Denis Dent: A Novel

by E. W. Hornung

So the little Company continued its existence, and on Black Hill Flat, because Denis was more and more against sinking a second hole until there was no more gold to be got out of the first. It was like his thoroughness and tenacity of character, but was inconsistent with his original attitude as a digger. A moderate success was of no use to him; it must be a small fortune, or it might as well be nothing at all. So it had been in the beginning, and it was obviously still the case. Yet there was no shifting Denis while there was a pennyweight to the tub, and once there was nearly an ounce, and one day in November yielded two ounces four pennyweight. He was further fortified by the opinion of one whom he instinctively regarded as an expert. Passing with Moseley through Rotten Gully, on the Old Eureka Lead, to look at one of the many sites which his companion fancied in these days, Denis became much more interested in a very well-built hut in juxtaposition to an evidently deep hole with a capital windlass atop. A fellow with trim whiskers and an expression of splendid disgust was turning the handle, and as they watched a very muddy digger came up standing in the pail, from which he stepped with as much daintiness as a lady with a dress to spoil. "Thank you," said this one in an off-hand way to the other, but Denis he favoured with a stare, followed by the shortest of nods, for it was the deep-sinker who had recommended Black Hill Flat.

"Did you try the Flat?" said he.

"I've been trying it ever since," returned Denis, and soon added with what result. He was furthermore able to answer one or two technical questions in such a way as to interest the deep-sinker, who seemed quite struck with the simple device of the hand-barrow.

"Well," said he, as the partners were taking their leave, "I can't help my opinion, and I've got it still. I believe there's gold on Black Hill Flat, and plenty of it; what's more, it's the sort of nice dry place where it should be pretty near the surface, if it's there at all. But, of course, you might prick about for a year without finding it. I'm sorry I said so much about the place the other day; if I hadn't I'd give you another piece of advice now, and that would be to take your time and go in for deep sinking. You're too good a man for surfacing. Good-afternoon to you, and better luck." And he ducked into his hut with a last least nod.

The upshot of this conversation, and of another between Denis and Moseley upon the obvious quality of the deep-sinker, was that Moseley went "pricking about" the flat while Denis persisted in the old hole, and Jim Doherty oscillated between the pair. Nothing more came of it. Moseley was a poor digger, who scarcely pricked skin-deep. He soon went back to his evil cooking, which, however, had been less evil since the little scene with Denis. His chops oftener hit a medium between the blue-raw and done-to-a-rag extremes; but his bread would still have murdered a dyspeptic, and the lean but hungry Doherty was laid up for forty-eight hours after one of Moseley's duffs. Denis himself little knew how many of his sleepless nights he owed to the same devastating cause; and on Black Hill Flat he slept the sleep of the lost.

Early to bed was the digger's natural law, but if Denis kept it he would be wide awake by the smallest hours, and so lie tossing till the Flat was astir. He found it a lesser evil to sit up late over a lonely camp-fire, and beguiled these vigils with congenial employment. He was making a new map of the diggings. This one was in ink on a clean piece of cardboard cut to fit the jacket pocket. It grew out of odd scraps marked in pencil on Denis's walks abroad; some of the latter were taken on purpose during these very sleepless nights. So the map was his own, correct or incorrect, and it was made on his own plan. It was largely geological. There were the depths of sinkings where Denis could ascertain them, and the various leads flowed in rivers of bold red ink, which made up for any lack of academic accuracy by a rather stimulating appeal to the imagination. But that was to come; as yet it was a spy's map, which even Jimmy had not seen.

And sometimes when it had been put away for the night, and there was enough fire still to kick into a redder glow, or a great white moon in the sky, then Denis would loosen the shirt that he buttoned higher than most, and there was the little ring his Nan had given him, the red-white-and-blue of its ruby, diamond, and sapphire, twinkling and glittering as it had in the light of day upon her finger; and there was the lanyard of her beloved hair; and it, too, shone as though still upon her sunny head: and so he thought she told him she was well. But what had he to tell her? He had stayed behind to do something that was not yet fairly begun, and already two months were up. There were times when Denis did not regret the letter which might never arrive. Its unredeemed tale had cost him much in the unvarnished telling on which his nature insisted; what if it were to cost him as much again in her sight? There could be, after all, but one excuse for his separate existence at Ballarat. And when he realized this, it was a hard, dark face that Denis turned to great white moon or little red fire; it was dark with disgust of self and circumstance; it was harder than ever with a determination which had never wavered.

After one such night in the middle of December, the beginning of the end came quite quietly and naturally at the following evening's meal. Moseley had received his remittance, days before it was due, and, as Denis said, it could not have come at a better time. At this the moneyed partner had looked up from his platter in somewhat anxious inquiry.

"Because I'm going to take your advice," explained Denis, "and give in—and clear out!"

"Home to England?" cried Moseley, while Doherty stayed the hand that held a loaded fork.