The Marquis slept better that night than he had done for some nights past. I had a job to do before we slept; I did it—any man who has been on sheep and cattle stations understands that sort of thing completely. I tidied up before I came into the Marquis’ room with the recovered stone; but there was a stain that I had overlooked on one shirt sleeve. The Marquis saw it.

“It began in dying and blood and it ends in dying and blood,” he said. “Flint, in one week we shall be in Melbourne and we shall find a syndicate of Jews, and they will buy our stone for very many thousand pounds, and by gum! my friend, I shall think we are blooming well rid of this so remarkable treasure trophy of the wilderness!”

“I’m with you there,” I said; and I was.

Transcriber’s Note

This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated below. Obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged.

Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, reversed order, upside down, or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added. Accents were corrected.

The following items were changed: