grimy pillow again, and was silent; his eyes were fixed upon Ryder, but at that moment he had more to fear from Jim, who looked down upon him, fierce with disgust, his fingers itching to be at the thin neck of the brute.

'Let us get out of this!' he gasped.

'Have you no questions to ask?' said Ryder quietly.

'None, none! And when I think of what this dog has brought upon me and mine I feel murderous.'

Ryder left the tent without another word, and Jim followed him. As they walked away, Done was stirred with deep sympathy for his companion. Ryder's reiteration of the words, 'I have been in hell!' recurred to him. He felt that there were years of suffering and a fathomless hatred behind the phrase, and his blood ran hotly.

'I wonder you have not killed that man!' he blurted after a few minutes' silence. 'I regret ever having raised a hand to prevent it.'

'I needed him,' answered Ryder.

'You intend to establish your innocence?'

For the first time that night a smile moved Ryder's stark lips—a hard, mirthless smile.

'No,' he said; 'where's the use?'

'How is it you are free?' asked Jim with surprise. This view had not occurred to him before.

They were standing between the stunted and twisted gums. The Bush here was spare and dwarfed, and the moonlight shone clearly upon Ryder's face.

'I am an escaped convict!' he replied

A bitter curse leapt from Done's tongue. He felt himself bound to this man by a common wrong, a wrong that had clouded with misery the greater part of their two lives.

'You may be retaken,' he said.

'I may, but I do not think it likely.'

At that moment recollection flashed upon Jim. He recalled the adventure with Long Aleck in the Bourke Street bar, and the robbery of Brigalow, the gold-buyer, at Diamond Gully. His hand was upon Ryder again: he gazed at him with a new apprehension.

'Sit,' he said. Ryder seated himself on a stump by the side of the young man, and Jim continued:

'You say Miss Woodrow noticed a strong resemblance between us. Others have remarked it.'

'I am not surprised. There is no difference in our faces but that which years have made.'

'It was in Melbourne on the night of my arrival. I was attacked in a bar by a man who mistook me for Solo.'

The brothers looked into each other's eyes for some little time, Jim anxiously, Ryder with no appearance of concern in his strong, handsome face.

'I am the man they call Solo.'

'Solo the robber!' Instinctively Jim had moved back from the other, but Ryder took no notice of the action.

'My boy,' he said, 'there are two kinds of men—the active criminal and the passive. I am fairly active.'

'But the blind folly of it—here, where fortunes are made so easily!'

'Are they? You have had a bit of luck. There are thousands on the rushes who do not make tucker. In any case I could not afford to place myself directly under the supervision of the troopers. Not that I had any weak desire to earn an honest living, by the way.'

'What are you hoping for? Where is it all leading?' Jim felt an emotion of despair.

'Perhaps you would rather hear no more to-night.'

'I must hear all. For God's sake, speak!'

'I have been in hell. For fifteen years I remained in the convict prisons. It might have been fifteen centuries, an eternity. Everything beyond is so distant that my youth seems a mere dot in the perspective.'

Ryder was talking in a clear, even, unemotional voice.

'I cannot hope to give you anything approaching a true idea of the horror of that life. I know I can only faintly comprehend it myself now. Taken from happiness, a comparative boy, I was plunged into a state of absolute torment, an existence of brutalizing labour, ceaseless cruelty, and blackest infamy. I herded with men who had degenerated from criminals into brutes under the influence of the infamous system. Those fifteen years served to burn out of me most of the fine emotions and sentiments on which civilized men pride themselves, and then, during the blackest year of all, a wild craving to preserve something of humanity arose within me. That was my salvation. I had always before me the hope of escape. I fought now cease to retain some qualities of clean manhood, that I might appear amongst fellow as a man, and not like one of the lowering monsters by whom I was surrounded—men upon whose every feature and limb were stamped the repulsive brands of the lag. During that first period I maintained an attitude of fierce revolt, then, recognising my helplessness, I brought cunning into play, and practised dissimulation night and day. This saved me in some measure, but the ghastly life continued year after year, and I was thirty-eight before a reasonable chance of escape presented itself. My plans had been perfected, and when the opportunity came I seized it, with the resolution of a man for whom there was only one alternative to liberty—death.'

Jim never took his eyes from Ryder's; he sat as if fascinated by the ivory-pale face of his companion.

'I had one friend in Hobart Town, a freed convict named Wainewright. He provided me with the clothes of a gentleman. The beard I wore, and which has since served me as a disguise in my many enterprises, was given to me in the first place by Wainewright. To perfect that beard and destroy every semblance of artificiality, I had worked at it for three years in the cunning, patient way old prisoners toil at such a task. Wainewright helped me to get to the mainland, and I was safe, with a forged ticket-of-leave in my pocket in case the marks of the chains should be discovered by prying official eyes.'

