Returning to the humpie for the purpose, they took the unfortunate captive's girdle from him without the least hesitation and returned to the fall. They had taken the dead bodies of the men from the water and laid them in the shadow of the cliff, and all of them still had their belts on, but a strange feeling, they did not quite know of what, prevented the lads from robbing the dead.
The tough sinew which they obtained by untwisting the myall's belt answered their purpose admirably, and with it they succeeded in securely tying and sewing up the mouths of the bags. They loaded the pack-horse with six of these precious little sacks, and secured one on to each of the other horses. The rest of their packing, when this most important part was finished, only took them a few minutes, and, taking a last look round to see that they had left nothing behind them, and as a sort of farewell to the place where so much had happened to them, they mounted their horses. Before they left the humpie for the last time, they untied the myall, who had never once moved from the position in which they had placed him, and told him he might go. Looking half ashamed of himself, as young folk do if detected in a kindness, Alec gave the black fellow a strong knife that he always carried with him, and said apologetically to Geordie as he did so—
"I know it is silly of me, but you know I was such a brute to the fellow just now."
George had pretended not to see what his brother was doing, but when he spoke to him he said,
"Don't make excuses, old fellow. Give him what you like. We're taking thousands of pounds worth of gold away with us, and I can't help feeling a bit that it is their property somehow."
The myall said nothing as he took the knife, and hardly deigned to look at it; but the last thing the boys saw of him, as they rounded a bend in the valley, was that he was carefully examining his new possession.
The sun was high in the heavens, for it was some time past noon, as, laden with the gold they had come to seek, and in the gaining of which they had endured so much, they left the Whanga valley. Ten days before this they had ridden into the valley worse than penniless, because so much in debt; and now they were leaving it with gold enough to pay off all they owed and to put the run in thoroughly good order.
CHAPTER XVIII.
"THERE'S MANY A SLIP."
The journey, which, owing to the many accidents and dangers that had happened to them, had occupied the boys ten days in the going, was accomplished in little more than half that time on the return. They met with none of the difficulties that they had had to encounter on their way to the Whanga, the fates at last seeming propitious. The large tract of country that had been burnt by the great fire in which they had so nearly perished was green again with the young grass that had sprouted everywhere after the rain; and travelling across it was rendered much easier in many places from the fact that the stretches of dense scrub, which had so hindered them when they had crossed the country before, were all totally consumed, leaving the country open.