CHAPTER VI.
THE TREASURE FOUND.
Gray's first feeling was one of intense, overpowering relief. That dreadful terror which had beset him left him when he saw that it was indeed Lumley who had followed him. He spoke sharply:
"What do you mean by following me up like this, and skulking in the brambles? It was a dangerous game, mind you! I might have sent a shot into them just now, you know."
Lumley looked at him and laughed.
"You're a pretty fellow to go bushranging. When did you look at your pistols last, eh?"
Gray caught up his pistols and looked at them. The charges had been tampered with. They were useless.
Lumley stood regarding him with vicious amusement in his foxy eyes.
"You'd best have stuck at an honest trade, mate," he said. "You're no good at bushranging at all. It's been too easy to take you in. You needn't look at 'em any more, you know. I made 'em safe enough at Stuart's place."
Gray dropped the pistols on the ground.
"How dare you?" he began in a choked voice. Then he checked himself. "I'll trouble you to tell me what you mean," he said. "And—"
He made a dash to snatch the revolver from Lumley's hand, but Lumley was too quick for him. He jumped back and levelled the weapon full at Gray.
"Stand where you are or I'll fire," he said coolly. "Move a limb, and you'll have a bullet into you."
Gray stood still. A cold sweat broke out upon his brow. Lumley had dropped all disguise now. The evil soul of the man looked out from his face.
"That's better," he said. "Just stand there, will you?" He seated himself on some of the fallen débris, still keeping his revolver pointed at Gray.
"Now we'll have a comfortable little talk together, mate," he said. "You can sit down now if you like."
Gray looked round and carefully chose a seat. The pallid look of terror had gone from his face. He had recovered his calmness and his power of thought. He saw clearly enough that he was in Lumley's power. He guessed his reason for following him; and he had determined on his course of action. If Lumley chose to insist upon it, he would tell him Dearing's secret and leave him to get the money if he could; and he would go straight to the nearest station and inform against him. Not for all the money in the world, Gray declared to himself, would he put his reputation into this man's keeping.
"That's right, mate. Now we'll be comfortable," said Lumley, with a grin, "and we'll talk about the business that's brought me here. You know what it is well enough."
"Well, I can make a pretty good guess," Gray said, carefully selecting a cigar and proceeding to light it. "But you'll have to tell me plainly, you know, before going any further."
The change in Gray's manner was too striking to escape Lumley. He looked at him with a steady crafty look before answering.
"There ain't no money hid here, I s'pose? You're on a pleasure toor, ain't you? That pick in your knapsack is for ge'logical specimens, ain't it?"
Gray carefully flicked a little ash from the end of his cigar, and then looked up.
"You are quite wrong, Lumley. That pick is not meant for geological specimens at all. It's meant to be used for digging up a large sum of money hidden somewhere about here. Unfortunately I don't know where."
"You don't?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. Perhaps you know?"
Lumley glared at him like a wild beast.
"Was that why you were going away?"
Gray nodded.
"Tom Dearing didn't tell you where 'twas hid? Don't you try to deceive me, man. I'll not stand it. I'll have that swag if I've got to swing for it to-morrow. What made you go proddin' and pryin' round those old trunks for, eh? You tell me that."
"With all the pleasure in life, my man. But I should like to hear a few things from you first. How did you get to know of this money? I may not be far wrong in supposing you an accomplice of our good friend, lately deceased, Mr. Tom Dearing?"
"I'd wring your neck for tuppence," Lumley muttered savagely.
Gray looked up at him with a pleasant smile.
"What did you say?"
Gray was beginning to feel thoroughly satisfied with himself again. He felt himself very much more than a match for Mr. Lumley.
That individual made no reply to his last inquiry.
"So you want to know how I got on this job. I'll tell you quickly enough. Dearing made a dying speech and confession, didn't he?"
"Something of the kind."
"He'd do that for sure and certain. That was his way. He was always half-hearted, Tom was. P'r'aps he didn't mention a pal of his, Bill Clay, eh?"
"I think he did, now I come to think of it. I suppose you are that gentleman. Is Clay your real name, or one of your many aliases?"
"You're right, mate. I'm Bill Clay, as you'll find out before you're done with me," said Lumley, with a savage look. "I wasn't in that business with the bank, but Tom told me he'd hidden the money; but he didn't tell me where he'd hid it, d'you see. You've got to tell me that, Mr. Gentleman Gray."
Gray leisurely took his cigar from his mouth and said:
"With pleasure, my man, if I knew it myself; but you see I don't."
Lumley gave him a savage frown.
"Think I'm going to believe that? Look here, I'm in a hurry, and you've just got to tell me all you know. If you don't, I'll—"
He lifted the revolver again with a significant gesture.
Gray did not speak for a moment. His hand might have trembled slightly as he stroked his moustache, but he showed no other sign of agitation. Lumley watched him narrowly.
"Ain't you goin' to tell me?" he said.
"Yes I am," said Gray; "on one condition."
"What's that?"
"Unload that pretty little weapon of yours, and hand it over to me. I don't trust you, you see, Mr. Lumley, alias Clay. You might find it convenient to leave this place all by yourself. Dead men tell no tales."
"Good for you they don't, ain't it?" Lumley answered darkly.
Gray looked sharply up.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I don't mean anything. But you're a pretty fellow, ain't you, to crow over me?"
The taunt was more than Gray could bear.
"What do you mean?" he exclaimed again, with sharper emphasis as he leapt to his feet. "How dare you?"
Lumley laughed out—a rough, coarse, jeering laugh, which filled Gray with sickening, helpless rage.
"Don't you be afraid of me," he said; "a partner's always safe with me. I don't set up to be a virtuous cove like you, but a partner's always safe with me. We'll go shares, mate—share and share alike. That's a fair offer, ain't it?"
His manner was as coarse and offensive as he could make it. He seemed to find delight in the sort of torture he was inflicting on Gray.
Gray seated himself again and tried hard to recover his coolness. After all, he told himself, he had but to bear Lumley's insults for a time. He had but to wait till they reached a settlement for this hideous partnership to be over.
"It seems to me we are wasting good time, my man," he said, in the lofty tone that so nettled Lumley. "I don't pretend to understand your innuendoes, but let that pass. What you want is the money, isn't it?"
"What I want? You don't want it; no, of course not? You didn't come here to get it?"
Lumley laughed.
"I certainly came here to get it. There's a considerable reward offered for its recovery, as I daresay you know. I intended to claim that reward."
Lumley looked at him in silence for a moment, and then burst out into another laugh.
"You are a cove!" he said, when his mirth would let him speak. "So that's your game, is it? Bah!"
He spat on the ground in fierce derision, and then with a sudden change of manner he came close up to Gray.
"Stow all that nonsense, lad. Tell me what Dearing said, and be quick about it. We're goin' to be fond partners, share and share alike. Come, shell out this minute!"
Gray looked up at him; then he took out his note-book and rapidly reproduced the map he had destroyed, and handed it to Clay without a word. The light was fading, and he took it to the door to examine it. Gray's eyes followed him with a savage concentrated hate in them.
It was the man's coarse scorn of himself that was hardest to bear—harder even than the knowledge that he had lost the money he had sacrificed so much to gain. Gray had been accustomed to the admiration of his fellow-men. He had been liked and respected wherever he had been. It was horrible to him to be the object of this convict's coarse taunts and sneers. He, who had so prided himself on his clean name and unblemished record, had fallen low indeed. And he could not feel that the taunts were undeserved. Slowly and grudgingly, just for a moment, the curtain that hid his true self was lifted for Gray, and with a shudder he confessed that Lumley did him no wrong in claiming partnership with him.
His gloomy thoughts were broken into by a chuckle from Clay.
"I always said he was the 'cutest of us all," he declared in an admiring tone, as he came back to Gray. "Too soft for me. We lost a goodish pile once because he wouldn't use these little beauties," and he touched the revolver in his hand. "But that 'cute he was; up to every trick of the profession. You couldn't understand this, couldn't you?"
He did not wait for an answer, but went on in a quicker tone.
"Of course you couldn't; you'd have been searching here for a month of Sundays if I hadn't kindly come to help you. 'Big Gum Tree.' Ha! ha! Tom was 'cute, to be sure."
Gray did not speak; he did not even look up.
"Don't be down on your luck, my lad," said Clay jocosely; "there's enough for both of us. It'll be more than the reward, any way," and he chuckled with a cruel sort of mirth. "You've got a handy little pick in that knapsack of yours; just fetch it, will you?"
"Get it yourself!"
Clay gave him a fierce threatening look.
"None of your airs and graces here, young man. You do what I tell you, or it'll be the worse for you."
He sat down on the block of wood opposite Gray, folded his arms and added:
"You're the junior partner, and you'll just wait on me, my fine fellow. You go and fetch me that pick to begin with."
Gray ground his teeth with helpless rage, but he got up and took the pick from his knapsack. It was a small slender tool, but very strong. Clay looked at it approvingly.
"Now, you dig up that hearth-stone, mate, and you'll see what you'll see."
"The hearth-stone?"
"You do what I tell you," returned Lumley with a nod. "You go and dig up that hearth-stone."
Gray flung down the pick.
"I won't do anything of the sort. I won't stand any more of this sort of treatment. You may shoot me if you like"—for Lumley had raised his revolver—"but do your bidding I won't."
Gray fully expected, even half-wished for, a shot from the revolver Lumley held up at him for a moment. But the convict changed his mind. He put the weapon in his pocket and got coolly up.
"Well, if you won't I must," he said, and went over to the hearth-stone that lay buried under a heap of earth and timber.
Gray sank down on the fallen rafter and buried his face in his hands. No man can look on death and bear an unchanged front, not even the bravest and the most prepared, and Gray was not of these. For a brief moment he had believed that death was close to him. It was to Lumley's interest to kill him now that he knew where the gold was, and there had been murder in his eyes as he had looked across at Gray. And Gray sat with his hands clasped over his eyes, in sick, horrible fear at the thought of himself lying cold and stiff, with eyes staring blindly up at the sky; his soul gone—where?
At the other end of the hut Clay was busy. He dashed away the heap of rubbish on the hearth-stone, and digging the pick into the loose earth round it, dragged it up without much difficulty. A cry of exultation broke from him as he did so. Embedded in the ground below the hearth-stone lay a small tin box, bound round and round with whipcord. To drag up the box, cut the already decaying cord, and wrench open the cover was the work of a moment. Two or three wrappings of thick brown paper lay over the contents of the box. He tore these off, and clutched at what lay beneath.
"Come here, partner," he shouted; "what do you say to this, eh?"
Gray slowly rose and came towards him. How he had anticipated the moment when this money should lie before him! There it was, and he looked at it with a shudder.
Lumley emptied the contents of the box on the floor before him, and began eagerly to count over the notes and gold.
"A prime catch, eh?" he remarked, as he caught up a handful of sovereigns and let them fall back in a glittering heap. "We'll be able to cut a dash on this, partner. Look at this nugget! And the flimsy is all safe— Tom took care of that; there ain't one of the numbers known." And he held up the banknotes to Gray with a grin. "Better than the reward after all, my boy, even the half of it, though not quite so good as the whole lot. You thought you were going to grab it all, didn't you? You were a green un to think so. Why, I've followed you up from the moment I heard of Tom's death. I knew he'd leave some paper or other to tell where 'twas. Tom wasn't greedy, not he." He went on with the examination of the treasure while he spoke; counting the gold and notes, and putting the nuggets into a heap apart. Presently he looked up with his cunning smile at Gray's dark face.
"You don't ask me, partner, how I came to hit on the hearth-stone."
"How was it?" said Gray indifferently. The gold might have been withered leaves, the notes blank pieces of paper for all the interest he could feel in them.
"'Twas a good job for you I followed you," returned Lumley cheerfully. "You might have prodded round till doomsday. I knew what Tom meant by 'hole in Big Gum,' d'you see. That big log there with the window was from the biggest gum of the whole lot we cut down. And the window was the hole. Ain't it plain as daylight now, eh?"
"Plain enough."
It was getting dusk outside, and Lumley got up and went to the door of the hut.
"We'd best be starting, partner," he said over his shoulder. "There's nothing out against me that I know of, but I'd rather not be seen by daylight with you just at present, as you'll understand."
Gray hardly heard the words. He picked up his knapsack from the floor.
"I'll start this minute. I suppose you have got a horse?"
Lumley came back to the money before he answered. He began to divide it into two heaps.
"Yes, I've got a horse, partner, a pretty good one too. We scared you pretty well just now, eh? down along the track. My horse can climb like a 'possum, and I didn't want you to see me then."
The man's manner had changed again. It was smoother and more refined. It was as if he had slipped on a mask, and Gray's loathing of him increased as he marked the sudden easy transition. His coarseness was almost better than this oily softness. It maddened Gray.
"You needn't divide that money," he broke out in a sudden impulse of miserable rage. "I'll have none of it. And if I leave this place alive I'll give you over to the police. You mark my words!"
Lumley looked up at him with a quiet smile.
"Two of us can play at that game, my fine fellow!" Then his manner changed quickly from softness to ferocity. "You young fool, you! Don't you know the police are after you? They may be outside this, for aught I know, this minute. Anyway, they're close upon your track."
Gray stepped fiercely towards him.
"You lie!" he gasped out.
"You'd better ride down to Ford's to-night and find out," returned Lumley in a sulky, indifferent tone; "you'll have a warm welcome!"
"It's false!" Gray almost shouted the words. "They have no reason."
Lumley looked up at him with a grin.
"That's a pretty statement for you to make, partner. Anyway, there's a warrant out against you. Not for this pretty stuff alone, mind you—suspicion of murder!"
His crafty, cruel eyes fixed themselves on Gray's pallid twitching face.
"Murder of your mate, partner. 'Twas a pity you had to do it, for it's a hanging matter; but he was an obstinate chap, I expect. Pious and all that."
"They believe I murdered Harding?" Gray gasped out.
"Don't take on, partner," returned Clay cheerfully; "murder will out, as they say. And the police haven't got you yet. You trust to me: I know a track that'll take us out safe enough. I daresay you feel queer, though. It's unpleasant to be tracked by the police. I'm used to it, but I don't like it. I expect you wouldn't have done it if you'd thought you'd have been found out; eh, partner?"
It overwhelmed Gray to find that he could be suspected of a cold-blooded treacherous murder.
"You think—you dare to think—" he broke out, and then his voice failed him.
Had he not, in very purpose and act, been the murderer of his mate? The words of angry defence faltered on his tongue. He stood self-convicted, seeing for the first time all the horror of his act—unable to say a word to clear himself of the charge Lumley brought against him.