'Did you make any effort to live honestly?' asked Jim.

'Almost my first action on reaching the neighbour hood of Melbourne was to bail-up a prominent resident, whom I robbed. That act afforded me absolute joy. He was a decent, orderly citizen, a pillar of the State, a powerful upholder of the law. No robbery I have since committed has given me quite the same delight. I stole then because I needed money. I rob now because I am a keen sportsman, and that is the particular sport I affect. Possibly you would not appreciate the pleasure of the game; you have not had the humbug of the world eaten out of your heart with live flame. Having wilfully exposed itself to me, and translated my respect for it into a magnificent hatred, society cannot reasonably expect to find me docile. I prey upon society.'

'It will avenge itself.'

'True, it may. Robbery under arms is a hanging matter, but I have graduated in a marvellous school for cunning, and have perfect confidence.'

'Yet you place yourself in my hands. What can the ties of blood count for between us two? For as long as I can remember I've thought of you only as something evil hovering over the door, silencing the home, darkening life.'

'I counted on finding in you a mind not wholly at variance with my own. What those two women told me gave me some insight into your character. I perceived that at least the flame had scorched the bloom from your soul.'

'Here I am a new man. I have known happiness, I have tasted love, and made friends with good men. Here I can live!'

Ryder looked at him closely. 'You must tell me of your life,' he said—' the life in Chisley after my supposed hanging. No, no; not now. Go to your tent and sleep.'

'Sleep! I shall not sleep.'

'Think over what I have told you.'

'There is more behind?' 'There may be.'

'You think I will join you?'

'In my present career? No. For the time being, let us say no more. I need not ask you to be silent. Meet me here to-morrow night at nine. While you are thinking, bear always in mind the fact that Peter Cannon is there '—he pointed in the direction of Stony's tent—' a living man. Good-night.'

The reminder was well timed; pity stirred warmly in Jim's heart again, and he offered his hand.

'So long,' he said, dropping into the vernacular of mateship.

Ryder took his hand with no demonstration of emotion. 'So long,' he replied.

XVI

BURTON found his mate gloomy and taciturn all next day, a condition so remarkable in Done that it gave Mike some little concern, but he made no comment; and Jim was too absorbed in the strange, new development in his life to discover his friend's uneasiness. Ryder's story brought Jim's youthful sufferings back to him with painful vividness; it awakened some animosities he had thought dead, and he recognised, though shrinking from the idea with actual terror, in Ryder's attitude towards his kind the frame of mind into which he was drifting when he broke away from Chisley and its associations. Remembering well his own heart up to the time when human interests and sympathies began to awaken kindred emotions within him, he understood that the resemblance between himself and his brother was as close on the moral side as it was on the physical, but with Ryder the demoralizing influences had worked their utmost. How like their sufferings had been! differing only in degree; but his own sufferings looked pale and fanciful now beside those of his brother. His afflictions were of the spirit only. He and Ryder were of a supersensitive race and every soul-pang he endured had been augmented a thousand times in his brother's case, and driven in by the prison cell, the leg-irons, the loathsome associations, the animalizing toil in the quarries—the lash! Jim had heard enough of the infamy of the system to understand, if not the worst, sufficient to make his skin creep at the thought of it. He realized to what state of heart and mind Ryder had been driven, knowing how he himself had developed under the stress of comparatively trivial wrongs, and the whole man ached with sympathy. It required a strong effort to restrain his inclination to tears, a weakness of the flesh he had surprised in himself before now.

And Ryder had suffered all this, knowing himself to be guiltless of the crime of which he was convicted. Stony was there in his tent. If Jim had known where to find his brother he would have gone to him in the morning, prompted by the generous affection that had sprung in his heart, feeling that Ryder might be won over by new friendships and new interests. It seemed to him that the wholesome effects worked in his case might be repeated in that of his brother, forgetting their disparity in years. The change had come to him while he was yet little more than a boy; Ryder was a man in middle life, and no longer capable of youth's saving enthusiasms.

Jim was early for the appointment, but Ryder was already at the rendezvous, seated on the log, smoking, and apparently deriving placid enjoyment from his cigar. The young man's greeting was warm, but the elder showed no emotion. If any liking for Jim existed in him it was carefully hidden away. Throughout their previous meeting he had borne himself with seriousness, as if something of importance to him were at stake; to-night he was in a wholly different humour, more like the man who had encountered Jim in Mary Kyley's bar.

'Are we to consider the relationship established?' he said.

'I am quite convinced,' answered Jim. 'I have not doubted it from the moment you declared yourself.'

