The Lust of Hate, Guy Newell Boothby [essential books to read .txt] 📗

arm and

said—

 

“As soon as I found what I’d got, I covered up all traces of my

work and cut across country to find you. I sent you a letter from

Thargomindah telling you to chuck up your billet and meet me on the

road, but I suppose you never received it?”

 

I shook my head. If only I had done so what a vast difference it

might have made in both our lives.

 

“Well,” continued Ben, with increased difficulty, “as no letter

came I made my way west as best I could, to find you. On Cooper’s

Creek I was taken ill, and a precious hard time I had of it.. Every

day I was getting worse, and by the time I reached Markapurlie I was

done for, as you know.”

 

“But what did you want with me?” I asked, surprised that he

should have taken so much trouble to find me when Fortune was staring

him in the face.

 

“I wanted you to stand in with me, lad. I wanted a little capital

to start work on, and I reckoned as you’d been so long in one place,

you’d probably have saved a bit. Now it’s all done for as far as I’m

concerned. It seems a bit rough, don’t it, that after hunting for the

right spot all my life long, I should have found it just when it’s no

use to me? Howsoever, it’s there for you, laddie, and I don’t know

but what you’ll make better use of it than I should have done. Now

listen here.”

 

He drew me still closer to him and whispered in my ear—

 

“As soon as I’m gone make tracks for the Booiga Range. Don’t waste

a minute. You ought to do it in three weeks, travelling across

country with good horses. Find the head of the creek, and follow it

down till you reach the point where it branches off to the east and

leaves the hills. There are three big rocks at the bend, and half a

mile or so due south from them there’s a big dead gum, struck by

lightning, maybe. Step five hundred paces from the rocks up the

hillside fair north-west, and that should bring you level with the

blasted gum. Here’s a bit of paper with it all planned out so that

you can’t make a mistake.”

 

He pulled out half a sheet of greasy note-paper from his bosom and

gave it to me.

 

“It don’t look much there; but you mark my words, it will prove to

be the biggest gold mine on earth, and that’s saying a deal! Peg out

your claim as soon as you get there, and then apply to Government in

the usual way for the Discoverer’s Eight. And may you make your

fortune out of it for your kindness to a poor old man.”

 

He laid his head back, exhausted with so much talking, and closed

his eyes. Nearly half-an-hour went by before he spoke again. Then he

said wearily,—

 

“Laddie, I won’t be sorry when it’s all over. But still I can’t

help thinking I would like to have seen that mine.”

 

He died almost on the stroke of midnight, and we buried him next

day on the little sandhill at the back of the grog shanty. That I was

much affected by the poor old man’s decease it would be idle to deny,

even if I desired to do so. The old fellow had been a good mate to

me, and, as far as I knew, I was the only friend he had in the world.

In leaving me his secret, I inherited all he died possessed of. But

if that turned out as he had led me to expect it would do, I

should, indeed, be a made man. In order, however, to prevent a

disappointment that would be too crushing, I determined to place no

faith in it. My luck had hitherto been so bad that it seemed

impossible it could ever change. To tell the truth, I was feeling far

too ill by this time to think much about anything outside myself.

During the last few days my appetite had completely vanished, my head

ached almost to distraction, and my condition generally betokened the

approach of a high fever.

 

As we left the grave and prepared to return to the house, I

reeled. Gibbs, the landlord, put his arm round me to steady me.

 

“Come, hold up,” he said, not unkindly. “Bite on the bullet, my

lad. We shall have to doctor you next if this is the way you are

going on.”

 

I felt too ill to reply, so I held my tongue and concentrated all

my energies on the difficult task of walking home. When I reached the

house I was put to bed, and Gibbs and his slatternly wife took it in

turns to wait upon me. That night I lost consciousness, and remember

nothing further of what happened until I came to my senses, in the

same room and bed which had been occupied by Ben, some three weeks

later. I was so weak then that I felt more of a desire to die and be

done with it, than to continue the fight for existence. But my

constitution was an extraordinary one, I suppose, for little by

little I regained my strength, until, at the end of six weeks, I was

able to leave my bed and hobble into the verandah. All this time the

story of Ben’s mine had been simmering in my brain. The chart he had

given me lay where I had placed it before I was taken ill, namely, in

my shirt pocket, and one morning I took it out and studied it

carefully. What was it worth? Millions or nothing? But that was a

question for the future to decide.

