Twice Bought, Robert Michael Ballantyne [the false prince series .TXT] 📗

/> Fred would not allow himself for a moment to think that Tom had _stolen_ his gold. He only _took_ it for a time, with the full intention of refunding it when better times should come. On this point Fred's style of reasoning was in exact accord with that of his unhappy friend. Tom never for a moment regarded the misappropriation of the gold as a theft. Oh no! it was merely an appropriated loan--a temporary accommodation. It would be interesting, perhaps appalling, to know how many thousands of criminal careers have been begun in this way!

"Now, Mister Westly," said Flinders, entering the tent in haste, "what's to be done? It's quite clear that Mister Tom's not to be hanged, for there's two or three of us'll commit murder before that happens; but I've bin soundin' the boys, an' I'm afeared there's a lot o' the worst wans that'll be glad to see him scragged, an' there's a lot as won't risk their own necks to save him, an' what betune the wan an' the other, them that'll fight for him are a small minority--so, again I say, what's to be done?"

Patrick Flinders's usually jovial face had by that time become almost as long and lugubrious as that of Westly.

"I don't know," returned Fred, shaking his head.

"My one plan, on which I had been founding much hope, is upset. Listen. It was this. I have been saving a good deal of my gold for a long time past and hiding it away secretly, so as to have something to fall back upon when poor Tom had gambled away all his means. This hoard of mine amounted, I should think, to something like five hundred pounds. I meant to have offered it to Gashford for the key of the prison, and for his silence, while we enabled Tom once more to escape. But this money has, without my knowledge, been taken away and--"

"Stolen, you mean!" exclaimed Flinders, in surprise.

"No, not stolen--taken! I can't explain just now. It's enough to know that it is gone, and that my plan is thus overturned."

"D'ee think Gashford would let him out for that?" asked the Irishman, anxiously.

"I think so; but, after all, I'm almost glad that the money's gone, for I can't help feeling that this way of enticing Gashford to do a thing, as it were slily, is underhand. It is a kind of bribery."

"Faix, then, it's not c'ruption anyhow, for the baste is as c'rupt as he can be already. An', sure, wouldn't it just be bribin' a blackguard not to commit murther?"

"I don't know, Pat. It is a horrible position to be placed in. Poor, poor Tom!"

"Have ye had supper?" asked Flinders, quickly.

"No--I cannot eat."

"Cook it then, an' don't be selfish. Other people can ait, though ye can't. It'll kape yer mind employed--an I'll want somethin' to cheer me up whin I come back."

Pat Flinders left the tent abruptly, and poor Fred went about the preparation of supper in a half mechanical way, wondering what his comrade meant by his strange conduct.

Pat's meaning was soon made plain, that night, to a dozen or so of his friends, whom he visited personally and induced to accompany him to a sequestered dell in an out-of-the-way thicket where the moonbeams struggled through the branches and drew a lovely pale-blue pattern on the green-sward.

"My frinds," he said, in a low, mysterious voice, "I know that ivery mother's son of ye is ready to fight for poor Tom Brixton to-morrow, if the wust comes to the wust. Now, it has occurred to my chum Westly an' me, that it would be better, safer, and surer to buy him up, than to fight for him, an' as I know some o' you fellers has dug up more goold than you knows well what to do wid, an' you've all got liberal hearts-- lastewise ye should have, if ye haven't--I propose, an' second the resolootion, that we make up some five hundred pounds betune us, an' presint it to Bully Gashford as a mark of our estaim--if he'll on'y give us up the kay o' the prison, put Patrick Flinders, Esquire, sintry over it, an' then go to slape till breakfast-time tomorry mornin'."

This plan was at once agreed to, for five hundred pounds was not a large sum to be made up by men who--some of them at least--had nearly made "their pile"--by which they meant their fortune, while the liberality of heart with which they had been credited was not wanting. Having settled a few details, this singular meeting broke up, and Patrick Flinders-- acting as the secretary, treasurer, and executive committee--went off, with a bag of golden nuggets and unbounded self-confidence, to transact the business.


CHAPTER SIX.

Gashford was not quite so ready to accept Flinders's offer as that enthusiast had expected. The bully seemed to be in a strangely unusual mood, too--a mood which at first the Irishman thought favourable to his cause.

"Sit down," said Gashford, with less gruffness than usual, when his visitor entered his hut. "What d'ye want wi' me?"

Flinders addressed himself at once to the subject of his mission, and became quite eloquent as he touched on the grandeur of the sum offered, the liberality of the offerers, and the ease with which the whole thing might be accomplished. A very faint smile rested on Gashford's face as he proceeded, but by no other sign did he betray his thoughts until his petitioner had concluded.

"So you want to buy him off?" said Gashford, the smile expanding to a broad grin.