'You are much too confiding, my boy. As an impostor I might have gathered all these details from the real Richard Done.'

'With what object?'

'Well, I have an object, an ulterior motive. I want you to share a large fortune with me.'

Jim laughed. 'You may pick up a large family of brothers on those terms,' he said.

'You will do. Is it a bargain?'

'What is this fortune? Where is it? How was it come by?'

'The fortune is mainly in virgin gold; it is in an untried alluvial field.'

'If the field is untried, how do you know the gold is in it?'

'I put it there.'

Jim looked at Ryder sharply. 'You have not answered one of my questions,' he said. 'How was the gold come by?'

'There's no objection on that score,' Ryder answered lightly. 'It was come by dishonestly, every grain of it.'

'To me that is a serious objection. I am an honest man, my instincts are all for fair dealing, and I believe, as a simple everyday working principle, honesty is the best policy.'

'Honesty is not a policy, my boy: it is a misfortune.'

'Why do you wish to share your loot with me?'

'Seventy or eighty thousand ounces of gold is not easily accounted for nor easily disposed of by a guest of the Queen who is on leave without a ticket that will bear the closest investigation. You could dispose of it safely enough.'

'And if I were asked to account for it?'

'That is provided for. I have discovered a field within a day's journey that nobody else knows of—that nobody else is likely to know of. You and I go there, we work it for a few months, and the gold I have mentioned is to be represented as the result of our labours if it becomes necessary to make explanations. A few thousand ounces in nuggets which might 'by some unhappy chance be recognised by previous owners we shall batter into slugs and reserve for sale in other lands.'

And then?'

'Then all that life in London and Paris means to men with great fortunes.' Ryder was smiling as he spoke. 'Then to seize and enjoy all that smug respectability is willing to give to the wealthy, and much that it is unwilling to give, but which it shall be our pleasure to take. Then to exact our revenge for all we have endured at the hands of society by making it in some measure the slave to minister to our needs and our desires. I positively tremble, my brother, when I think of the little mischief one man can work; but with money and ingenuity, combined with devotion to purpose, we may succeed in accomplishing quite a decent vengeance.'

'I have no desire for revenge upon society.'

'To be sure, you have not sat through the long black night in, a cold cell with the rats, a wet rag thrown over your lacerated back, the chains eating into your flesh like the nibbling of tiny teeth, thinking of the good people who rule England, sitting at their blazing fires or smiling round the laden tables.'

'No, thank God!'

'If you had you might appreciate the subtle delight of sinning against your enemies. I am going back to England to devote what arts I know, what cunning I have, and what attractions I can assume, to the gratification of the only passion left me. When I think of the fair daughters and the fair sons of the comfortable middle class, Jim, I have exquisite hopes.' Ryder rolled the cigar between his fingers, and smiled at his brother in a gentle, kindly way. 'If I can bring an honoured son of reputable parents to taste the joys of the hulks and feel the caresses of the leaded cat, I shall, I feel, be almost reconciled to my past. They talk of stopping transportation and abolishing the system. I never cease to pray that the system may be spared to us. If it is done away with before I have gratified the magnificent malice I have stored up in this breast, morsel by morsel, hoarding it with the greed of a miser, I am afraid I shall lose my faith in a just Providence.'

'This is simply hideous exclaimed Jim. 'But you are joking. You speak without bitterness.

'I speak without bitterness because I would not waste any jot of it. When my moments come (and I have had a few) I desire to experience the perfect emotion. Revenge is only sweet when it opens the flood-gates of a pent-up hatred.'

'Richard!' cried the young man, 'for God's sake put this black evil out of your heart! Here is a clean world—come into it, take part in it with the good men. Your soul is poisoned—purge it. Open your eyes to the sun. I'll help you!'

Ryder placed his cigar on the log beside him, and turning back the left wrist of the silk undershirt he wore, struck a match, and showed Jim a broad red wheal encircling the arm like the scar of a deep burn.

'Would you like to see my ankle?' he said. 'Or my back? It's a pretty sight. I am a hunted man. But if I were not, I would not consent to sacrifice my exquisite desires merely because the sun shines and girls are merry.'

'But I have been happy. I'll have none of this ugly gospel of hatred and revenge.'

'Happy! Because you are free for a moment; because you are not treated quite as a pariah because that black-eyed houri down at the shanty smiles at you? You'll sicken of this presently. I tell you you must come back to your healthy hatred. The spirit of revolt is in your blood; the contempt is with you. I shall win you over.'

Never! Never!'

'Happy! Son of a mother tortured to death by a Christian people; brother of the girl driven to suicide by hate; brother of the man whom society set in hell.' Ryder's voice was low and musical, and his words were more dreadful than curses. 'You have not told me all,' he continued. 'Sit down, man—tell me of your life at home there.'

