“There’s one of our ‘flags,’” cried Renshaw, suddenly. “And by Jove—there are our chalk splashes! Not bad archery in the dark, eh? Look. They are all within half a dozen yards of each other.”
A great boulder some dozen feet in height and in shape like a tooth, rose out of the soil about twenty yards from the base of the cliff. It was riven obliquely from top to bottom as if split by a wedge; a curious boulder, banded with strata of quartz like the stripes of an agate.
On the face of it were four white marks—all, as the speaker had said, within a few yards of each other, and bearing the relative formation of the stars composing the Southern Cross. Two of the arrows with the strips of rag attached, lay a little further off, while the shafts which had so faithfully left their mark lay at the foot of the boulder, the chalk shattered to pieces.
The intense excitement of the moment was apparent in both men, and it took widely different phases. Sellon advanced hurriedly to the face of the boulder, and began scrutinising it, eagerly, fiercely, from top to base. Renshaw, on the other hand, deliberately sat down, and, producing his pipe, proceeded leisurely to fill and light it.
“It isn’t on the face of the rock we’ve got to look, Sellon,” he said, when this operation was completed. “It’s here.”
He rose, advanced to the cleft, and gazed eagerly inside. It was just wide enough to admit a man’s body. Just then the first arrowy gleams of the risen sun shot over the frowning rock walls, glowing athwart the grey chill atmosphere of the crater. They swept round the searcher’s head, darting into the shaded cleft.
And then one swift reflected beam from the shadow of that rocky recess, one dart of fire into his eyes, and Renshaw started back. There, not two yards in front of his face, protruded from the rough surface of the quartz, a dull hard pyramid; but from the point of that pyramid darted the ray which had for the moment blinded him.
“HERE IT IS! THE EYE!”
The other was at his side in a moment. And thus they stood side by side, speechless, gazing upon a truly magnificent diamond.
Well might they be struck speechless. To one the retrospect of a hard, lonely life, sacrificed in detail to the good of others, a struggling against wind and tide, a constant battle against the very stars in their courses—rose up and passed before his eyes in a lightning flash at that moment. To the other what experience of soured hopes, of reckless shifts, of a so far marred life, of failure, and confidence misplaced and unrequited—of gradual cutting loose from all principle—a confusion between the sense of right and wrong, and, following immediately upon all, a golden glow of hope no longer deferred, a sunny ideal of abundant consolation; of love and happiness! But to both comfort, ease, wealth.