"I won't have it; I refuse it. Must I take it?"
"I fear you must. English coin is so scarce in the Colony that the Government at Brisbane has decided that, for a time, gold, such as this, is legal tender at £4 the ounce."
Macleod laughed. "Wull ye tak' the whole amoont wi' ye noo?"
"Send it after us to Bateman," said Tuckle, speaking for Crosby, as he went out to get their horses.
Martin saw that his uncle had received a cruel blow, and that he looked ill and very aged, and, feeling pity for him, he offered him the support of his arm, but the old man flung it aside and tottered from the room alone.
The action was typical of his life. He had always spurned that which should have been his greatest happiness. He never saw his nephew again, for after reaching Bateman that day, overwhelmed with chagrin and futile passion, he was struck down with the fit the doctors had foretold. He died before Martin could reach him, and before he could alter, had he wished to do so, the will which made his nephew his sole heir. So that after all the gold for which the boys had been in quest did not go out of the family, for the morning that Martin and Margaret—sound friends and true lovers—became one, "till death does them part," Alec and Geordie received back from their new brother the title-deeds of Wandaroo, which he had found amongst his uncle's papers, and for which he steadily refused to take an ounce of the—to him—unnecessary gold.
THE END.
Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.