Jim demurred, but Ryder led him on to the narrative, and eventually he described his past, and as he talked of the old troubles and tribulations, his former prejudices awoke, and something of the early hatred and disdain. Ryder, quick to detect the effect of the revival of his boyish grievances, kept the young man's thoughts on the more painful features of the story, and worked upon his feelings guilefully probing his soul, finding his weaknesses with an unerring touch, prompted, no doubt, by his knowledge of Richard Done, the man he had been, whose youthful character he found faithfully reflected here.

'You'll come with me?' said Ryder.

'No, I couldn't do it,' answered Jim. 'Your idea of vengeance strikes me only as the dream of a madman.'

'But you'll think it over?'

'You don't suppose a man can get this sort of thing out of his mind in a day.'

'Remember, I bind you to nothing, and there is a big fortune at stake.'

Got by crime.'

'By open, honest daylight robbery.'

Jim looked at his brother with a feeling of despair; he recognised the utter hopelessness of argument based on accepted ideas of right and wrong. In disputing he felt like a child blowing bubbles against a stone wall. Ryder's attitude implied that he had tested everything in the fire of a terrible experience.

'Man, man!' cried Done, 'how can you hope to beat the world?'

'For four years I have beaten it. And I am appreciated. The Government of Victoria has just raised the price of my head to one thousand pounds.'

'Why not leave the country at once?'

'As soon as you are ready.'

'Impossible. I will not go.'

'I remain until you change your mind, unless, in the meantime, some safe and convenient means of transporting my hard-earned gold presents itself. I have an alternative scheme, but it means greater risks, and, besides, I find I am still capable of the preposterous folly of liking. I like you.'

'Then give up this brutal scheme, join with me, make an effort to work the poison out of your blood, to revive a clean, honest interest in existence, and I'll stand by you through thick and thin, against the law and all your enemies, while I've a heart-beat left in me. It's worth the effort, Dick; the world is fair, men are decent, and women are sweet.'

Ryder sat nursing a foot, smiling a smile of kindly interest. 'My boy,' he said, 'you have the ardent sentimentality of a good mother's pink-cheeked cub of nineteen. Has it occurred to you that I have run a very great risk in being seen for five minutes in your company? Your name is Done, and you made the name rather familiar along Forest Creek; we are alike, as you have noted, and although Richard Done, the escaped convict, is not much thought of at this date, it is certain that hearing your name awakened recollection amongst the old Vandemonians in the police here, and they have probably run the rule over you more than once. If I were to join with you, they'd clap the darbies on me within a week.'

Jim spread his hands in a gesture of despair. 'I have been mistaken for Solo once; that risk must always follow you,' he said.

'I am prepared; but the Government shall never pay their thousand pounds for a live man. I appear as little as possible in the diggings in this guise, however. You did not know me as the chief performer in that little comedy with Brigalow on Diamond Gully. You did not recognise me in the dark man who talked with you and Burton while the madcap from Kyley's was leading the troopers a merry dance along the lead. By the way, I admire your taste in women, Jim. She's a fine, unshamed barbarian, this Aurora.'

The subject was distasteful to Jim. He put it aside hastily. 'If I worked with you in this scheme for disposing of the gold you would run the same risk,' he said.

'No; I need not appear in the matter. The field I speak of, which is probably very rich in itself, is so situated that we might work it for a year without being discovered. Meanwhile, by making frequent trips to Ballarat and Bendigo, you could sell a great deal of my gold along with such as we may earn. Then I should sail for England, taking with me as much gold as I could safely handle, leaving you to sell more, and eventually join me with the remainder. In this way we can, if we choose, rid ourselves of three hundred thousand pounds' worth without attracting any particular attention.'

'You reckoned on finding me greedy for gold.'

'I reckoned more on finding you willing to seize an opportunity of exacting from society some return for death, torture, and infamy!'

'There was a time when you might have prevailed.'

'That time may come again. It needs only a new grievance—the law to bruise you, the women to betray.'

Jim shook his head. He felt the disc of Lucy's locket pressing against his breast under his folded arms. 'I cannot believe it,' he said.

The other was silent for some moments, and Jim watched him with troubled eyes. None of the cruelty and the viciousness to which Ryder had given utterance found expression in his features, which were marked with sensitive lines and some refinement. Done thought of Brummy the Nut, and it seemed to him little short of miraculous that this man had been able to come through similar experiences and yet show no evidence of it in his face. Ryder arose and moved away a few paces.

'If you go from here to another field,' he said, 'leave word for me at one of the stores.'

'Are you going?'

'I may not leave Jim Crow for a few days.'

'You have something in hand?'

