“Then throw me your knives.”
The men hesitated.
“Throw me them this instant, or—”
They threw down their knives.
“George, take them and tie them up in your wipe.” George took the knives and tied them up.
“Now pull that big brute out of the water or he'll drown himself.” George and Jacky pulled Jem out of the water with the spear sticking in him; the water was discolored with his blood.
“Pull the spear out of him!” George pulled and Jem roared with pain, but the spear-head would not come back through the wound; then Jacky came up and broke the light shaft off close to the skin, and grasping the head drew the remainder through the wound forward, and grinned with a sense of superior wisdom.
By this time the man whom George had felled sat up on his beam ends winking and blinking and confused, like a great owl at sunrise.
Then Robinson, who had never lost his presence of mind, and had now recovered his sang-froid, made all four captives sit around together on the ground in one little lot, “While I show you the error of your ways,” said he. “I could forgive a rascal but I hate a fool. You thought to keep such a secret as this all to yourselves—you dunces—the very birds in the air would carry it; it never was kept secret in any land and never will. And you would spill blood sooner than your betters should know it—ye ninny-cumpoops! What the worse are you for our knowing it? If a thousand knew it to-day would that lower the price of gold a penny an ounce? No! All the harm they could do you would be this, that some of them would show you where it lies thickest, and then you'd profit by it. You had better tie that leg of yours up; you have lost blood enough I should say by the look of you; haven't you got a wipe? here, take mine—you deserve it, don't you? No man's luck hurts his neighbor at this work; how clever you were, you have just pitched on the unlikeliest place in the whole gulley, and you wanted to kill the man that would have taught you which are the likelier ones. I shall find ten times as much gold before the sun sets as you will find in a week by the side of that stream; why, it hasn't been running above a thousand years or two, I should say, by the look of it; you have got plenty to learn, you bloody-minded greenhorns! Now I'll tell you what it is,” continued Robinson, getting angry about it, “since you are for keeping dark what little you know, I'll keep you dark; and in ten minutes my pal here and the very nigger shall know more about gold-finding than you know, so be off, for I'm going to work. Come, march!”
“Where are we to go, mate?” said the leader sullenly.