"If yer honour had bin born a judge an' sot on the bench since iver ye was a small spalpeen, ye couldn't have hit it off more nately. That's just what we want--to buy him off. It's a purty little commercial transaction--a man's life for five hundred pound; an', sure it's a good price to give too, consitherin' how poor we all are, an what a dale o' sweatin' work we've got to do to git the goold."

"But suppose I won't sell," said Gashford, "what then?"

"Fair, then, I'll blow your brains out" thought the Irishman, his fingers tingling with a desire to grasp the loaded revolver that lay in his pocket, but he had the wisdom to restrain himself and to say, "Och! sor, sure ye'll niver refuse such a nat'ral request. An' we don't ask ye to help us. Only to hand me the kay o' the prison, remove the sintry, an' then go quietly to yer bed wid five hundred pound in goold benathe yar hid to drame on."

To add weight to his proposal he drew forth the bag of nuggets from one of his capacious coat pockets and held it up to view.

"It's not enough," said Gashford, with a stern gruffness of tone and look which sank the petitioner's hopes below zero.

"Ah! then, Muster Gashford," said Flinders, with the deepest pathos, "it's yer own mother would plade wid ye for the poor boy's life, av she was here--think o' that. Sure he's young and inexparienced, an' it's the first offince he's iver committed--"

"No, not the first" interrupted Gashford.

"The first that I knows on," returned Flinders.

"Tell me--does Westly know of this proposal of yours?"

"No sor, he doesn't."

"Ah, I thought not. With his religious notions, it would be difficult for him to join in an attempt to _bribe_ me to stop the course of justice."

"Well, sor, you're not far wrong, for Muster Westly had bin havin' a sort o' tussle wid his conscience on that very pint. You must know, he had made up his mind to do this very thing an' offer you all his savings--a thousand pound, more or less--to indooce you to help to save his frind, but he found his goold had bin stolen, so, you see, sor, he couldn't do it."

"Did he tell you who stole his gold?"

"No, sor, he didn't--he said that some feller had took it--on loan, like, though I calls it stalin'--but he didn't say who."

"And have you had no tussle with _your_ conscience, Flinders, about this business?"

The Irishman's face wrinkled up into an expression of intense amusement at this question.

"It's jokin' ye are, Muster Gashford. Sure, now, me conscience--if I've got wan--doesn't bother me oftin; an' if it did, on this occasion, I'd send it to the right-about double quick, for it's not offerin' ye five hundred pound I am to stop the coorse o' justice, but to save ye from committin' murther! Give Muster Brixton what punishment the coort likes--for stailin'--only don't hang him. That's all we ask."

"You'll have to pay more for it then," returned the bully. "That's not enough."

"Sure we haven't got a rap more to kape our pots bilin', sor," returned Flinders, in a tone of despair. "Lastewise I can spake for myself; for I'm claned out--all _but_."

"Row much does the `all but' represent?"

"Well, sor, to tell you the raal truth, it's about tchwo hundred pound, more or less, and I brought it wid me, for fear you might want it, an' I haven't got a nugget more if it was to save me own life. It's the truth I'm tellin' ye, sor."

There was a tone and look of such intense sincerity about the poor fellow, as he slowly drew a second bag of gold from his pocket and placed it beside the first, that Gashford could not help being convinced.

"Two hundred and five hundred," he said, meditatively.

"That makes siven hundred, sor," said Flinders, suggestively.

The bully did not reply for a few seconds. Then, taking up the bags of gold, he threw them into a corner. Thereafter he drew a large key from his pocket and handed it to the Irishman, who grasped it eagerly.

"Go to the prison," said Gashford, "tell the sentry you've come to relieve him, and send him to me. Mind, now, the rest of this business must be managed entirely by yourself, and see to it that the camp knows nothing about our little commercial transaction, for, _if it does_, your own days will be numbered."

With vows of eternal secrecy, and invoking blessings of an elaborate nature on Gashford's head, the Irishman hastened away, and went straight to the prison, which stood considerably apart from the huts and tents of the miners.

"Who goes there?" challenged the sentry as he approached, for the night was very dark.

"Mesilf, av coorse."

"An' who may that be, for yer not the only Patlander in camp, more's the pity!"

"It's Flinders I am. Sure any man wid half an ear might know that. I've come to relave ye."

"But you've got no rifle," returned the man, with some hesitation.

"Aren't revolvers as good as rifles, ay, an' better at close quarters? Shut up your tatie-trap, now, an' be off to Muster Gashford's hut for he towld me to sind you there widout delay."

This seemed to satisfy the man, who at once went away, leaving Flinders on guard.

Without a moment's loss of time Paddy made use of the key and entered the prison.

"Is it there ye are, avic?" he said, in a hoarse whisper, as he advanced with caution and outstretched hands to