A WEDGE OF GOLD INDEED.
Sedgwick and Jordan waited at Port Natal for the coming of the "Pallas." Sedgwick explained what the ship would bring, and told Jordan about Grace being in San Francisco to receive him, and how while the mill was being built, he and his wife had raced around the country.
Jordan was delighted. "I told yo' she war a game girl," he said. "Think of her traveling six thousand mile to jine ther man who hed run away from her at ther meetin' house do'! But I'm mighty glad she did, all the same. It confirms my estermation of ther lady."
Then he explained that he put on eight-hour shifts to run the tunnel, two English miners on each shift to handle the drills and gads, and Boers and Kaffirs to carry back the debris; that the rock was most favorable, and rapid progress was made, averaging a little over ten feet per day; that he offered bribes and bounties to the shift that should make most progress; and that he had tapped the ledge and cross-cut it in four months, "because," he added naively, "we lost all reckonin' o' time, 'nd I'm afeerd we worked of er Sunday sometimes;" that the ore was quite up to the average, or a little better than what was on the dump; that so soon as the vein was struck he had started drifts up and down the ledge and an upraise, and had, when he left, probably 1,000 tons of ore on the dump, and that as the mine was further opened the daily output was steadily increasing. He had, moreover, got the mill site graded, and the wall that the battery was to be set in front of, built, comfortable quarters put up, and the road through the cañon made so that it would be good for heavy teams.
When he heard that Sedgwick had sent some heavy wagons, yokes, harness and chains he was glad, saying: "I war afeerd you'd forget it," and at once went about to select the stock and drivers for those wagons.
After they had waited eight days, the "Pallas" made the port.
Captain McGregor reported a prosperous voyage, and the next day the discharging of cargo into lighters began and was rushed with all speed. As soon as the wagons were landed, the work of setting them up began, and the training of the teams was likewise inaugurated.
The first full loads were started for the mine in a week. The heavy machinery was loaded on the imported wagons, native conveyances were secured for the other freight, and in fourteen days everything was in transit.
In the meantime another mail had arrived from England, bringing letters from Grace to Sedgwick. One had news of special interest. It told that the confidence of Mrs. Hazleton had been partly gained; that she had learned much of the lady's life; how she was left an orphan at thirteen in New Jersey; how at seventeen when at school she had run away and married a wild youth; how they left at once for the West; how the wild boy settled down, and with a few hundred dollars which he had when they were married he had made a few thousand and was doing well when he suddenly sickened and died; how then his relatives came forward and made a contest for his property, setting up that she had never been married; that the showing was so fearful against her that the court in Iowa refused her any support from the estate, and in her shame and confusion she went away to Texas and taught school for six months to earn money enough to make her defense; that there she met an unlettered and sensitive man, but at the same time one of the clearest-brained, most generous and noble-hearted men in the world, but in whom, from the fact he was so sensitive and generous, she could not confide, lest she might not be able to vindicate herself; and if she failed, she feared she would not only lose his confidence, but that it would make him believe there was no truth in the world. How with the money she earned, she was able to go to New Jersey, to find in the papers of the old clergyman who had married her (and who had in the meantime died), not only a full record of the marriage, but the marriage certificate with the names of the witnesses attached, which certificate had never been called for. By it, too, she was able to find the witnesses of the marriage, and one of those witnesses had known her all her life. So when the case came on for hearing she was so completely vindicated that her neighbors who had turned on her a cold shoulder came back with every outward demonstration of joy over her triumph. But she hated the place; converted all she had into money; bought a lot in a cemetery outside that State and had her husband's remains moved there, because she thought his sleep would be vexed in a community so mean; and then wrote to her friend in Texas, merely asking if he was well, and if she might explain something to him.
In ten days the letter came back with the endorsement on it by the postmaster that her friend had sold his property at a sacrifice and disappeared, his nearest friends did not know where. Grace's letter added that she was worrying under the fear that perhaps if she had not gone to Texas the true man would never have made the sacrifice.
