It never seemed to occur to him that a thief could by no possibility live like a gentleman. To be a gentleman, in his opinion, meant having a pocketful of money.
He would like to have examined the nugget, but there was no time, nor was there light enough to form an opinion of it. Besides, Obed and the two boys might at any moment discover their loss, and then there would be pursuers on his track. He could not hide it, for it was too large, and any one seeing what he carried would suspect its nature and character.
The responsibility of property was upon him now. It was an unaccustomed sensation. This thief began now to dread an encounter with other thieves. There were other men, as well as himself, who had little respect for the rights of property, and this he well knew.
“Where shall I go?” he asked himself in perplexity.
It would not do to stay in the neighbourhood of the mining camp. By dawn, or as soon as tidings of the robbery should spread, there would be an organised pursuit. In any mining settlement a thief fares hard. In the absence of any established code of laws, the relentless laws of Judge Lynch are executed with merciless severity. Beads of perspiration began to form on the brow of the thief as he realised the terrible danger he had incurred. What good would it do him after all to get away with the nugget if it should cost him his life, and that was a contingency, as his experience assured him, by no means improbable.
“If I were only in Melbourne,” he said to himself, “I would lose no time in disposing of the nugget, and then would take the first ship for England—or anywhere else. Any place would be better than Australia, for that will soon be too hot to hold me.”
It was one thing to wish, and another to realise the wish. He was still in the immediate vicinity of the mining camp, and there were almost insuperable difficulties in the way of getting far from it with his treasure safe.
The thief kept on his way, however, and after a while reached a piece of woods.
“This will be a good place to hide,” he bethought himself. “I may be able to conceal the nugget somewhere.”
His first feeling of exultation had given place to one of deep anxiety and perplexity. After, he was not as happy as he anticipated. Only yesterday he had been poor—almost destitute—but at any rate free from anxiety and alarm. Now he was rich, or thought he was, and his heart was filled with nervous apprehension.