'Meaning some robbery? No; it is possible Solo has made a dramatic disappearance from contemporaneous history.'

You'll drop the game? Good! Good!'

'It all depends. I have the gold I need, but the sporting instinct may be too strong for me. Just now there is other work in view. Be assured, my intentions are not honourable, however. We shall meet again. My proposition may appeal to you later. You will not forget it.'

'Put it out of your head,' said Jim appealingly. 'Leave the country, take the gold if you must, live luxuriously if you care to, but dig out of your heart this devilish malice against people who have done you no conscious wrong. Do this for your own sake; the course you have decided upon is one of desolation and despair.'

'Least of all did I expect to find my brother a pulpiteer and a moralist with all the popular faith in the domestic virtues, and the quaint conviction that misery dogs the sinner,' said Ryder dryly.

'I have used no cant,' answered Jim, 'and I said nothing of sin or virtue. I don't ask you to trust God, but to trust man. Be at peace with your kind!'

'And this is the man they called the Hermit on board the Francis Cadman!'

'Yes; and I was wretched aboard simply because I met the free and hearty men around me in a spirit of sullenness and suspicion. But my sick misanthropy was not proof against the heart-quickening sunshine and the grand enthusiasm of those fine sane men.'

'Evidently your philosophy sprang from a disordered liver. The sea-voyage, in stimulating that, cured you of your cherished beliefs. Another trip would probably make a devout Wesleyan of you,' said Ryder banteringly. 'Now, my liver is a perfect instrument, and you couldn't alter a single opinion of mine with a long course of antibilious treatment. In defiance of all Sunday-school precedents, I can be cheerful though wicked, and, having attained the splendid isolation of perfect selfishness, my happiness is not dependent on the gaiety or gloom of the crowd, My boy, you might remember that your experience is not so wide as to justify you in asking mankind at large to accept you as the touchstone for all human emotions. Good-bye.'

Jim gripped his brother's hand and held it. 'Good bye!' he said. 'I wish I could do something for you, but you leave me helpless.'

Ryder went off with a laugh, and a moment later his voice came back through the trees—a light, musical baritone, singing an Irish love-song, and Jim, listening, troubled in spirit, wondered how much of the true man he had been permitted to see.

Throughout the quiet months that followed Done lived a sober, methodical life. He saw no more of his brother while they remained on the Jim Crow diggings, but thought of him constantly, dreading to hear of some further daring escapade on the part of Solo, fearing more the possibility of his capture. Burton was perplexed by the note of gravity that had developed in his mate, until he made an accidental discovery of Lucy Woodrow's locket, and then he thought he understood all, especially as Jim's visits to Kyley's shanty were comparatively rare of late. Meanwhile, Jim had written once to Lucy, but had received no answer—a fact that did not disturb him, however, as the postal service on the fields and in the Bush was extremely erratic. He was quite satisfied now that he had been in love with his shipmate all the time, but it was not easy to account for Aurora. Certainly he had been very fond of her: he was fond of her still, and could not bring himself to regret having known her. He strove resolutely to refrain from applying conventional standards of judgment, with which, he assured himself, he had no sympathy, but little uneasinesses and awkward moments would obtrude. It was difficult to maintain the fine idea of rationalism. 'I won't have you bind the strange man you may be to-morrow with oaths,' Aurora had said; yet it was evident the change in him was a source of great distress to her.

'I haven't seen you for a fortnight, Jim,' she said one evening, with a tinge of reproach that she was striving to repress.

'No,' he said shortly.

'And absence hasn't made you particularly fond.'

He was leaning on the counter, and took her hand between his own, but was silent.

'At least, you don't lie to me,' she continued.

Jim did not plume himself on that; he knew in his heart that if he had not lied it was because a thoroughly satisfactory fiction had not presented itself. He kissed her knuckles, which, in itself was a lie of inference. Aurora pulled her hand away, and robbed him of his one resource. He felt abashed and defenceless without it. He thrust his hands in his pockets, and turned his shoulders to her, gazing moodily on the floor, having a dawning sense of the differences that may suddenly afflict two hearts that have beat as one, realizing that the ardent affection of yesterday and yesterday's kisses count for nothing in the present estrangement. He could, not essay the role of friendship: it was as if they were strangers without a single affinity.

'The fact is, Aurora,' he said desperately, 'I'm a good deal changed. I've experienced a great shock lately, and it has pulled me up short.'

'And the woman?'

He turned upon her again with genuine surprise. 'The woman! The woman!' he cried. 'It has nothing to do with a woman. Upon my soul, no! Something has been revealed to me that has hit me hard. I don't get over it easily; it clings in my mind. If I could tell you, old girl, you'd sympathize; but I can't—the secret is not my own.' He spoke with emotion, and Aurora, watching him sharply, was touched. She put a hand on his arm.