Grace declared that she was in love with the lady; that she was a fine scholar, a finished elocutionist, a marvelous musician, and the comfort of her life in her husband's absence. The letter closed with an injunction that Sedgwick must bring Jordan safely home with him, and not be too long about it.
How Sedgwick wanted to show that letter to Jordan! But he realized that if Mrs. Hazleton loved him it was for her to tell him so.
He racked his brain to invent a necessity for Jordan's return to London, but a little thought convinced him that all such expedients would be in vain, because Jordan had, as he said, "enlisted fo' the wah," and Sedgwick realized that if on any pretext he sent him away, the suspicion might arise in Jordan's mind that the object was a selfish one, now that the labor and anxiety of making the enterprise a success had well-nigh passed.
So he decided that the thing to do was to hurry the work in hand to culmination. The rainy season was pretty well over, and the material for the mill was pushed forward with reasonable dispatch. It was all on the ground, set up, and in motion in fifty days.
Sedgwick found on reaching the mine that Jordan had built the needed houses, and had the mill as nearly completed as it could be before the machinery was set in place.
The ore crushed easily, and the mill reduced two tons and a half per stamp readily in every twenty-four hours, in thirty days crushing 3,000 tons. It yielded in the mill $35 per ton, and at the end of thirty days there were bars of the value of $100,000 ready for shipment. Then Sedgwick said: "Come, Tom, our work is finished here, at least for the present; let us seek civilization."
"Agreed, old friend," said Jordan. "I'll get my trophies together and be ready ter start in ther morning."
"And what are your trophies?" asked Sedgwick.
"Why, didn't I tell yer?" was the reply. "It got kinder lonesome while yo' war away, so I went on a hunt. I've got ther finest pair o' leopard skins yo' ever seen, some elephant tusks, 'nd I migh'er brought a sarpent skin that war a daisy, but I drew ther line on snakes. But he war twenty-three feet long, and ther look outer his eyes war not reassurin' by a blamed sight. I migh'er got a giraff skin, too, but she hed her baby with her, and I'm not breakin' up no giraffe families."
It was understood that they were to leave in the morning; were to go in the covered spring wagon, and were to carry the gold.
One of the English miners was made superintendent of the mine. The mill-men from San Francisco agreed to look after the mill for a year, and the civil engineer undertook to see to the books, to attend to the finances and send an express to the coast once a week.
So Sedgwick and Jordan, with one Boer, started early in the morning. It was in the last week in May; the weather was cold for that region, for it was the beginning of winter.
They drove out of the narrow valley, through the cañon, out upon the open table-land and down to the house or dug-out which they had first found when in search of a way out. They rested there, ate some luncheon, fed their horses, and after an hour and a half started on.
They had brought with them their repeating rifles and revolvers. Before getting into the wagon, Jordan had rolled up and fastened the curtains of the wagon, examined closely the guns, and then gave a long, sweeping look all around the horizon.
"What are you looking for, Jordan?" asked Sedgwick.
"Nuthin' much," he answered. "Only, Jim, have yer gun whar yo' can reach it quick if wanted."
"Why?" asked Sedgwick.
"Nuthin," said Jordan. "Only I never seen this place afore thet thar war not a dozen cut-throat-lookin' scoundrels 'round, and they mighter mean mischief, knowin' as how we have ther treasure aboard."
They had driven on for perhaps a mile, when the road ran down close to the stream. All at once half a dozen shots rang out of the willows, and the Boer sprang from the wagon and ran for the bush.
Sedgwick was driving. Jordan in a second caught his gun, and springing over the seat, said:
"Drive on quick, Jim, and in ther meantime I'll try ter entertain ther varmints."
A Boer stepped out of the willows and raised his gun. He never fired it, but threw up his hands and fell on his face. A shot from Jordan's gun had changed his calculations.