 

Before putting it back into its hiding place I turned it over and

glanced at the back. To my surprise there was a large blot there that

I felt prepared to swear had not been upon it when Ben had given it

to me. The idea disquieted me exceedingly. I cudgelled my brains to

find some explanation for it, but in vain. One thought made me gasp

with fright. Had it been abstracted from my pocket during my illness?

If this were so I might be forestalled. I consoled myself, however,

with the reflection that, even if it had been examined by strangers,

no harm would be done, for beyond the bare points of the compass it

contained no description of the place, or where it was situated; only

the plan of a creek, a dotted line running five hundred paces

north-west and a black spot indicating a blasted gum tree. As Ben had

given me my directions in a whisper, I was convinced in my own mind

that it was quite impossible for anyone else to share my secret.

 

A week later I settled my account with Gibbs, and having purchased

sufficient stores from him to carry me on my way, saddled my horses

and set off across country for the Boolga Range. I was still weak,

but my strength was daily coming back to me. By the time I reached my

destination I felt I should be fit for anything. It was a long and

wearisome journey, and it was not until I had been a month on the

road that I sighted the range some fifty miles or so ahead of me. The

day following I camped about ten miles due north of it, and had the

satisfaction of knowing that next morning, all being well, I should

be at my destination. By this time the idea of the mine, and the

possibility of the riches that awaited me, had grown upon me to such

an extent that I could think of nothing else. It occupied my waking

thoughts, and was the continual subject of my dreams by night. A

thousand times or more, as I made my way south, I planned what I

would do with my vast wealth when I should have obtained it, and to

such a pitch did this notion at last bring me that the vaguest

thought that my journey might after all be fruitless hurt me like

positive pain.

 

That night’s camp, so short a distance from my Eldorado, was an

extraordinary one. My anxiety was so great that I could not sleep,

but spent the greater part of the night tramping about near my fire,

watching the eastern heavens and wishing for day. As soon as the

first sign of light was in the sky I ran up my horses, saddled them,

and without waiting to cook a breakfast, set off for the hills which

I could see rising like a faint blue cloud above the tree tops to the

south. Little more than half-an-hour’s ride from my camp brought me

to the creek, which I followed to the spot indicated on the chart. My

horses would not travel fast enough to keep pace with my impatience.

My heart beat so furiously that I felt as if I should choke, and when

I found the course of the stream trending off in a south-easterly

direction, I felt as if another hour’s suspense must inevitably

terminate my existence.

 

Ahead of me I could see the top of the range rising quite

distinctly above the timber, and every moment I expected to burst

upon the plain which Ben had described to me. When I did, I almost

fell from my saddle in sheer terror. The plain was certainly there,

the trend of the river, the rocks and the hillside were just as they

had been described to me, but there was one vital difference—the

whole place was covered with tents, and alive with men. The field

had been discovered, and now, in all human probability, my claim was

gone. The very thought shook me like the ague. Like a madman I

pressed my heels into my horse’s sides, crossed the creek and began

to climb the hill. Pegged-out claims and a thousand miners, busy as

ants in an ant heap, surrounded me on every side. I estimated my five

hundred paces from the rocks on the creek bank, and pushed on until I

had the blasted gum, mentioned on the chart, bearing due south.

Hereabouts, to my despair, the claims were even thicker than

before—not an inch of ground was left unoccupied.

 

Suddenly, straight before me, from a shaft head on the exact spot

described by Ben, appeared the face of a man I should have known

anywhere in the world—it was the face of my old enemy Bartrand.

Directly I saw it the whole miserable truth dawned upon me, and I

understood as clearly as daylight how I had been duped.

 

Springing from my saddle and leaving my animals to stray where

they would, I dashed across the intervening space and caught him just

as he emerged from the shaft. He recognised me instantly, and turned

as pale as death. In my rage I could have strangled him where he

stood, as easily as I would have done a chicken.

 

“Thief and murderer,” I cried, beside myself with rage and not

heeding who might be standing by. “Give up the mine you have stolen

from me. Give up the mine, or, as I live, I’ll kill you.”

 

He could not answer, for the reason that my grip upon his throat

was throttling him. But the noise he made brought his men to his

assistance. By main force they dragged me off, almost foaming at the

mouth. For the time being I was a maniac, unconscious of everything

save that I wanted to kill the man who had stolen from me the one

great chance of my life.