'Not another word, Jimmy,' she said. 'I won't bother you. Sure,' she continued lightly, we weemin 're niver contint wid the throubles of the day. We're that curious we must be wonderin' how much more's comin'. We may boast iv bein' sensible an' sthrong, but we're alwiz pushin' our tentacles out to feel the sorrow iv to-morrow. I reckoned you'd be hatin' me in a week, ma bouchal.'

Done felt himself justified in kissing her there and then, but the kiss partook a good deal of the nature of a benediction.

This explanation did not serve to restore confidence; the constraint remained, and increased with time. Jim noted its effect on Aurora with some misgiving. His appearance in the tent was the signal for a display of boisterous animation on her part. If she had been depressed before, she suddenly became gay; if she had been animated, she became jubilant. She sang, and joked, and danced, and played, with an excess of jocosity that jarred him painfully. He gave her credit for uncommon intelligence, and undoubtedly she had been educated above the position in life she was content to occupy. Why should she resort to the shallow and obvious subterfuges of the most foolish and frivolous of her sex? He had no perception of the extent of her sufferings, and would not, in any case, have understood how independent are the workings of the head and the heart of a loving woman. On such occasions she flirted audaciously with the miners, and her blood burned in her veins because Done showed no disposition to be moved by it.

Tim Carrol imagined himself to be the specially favoured man, and was Aurora's most devoted slave, and the girl played upon his big, affectionate heart, with no object but to awaken in Done a sparkle of the recent fire. One night Aurora danced with him through a lively reel, and at its conclusion, in a spirit of mirthless mischief, put up her red mouth to be kissed. Not for all the powers of good and evil would Tim have foregone that delight. He kissed her, but this time Done offered no objection. Indeed, he gave no indication of having seen what was passing, although in reality he had been watching Aurora, impressed with the idea that she was drinking. Never since the first night he met her had she seemed to him to be under the influence of drink, and he admitted to himself that he might have been mistaken then, and was probably deceived now by the fervour of her character.

Done's indifference struck a chill to the girl's heart. She went back to her place silent, but feeling within her the stirring of a tempest. A quarter of an hour later she confronted Jim as he stood talking with Harry Peetree. For a moment she looked into his face, and all eyes were upon her. Then she struck him in the mouth with her right hand, and her eyes, cheeks, and whole being seemed to blaze into passion at the same moment.

'I have something belonging to you. Is it that you are waiting for?' She threw the small nugget in his face with her other hand.

The gold cut his temple, but he did not flinch; his eyes met hers without passion; his cultivated power of control helped him now. Taking out a handkerchief, he wiped the blood from his eye, and then, picking up the nugget, offered it to her.

'Aurora,' he said, 'you know in your heart that is a lie.'

His quietness made her action ridiculous, whatever his intention may have been, and the girl felt it with an access of frenzy; but at this point Tim Carrol felt himself called upon to intervene in his new character as knight-errant.

'D'ye mean to call the lady a liar?' he cried hotly.

Jim, who had a real liking for the cheerful young Irishman, evaded the awkward blow aimed at his head, and stood back, and Ben Kyley saved further trouble by seizing Tim and hustling him into a corner.

'I'm the on'y man what's permitted to punch the customers in this tent,' said Ben.

At the same time Mrs. Ben descended upon Aurora and bore her off with a mighty hug, much as if she were a rebellious infant.

XVII

IT was some time before Jim Done visited Mrs. Kyley's tent again. He bore Aurora no animosity, he had the kindliest feelings for her, but recognised that in frequenting the shanty he increased the difficulty of the situation and prolonged the task he had set himself. A letter had come to him from Lucy Woodrow—a bright, breezy letter, about Bush-life, about herself and the youngsters, and a good deal about him. Certainly a pleasant enough letter, but, considered as a literary production merely, not deserving of Jim's high appreciation of it. Alter receiving it Jim sat down in a reverent humour and decided, with the formality of a meeting carrying a resolution, that Lucy was the only woman in the world for him, the one possible woman. The resolution practically abolished all other women so far as he was concerned. He could never think of another with patience, and his longing for her was so great that it left him little mind for Ryder, and scarcely any for Aurora. He was eager to pay Boobyalla another visit, but Mike was deaf to all insinuations, and Jim consoled himself with pretty imaginative pictures in which Lucy was vividly represented sitting on the shady veranda at Macdougal's home stead, spotted with flakes of golden sunshine filtered through the tangle of vine and creeper. How sweet she was, how gentle, how tender, and yet brave of heart and keen-witted withal. She had understood him better than he had understood himself. That was very gratifying; it showed her deep interest in him, but he did not put it to himself in that bald way. Why hadn't he taken her up in his arms and kissed her when they parted in the garden? Every drop of his blood prompted him to it, and something told him she would not have resented it. He had been a fool. He should have told her then that he loved her. Of course, it had hardly occurred to him then that he really did love her, but he was a fool in any case for not seeing it and understanding it.