Three or four more shots were fired from the bush, but they did no harm.
Sedgwick had urged the team into a run, and they had just begun to hope the ambuscade had been passed, when three more Boers sprang out of the willows nearly opposite them and fired.
Jordan killed two of them in a moment, but the third one fired again, and the bullet struck Jordan's left arm, disabling it and making a bad wound.
"Can you drive, think?" asked Sedgwick.
Jordan thought he could, and took the reins; Sedgwick picked up his gun.
Three more Boers just then appeared by the willows opposite. Sedgwick could shoot as rapidly and as accurately as Jordan, and he cleared the field in a moment.
The road bent away from the stream soon after, back upon the table-land, and they were safe. They stopped, and Sedgwick bound up Jordan's arm. The bone was not broken, and no great blood-vessel was seriously injured, but he had received a nasty flesh wound through the muscles of his fore-arm.
As they proceeded on their journey, Jordan said: "That black guard as I first got a crack at hed been working for us two months. He war at his work yesterday. He put up this business, but how we sprised him! Ther devil that jumped from the wagon when ther scrimmage begun war his runnin' pard. Wur it not lucky neither hoss war hit?"
They reached Port Natal in six days without further incident; but despite all the care that Sedgwick could give it, Jordan's arm was badly inflamed and very painful when they reached the seashore.
No regular steamer was in port, but the "Pallas" was seen at anchor out in the roadstead.
Sedgwick engaged a boat, and with Jordan pulled out to the steamer.
McGregor was delighted at their coming, took them on board and said: "Now, boys, we will have a night of it."
But Sedgwick said: "First, Captain, I want your surgeon to look at Jordan's arm."
"Why, of course," said McGregor. The doctor was called. He examined the arm, then tested the man's temperature, and finally said:
"The wound is nothing in itself. Under normal conditions it would heal in a fortnight, but Mr. Jordan's system is run down. He has a low fever on him now, and needs immediate treatment and careful nursing."
This was a new situation, and one that troubled Sedgwick exceedingly. He was silent for a few seconds, and then looking up, said:
"Captain McGregor, where do you go next?"
"I was just going to pull out for Calcutta, Hong Kong, Yokohama and San Francisco," he replied.
"And when do you sail?" asked Sedgwick.
"I intended to put to sea to-morrow," was the answer; "everything is ready."
"Can I induce you for love and money to make the run at full speed to Naples or Marseilles?" asked Sedgwick.
"Not for money, but for love, yes," was the reply.
"And can I have a room for Jordan right now?" was the next question.
"You shall have the bridal chamber of my ship," said McGregor.
"Thanks, Captain," said Sedgwick, "and now let us get the dear old boy to bed."
Jordan insisted that he was not ill, but before they could get him undressed he was seized with a chill, and they worked upon him an hour before he rallied, grew warm and fell asleep.
In the meantime the night had come down, so Sedgwick got a little supper and then went back to his friend. The captain, steward, indeed all hands, were all attention, for they knew all about both men.
Next morning Jordan was comfortable, but the fever was having its way. Sedgwick went ashore, got his own and Jordan's baggage and the bullion, and when he returned the ship was at once got under way for her northern voyage.
The attentions of Sedgwick to his sick friend were simply incessant. The ship's surgeon was also assiduous in his care. Captain McGregor was all the time most solicitous. As they approached the equator, they fixed for Jordan a bed on deck where the air, even if it was hot, was better in motion over him than in the stifling state-room.
The ship rounded the great cape in ten days, and reached the Red Sea on the twelfth day. Then the surgeon motioned Sedgwick aside, and said: "The case of your friend makes me very anxious. His wound is not of itself serious. He has a little fever, but it would not be of a dangerous type in an ordinary patient. In this case the sick man acts like one who has lost hope, and under the sorrow of his loss his nerve power has ceased to exert its force, and the man is liable to die simply because he will make no effort to live."
