The Black Opal

by Katharine Susannah Prichard

His mind hovered about the thought of Maud Johnson.

He could not conceive how John Armitage had come to the knowledge he possessed, unless Maud, whom he was aware Armitage had bought stones from in America, had not showed or sold them to him. But Armitage believed Michael still had, and was hoarding the stones. That was the strange part of it all. How could Armitage declare he had one of the stones, and yet believe Michael was holding the rest? Unless Maud had taken that one stone from the table the night she came to see Potch? Michael could not remember having seen the stone after she went. He could not remember having put it back in the box. It only just occurred to him she might only have taken the stone that night. Jun had probably recognised the stone, and she had told Armitage what Jun had said about it. Jun might have gone to the hut for the rest of the stones, but then Maud would not have told Armitage they were still on the Ridge. Maud would be sure to know if Jun had got the stones on his own account, Michael thought.

His brain went over and over again what John Armitage had said, querying, exclaiming, explaining, and enlarging on fragments of their talk. Armitage declared he had evidence to prove Michael Brady had stolen Rouminof's stones. He might have proof that he had had possession of them for a while, Michael believed. But if Armitage was under the impression he still had the opals, his information was incomplete at least, and Michael treasured a vague hope that the proof which he might adduce, would be as faulty.

But more important than the bringing home to him of responsibility for the lost opals, and the "unmasking" to eyes of men of the Ridge which Armitage had promised him, was the bearing it would have on the proposition which was to be put before them. Michael realised that there was a good deal of truth in what Armitage had said. A section of the younger miners, men who had settled on the new rushes, and one or two of the older men who had grown away from the Ridge idea, would probably be willing enough to fall in with and work under Armitage's scheme. George, Watty, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant, Cash Wilson, and most of the older men were against it, and some of the younger ones, too; but Archie and Ted Cross were inclined to waver, although they had always been staunch for the Ridge principle, and with them was a substantial following from the Punti, Three Mile, and other rushes.

A disintegrating influence was at work, Michael recognised. It had been active for some time. Since Potch's finding of the big stone, scarcely any stone worth speaking of had been unearthed on the fields, and that meant long store accounts, and anxious and hard times for most of the gougers.

The settlement had weathered seasons of dearth, and had existed on the merest traces of precious opal before; but this one had lasted longer, and had tried everybody's patience and capacity for endurance to the last degree. Murmurs of the need for money to prospect the field and open up new workings were heard. Criticisms of the ideas which would keep out money and money-owners who might be persuaded to invest their money to prospect and open up new workings on Fallen Star, crept into the murmurings, and had been circulating for some months. Bat M'Ginnis, a tall, lean, herring-gutted Irishman, with big ears, pointed like a bat's, was generally considered author of the criticisms and abettor of the murmurings. He had sunk on the Coolebah and drifted to the Punti rush soon after. On the Punti, it was known, he had expatiated on the need for business men and business methods to run the mines and make the most of the resources of the Ridge.

M'Ginnis was a good agent for Armitage, before Armitage's proposition was heard of. Michael wondered now whether he was perhaps an agent of Armitage's, and had been sent to the Ridge to prepare the way for John Armitage's scheme. When he came to think of it, Michael remembered he had heard men exclaim that Bat never seemed short of money himself, although if he had to live on what his claim produced he would have been as hard up as most of them. Michael wondered whether Charley's home-coming was a coincidence likewise, or whether Armitage had laid his plans more carefully than might have been imagined.

Michael saw no way out for himself. He could not accept Armitage's bribe of silence as to his share in the disappearance of Paul's opals, in order to urge men of the Ridge to agree to the Armitages' proposition for buying up the mines. If he could have, he realised, he would carry perhaps a majority of men of the Ridge with him; and those he cared most for would stand by the Ridge idea whether he deserted it or not, he believed. He would only fall in their esteem; they would despise him; and he would despise himself if he betrayed the idea on which he had staked so much, and the realisation of which he would have died to preserve. But there was no question of betraying the Ridge idea, or of being false to the teaching of his whole life. He was not even tempted by the terms Armitage offered for his co-operation. He was glad to think no terms Armitage could offer would tempt him from his allegiance to the principle which was the corner-stone of life on the Ridge.

But he asked himself what the men would think of him when they heard Armitage's story; what Sophie would think, and Potch. He turned in agony from the thought that Sophie and Potch would believe him guilty of the thing he seemed to be guilty of. Anything seemed easier to bear than the loss of their love and faith, and the faith of men of the Ridge he had worked with and been in close sympathy with for so long—Watty and George, Pony-Fence Inglewood, Bill Grant and Cash Wilson. Would he have to leave the Ridge when they knew? Would they cold-shoulder him out of their lives? His imagination had centred for so long about the thing he had done that the guilt of it was magnified out of all proportion to the degree of his culpability. He did not accuse himself in the initial act. He had done what seemed to him the only thing to do, in good faith; the opals had nothing to do with it. He did not understand yet how they had got an ascendancy over him; how when he had intended just to look at them, to see they were well packed, he had been seduced into that trance of worshipful admiration.

Why he had not returned the stones to Paul as soon as Sophie had left the Ridge, Michael could not entirely explain to himself. He went over and over the excuses he had made to himself, seeing in them evidence of the subtle witchery the stones had exercised over him. But as soon as he was aware of the danger of delay, he tried to assure himself, and the appearance it must have, he had determined to get rid of the stones.