Burton and the Peetrees had resolved to try a new rush before Done called at the shanty again.

'I have come to say goodbye, Mrs. Ben,' he said to the big washerwoman, 'and to thank you for a thousand kindnesses.'

'Thank me for nothing!' cried Mrs. Kyley. 'Is it true you are off on the wallaby again?'

'We shall start for Simpson's Ranges in the morning.'

'It is so long since we've seen you that you won't mind if we don't break our hearts at parting.' She glanced towards Aurora, who had turned her back to them.

'That's the least I expect of you, Mrs. Ben.'

'Well, you're not a bad lad, though inconstant. Give me a kiss, and good luck go with you. Be a man,' she added in a whisper. 'Say a few kind words to the poor girl.' She nodded towards Aurora.

'I came wishing to.'

'You ruffian!' she said aloud; 'and you pretending you cared a copper dump about Mother Kyley. She pushed him towards Aurora, and rolled from the tent with one of her great gusts of laughter.

'I'm off, Joy!' said Done.

She turned and looked at him. She was in one of her quiet humours. If she had felt much grief, it had left little impression upon her. She was neatly dressed and looking very fresh and girlish to-day.

'I heard you were going,' she answered.

'Joy!' He put out an open hand. 'Let us part friends; I'm fond of you—I am, upon my soul!'

She caught his hand in both of hers and pressed it to her breast. 'I was wondering if you would come to see me before leaving.'

'Ah, that's better,' he said. 'I'd be pretty miserable if I went thinking I'd left you an enemy, because—because—' He had a heart full of gratitude and big, generous emotions towards her, and could not express himself. 'God bless you, Joy! he murmured, kissing her hair. 'Don't think me an utterly selfish kind of brute, dear.'

'I haven't one ill thought of you, Jimmy. Didn't I woo you with every trick I know, but with my whole heart, too, for all that? It's been a fair deal, old man.'

'I'll never cease to wish you happiness, and I'll always regret any trouble I may have caused you.'

'Regret nothing—nothing! You've been a big joy to me, and you bore my tantrums like a brick. I'm sorry I struck you, Jimmy.' She drew his head down and kissed the scar over his right eye.

'There was another blow here.' He touched his left cheek, and she kissed that too, but she was showing no sign of sentimentality. Her attitude was that of a good friend, and in this pose she was delightful, Jim thought.

'We are certain to meet again, Joy,' he said. 'If ever I could do anything for you, would you ask me?'

She looked into his eyes for a moment. 'Yes,' she answered, 'before anyone else in the world.'

'That's good. You're one of the best, Joy. We go to Simpson's Ranges, but may find our way down to Ballarat in the course of a few months if things don't pan out well.'

'When you hear of anyone coming this way, you'll send a message, Jim?'

They were interrupted by three or four diggers, and in the course of half an hour the tent filled. Aurora was very charming that night, very gracious, very like the Aurora who supervised their open-air tea the night of Lambert's big speech, but less buoyant. Jim felt her soft touch upon him many times, and watched her with curiosity. She had retained this peculiar quality of provoking faint wonder. He felt that he had not known her thoroughly, and drifted into the building of the suitable future for her with many 'ifs' and 'buts.'

'I am going, Joy,' he whispered later.

'Not here,' she said, taking his arm. 'Outside.'

They passed out together, and stood by the big tree in which Mrs. Ben's stock was hidden.

'Good-bye!' he said.

'It's hard!' She put her hands upon his shoulders, and her voice trembled. 'I've been pretty badly in love, Jimmy. Remember that in kindness, Won't you? It seems to excuse a good deal. It might even excuse a poor colleen makin' the fool an' all iv herself.' The brogue sounded deeply pathetic. 'A kiss,' she whispered quickly. 'One of the old kisses, dear.'

As he bent down to her his cheek crushed a tear on hers, and he was touched deeply. The kiss was long and tender; as the kiss of a man for whom there was only one woman in the world, and she not the one being kissed, it was emphatically successful. It drew a deep sigh from poor Aurora, and thrilled Jim with not a little of the old rapture.

'Good-bye!' she said; but her fingers clung to him.

'Good-bye!' he repeated, taking her hands in his.

'Have you the little heart of gold?' she asked.

'It's here.' He drew it from his pocket.

'Give it back to me.'