"I know," said Sedgwick, "and I have been dreading such a report as you have made me, for the last seven days. If you can keep his life from going out until we can reach Naples, I believe we can then find a tonic that will save him."
"I will try," was the answer, "but he is growing weaker every day, and I am afraid. However, the temperature is growing cooler and it gives us a better chance."
Sedgwick tried by talking, by reading, and by drawing rosy pictures of what they would do in England and America, to rouse Jordan, but without much success.
He lay patient and still on his couch, and to all inquiries would answer: "I'm perfectly comfortable, dear friend. Do not worry about me; everything is as it should be."
Then Sedgwick tried another experiment. He told the sick man that he must exert himself to be better; that sickness was often influenced by the will of the patient, and added that the real work of trying to undo the wrong perpetrated upon Browning would have to be done when they reached England, and that he should then need the best counsel and help of his friend.
Jordan listened and said: "I'll do the best I ken, Jim, but it will be all right, I'm shor."
So the hours went by, and Captain McGregor told the engineer to crowd on all steam, and to bribe the fireman to give the ship all the speed possible.
At Suez, Sedgwick went ashore and cabled his wife that he was on the "Pallas;" to come at once to Naples; to induce Jack and Rose to come also, and, if she thought best, to bring Mrs. Hazleton, for Jordan was ill, and he feared nothing but the cheer of friendly faces would arouse him and give him the strength to live. He added that she must use her woman's wits as to what she would tell Mrs. H., and that to outsiders it must all seem but as running over to the continent for a few days' outing.
When Grace Sedgwick, very early one morning, received and read that message, she held it for many minutes, lost in thought. She had grown very near to Mrs. Hazleton, but except when she had drawn from her the story of her life, she had never probed in the least to see if in her heart she was nursing a vast regret.
But she had noticed some things that led her to believe that the lady had an anxiety which she was trying to conceal. She was always ready to visit any point of interest that would naturally attract a stranger, or to attend any public assemblage that a stranger might be lured to. Again, she always approached such places with vivacity, and returned from them in silence.
As Mrs. Sedgwick sat with the dispatch doubled up in her closed hand, Mrs. Hazleton came into the room. Touching a chair by her side, Grace said: "Come and sit by me, Margaret. I want to talk with you."
She complied, merely saying: "What do you want to talk about, love?"
"Are you happy?" asked Grace.
"Indeed, yes. Why do you ask?" was the reply. "Have you not been making my life a bed of roses ever since your blessed eyes first rested on me?"
Grace looked at her intently for a moment, then said: "Is there some one whom you wish exceedingly to see?"
A rosy flush swept like a wave over her face, which was followed by a quick pallor. But she recovered herself almost instantly, and said: "Why, Mrs. Sedgwick, do you ask me so strange a question?"
Grace arose, then bending down, took her hand, laid the dispatch upon the palm, closed the fingers gently over it and said:
"My dear, there is a paper for you to read. I am going to Rose for a few minutes. When I return, you may tell me anything you please, or nothing at all, as you please; only let me tell you first that before my husband went to Nevada, he went to another State, lived there with a great-hearted man for a year, and that man was with him when he left me at the church door on my wedding day, and they have been together since, except when my husband left him to go to America to buy machinery and came back this way to join him again." Then she suddenly bent and kissed her friend and was gone.
She went through to Rose's side of the house, found her, and asked where Mr. Browning was.
"He is in the library," said Rose; "he has not yet gone out this morning."
"Then come with me," said Grace. Once in the library, she said: "I have news from my James this morning. He cabled me from Suez. He is coming home, and he wants us to meet him at Naples. Mr. Jordan has been with him—is coming with him, is ill, I fear very ill, and he wants us to meet him, I believe chiefly on that dear man's account. I shall leave this afternoon; can you go with me?"
"I can," said Jack.
"I can," said Rose.
