“I know you don’t. Now, look here. This is absolutely between ourselves, now, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Certain?”
“Yes.”
Jack was silent for a time. Then he looked round the almost dark shore. The stars were shining overhead.
“Give me your hand then,” said Jack.
Somers gave him his hand, and Jack clasped it fast, drawing the smaller man to him and putting his arm round his shoulders and holding him near to him. It was a tense moment for Richard Lovat. He looked at the dark sea, and thought of his own everlasting gods, and felt the other man’s body next to his.
“Well now,” he said in Somers’ ear, in a soothed tone. “There’s quite a number of us in Sydney—and in the other towns as well—we’re mostly diggers back from the war—we’ve joined up into a kind of club—and we’re sworn in—and we’re sworn to obey the leaders, no matter what the command, when the time is ready—and we’re sworn to keep silent till then. We don’t let out much, nothing of any consequence, to the general run of the members.”
Richard listened with his soul. Jack’s eager, conspirator voice seemed very close to his ear, and it had a kind of caress, a sort of embrace. Richard was absolutely motionless.
“But who are your leaders?” he asked, thinking of course that it was his own high destiny to be a leader.