He pressed it into her hand, kissed her cheek, and hurried away. Aurora stood for some minutes turning the nugget over and over in her fingers; then she moved to the shanty door and looked in, but turned away with a muttered exclamation, and went to the entrance of the back tent.

'You'll have to attend to those brutes in there,' she said to Mary Kyley. 'I've had as much as I can stand for one night.' She threw herself upon her bed, and hid her face in the pillow.

'Has he gone, dear?' asked Mrs. Kyley, laying a big but gentle hand upon the girl.

Aurora nodded her bead in the pillow, and after looking at her in silence for a moment, Mary went in to attend to her customers, shaking her head sadly as she went. When she peeped into the back tent again an hour later Aurora still lay face downwards upon the bed.

'Are you asleep, Aurora?' whispered Mrs. Ben. 'No!' answered the girl fiercely. 'For God's sake, don't bother me!'

Mrs. Ben went away again, sadder than before.

'Oh, the men, the men!' murmured the wise woman. 'To think of the good women wasted on them, and the chits they're often wasted on!'

Jim Done enjoyed the tramp to Simpson's Ranges. The weather was fine, the country was picturesque, and the company highly congenial. He liked the Peetrees better in his present mood, and his interest in the popular movement that was to culminate at Eureka was deepening daily. He had even addressed a small meeting of miners on the subject of the rights of the people, and he was no pusillanimous reformer. He declared the diggers had reached that point at which toleration meant meanness of spirit. The thought of civil war was appalling, but not so much so as the degradation of a nation in which the manhood plodded meekly under the whip, like driven cattle yoked to their load.

The men carried small swags, having entrusted their tools and tents to teamsters, and, travelled quietly, taking four days to accomplish the journey. The route lay through trackless country. As yet few parties from Forest Creek had set out for Simpson's Ranges, and Jim and his friends encountered no other travellers until they were approaching the new rush, and then the road assumed the familiar characteristics, and the noisy, boisterous troops went gaily by. These might have been the identical men who tramped to Diamond Gully through the Black Forest, so much did they resemble the former in their joyousness and their wild exuberance of word and action, and in their manner of conveying their belongings too, and in their frank good-fellowship. But by this time Jim was an experienced Antipodean, and knew that in such circumstances men always behave much in the same way, and that dignity is the first oppressive observance to be abandoned immediately man breaks loose from the restraints of society. The novelty had gone from the rushes, but not the charm. The sight of the courageous, healthy, happy gold-seekers swinging by struck sympathetic chords in his own heart. He had kindred impulses, and was by far the most jubilant of his party, the Bush-bred Australians being the least demonstrative of all the men on the track.

On the morning of the fourth day Jim encountered a face he knew amongst a party of five travelling with a waggon.

'Hullo, Phil Ryan!' he said.

Phil advanced with a puzzled expression on his face, that presently gave way to a broad grin.

'The Hermit!' he cried, and, seizing Jim's hand, he shook it with effusive heartiness. One might think he had occasion to remember Done for many kindnesses, whereas the ignominious beating the Hermit had given him on the Francis Cadman was all he had to be grateful for.

'I've given up trying to be a hermit,' said Jim. 'There was nothing in it.'

'Begor, I'm that glad!' said Phil, and he certainly looked radiant. 'But you're th' changed man, Done. I hardly knew you wid th' amiable shmile. Have things been goin' rare an' good?'

'They have, Ryan. I'm a made man.' Jim meant the expression to be taken in a spiritual rather than a pecuniary sense.

It's hearin',' said Phil. 'My soul, but it's th' great land, man! I've had more gold through me hands these twelve munts than I iver dramed iv before. But it don't shtick,' he added ruefully, glancing at his horny palms.

'And the others—have you heard of them?'

'We broke up into twos an' twos whin we come near Geelong, fer fear iv being nailed by th' police fer disertion. Jorgensen's made his pile over be Buniyong; an' Tommy th' Tit—him what seconded me in th' bit iv a contention we had aboard—have been rootin' out nuggets be th' tubful at Ballarat, an' talkin' fight and devilment t' th' min iv nights in th' intherests iv peace an' humanity an' good gover'mint. Be th' same token, there's goin' t' be no ind iv sin an' throuble down there, an' I'd be sorry to be missin' it.'

'He's no true digger who'll stand out when the time comes, Ryan.'

'Thrue fer you, man. Och! it's a lovely land fer a gravyince, an' I'll niver lave it.' He looked Jim up and down again. 'It's put th' good heart in you, Done.' Jim nodded smilingly. 'D'ye be hearin' iv th' little lady from off the ship?' continued Phil, as if following a natural sequence.

'Yes,' answered Jim, his cheeks warming a little. 'She is with Mrs. Macdougal at Boobyalla, just beyond Jim Crow, and is well and cheerful.'