"I am so glad," said Grace. "And say, there must be nothing said to the servants, except that we have run over to the continent on a lark, for a few days. And now good-bye until we are ready."
With that she returned to her own sitting room. Mrs. Hazleton was gone, and it was a full half hour before she returned. When she did, she was very pale. A look of anxiety was on her face, but a radiant new light was in her eyes.
She came straight up to Grace, and in a low voice said: "When do you start?"
"To-day," said Grace; "by the first Dover train."
"O, thanks; pray God we be not too late," was the answer; and then the poor woman sank into a chair, covered her face with her hands, and broke into sobs that were almost hysterical.
Grace stood by her for a few minutes, then knelt down, put one arm around her, drew her toward her, gently drew down the hands and laid her cheek against the tear-dripping cheek of her friend, and said: "Now you must be brave, dear Margaret; it's going to be all well. I feel it in every fibre of my being. My husband is with him. He will supply him with the vitality to live until the vision of your face above his pillow will bring the stimulus that he needs."
The true woman recovered herself at length, and said: "O Mrs. Sedgwick, how did you discover my secret, and the great-hearted man whom I have sought for and prayed for so long?"
"It was not I," said Grace. "It was my husband. He lived with Mr. Jordan a year in Texas. After he had made his little fortune in Nevada, he—thanks be to God—came home with Jack. He met his old friend here, who frankly told him how he loved you, and why he had sold his home and turned wanderer. Just then Jack had been induced by his step-father and mine, and the knave Stetson, to invest part of his fortune in a gold mine in South Africa; and by a deception, nearly all that was left of his fortune was lured away into the same channel. Jack was well-nigh frantic. Rose had been waiting for him for four years and a half, so my husband insisted upon their marriage and determined to go and see if anything could be made out of the wreck, and asked me to wait until his return. I agreed, only stipulating that we, too, should be married before he went. I left him at the church. My husband was a silver miner; Mr. Jordan was a gold miner—I do not know the difference, only the gold miner can test gold ore—and they together went to Africa. They found the mine good, and found a new road to it, over which the machinery could be transported. Then my husband sailed via Australia for San Francisco to buy the machinery; Mr. Jordan remained to open the mine. My husband cabled me from Australia, and the next day I received his letter from South Africa, telling me that he would be two months in San Francisco, and then would come by London on his way back to the South Land. I took the first ship and reached San Francisco before his ship came in from Australia; then when I knew the ship was coming up the bay, I had the apartments dressed in flowers, robed myself in attire such as I had meant should be my wedding garments, and waited his coming."
Then she paused a moment as the memory of that meeting swept over her, while the arms of her friend stole around her.
Continuing, she said: "When ready to start for England, we, as you know, made arrangements to stop a day or two with our friends in Indiana. When you were presented, my husband recognized you instantly by the name and description given of you by his friend. When you sang that first song, he guessed your secret and told me his thought, and helped me to work the stratagem to lure you here. When he reached Port Natal, he tried to invent some plausible reason to induce Mr. Jordan to come here, but he could not; and so has hurried to get the mill working, and now both are on the way, and I must meet them. Jack and Rose are going with me; will you?"
The arms of Margaret Hazleton were clinging to Grace, and the tears were raining down her face. So soon as she could speak, she said:
"And so, while I thought you were my best friend, you have really been my guardian angel. I came with you because I hoped to find the noble man who had self-exiled himself, and all the time when I thought I was disguising my heart, your clear eyes have been reading it. I remember now in Texas the boys were always talking of a famous Jim who had lived with them, but I never dreamed that he was your husband.
"My gratitude to you and your grand husband is bankrupt, but now no matter. The first thing to do is to be on our way—only, do Mr. and Mrs. Browning also know my secret?"
"Not at all," said Grace. "Until just now they did not even know that Mr. Jordan was with my husband, but I will tell Rose all that may be necessary."
All left that day, in due time reached Naples, and engaged ample quarters before the "Pallas" entered the bay.