The Black Opal

by Katharine Susannah Prichard

"I didn't want the stones," Michael cried, "I didn't ever want them for myself.... It was for Paul I took them back, but I didn't want him to have them just then...."

Haltingly, with the same deadly earnestness, he went over the promise he had made to Sophie's mother, and why he did not want Paul to have the stones and to use them to take Sophie away from the Ridge. But she had gone soon after, and what he had done was of no use. When he explained why he had not then, at once, returned the opals he did not spare himself.

Paul had had sun-stroke; but Michael confessed that from the first night he had opened the parcel and had gone over the stones, he had been reluctant to part with them; he had found himself deferring returning them to Paul, making excuses for not doing so. He could not explain the thing to himself even.... He had not looked at the opals except once again, and then it was to see whether, in putting them away hurriedly the first time, any had tumbled out of the tin among his books. Then Potch and Maud had seen him. Afterwards he realised where he was drifting—how the stones were getting hold of him—and in a panic, knowing what that meant, he had gone for the parcel intending to take it to Paul at once and tell him how he, Michael, came to have anything to do with his opals, just as he was telling them. But the parcel was gone.

Michael said he could not think who had found it and taken it away; but now it was clear. Probably Snow-Shoes had known all the time he had the stones. The more he thought of it, the more Michael believed it must have been so. He remembered the slight stir on the shingly soil as he came from the hut on the night he had taken the opals from Charley. It was just that slight sound Snow-Shoes' moccasins made on the shingle. Exclamations and odd queries Snow-Shoes had launched from time to time came back to Michael. He had no doubt, he said, that Mr. Riley had taken the stones to do just what he had done—and because he feared the influence possession of them was having on him, Michael, since they should have been returned to Paul long ago.

"That's the truth, as far as I know it," Michael said. "There's been attempts made to injure ... the Ridge, our way of doing things here, because of me, and because of those stones.... What happened to me doesn't matter. What happens to the Ridge and the mines does matter. I done wrong. I know I done wrong holding those stones. I'd give anything now if I—if I'd given them to Paul when Sophie went away. But I didn't ... and I'll stand by anything the men who've been my mates care to say or do about that. Only don't let the Ridge, and our way of doing things here, get hurt through me. That's bigger—it means more than any man. Don't let it! ... I'd ask George to call a meeting, and get the boys to say what they think about all this—and where I stand."

Michael put on his hat, dragged it down over his eyes, and walked out of the hall.

When the slow fall of his footsteps no longer sounded on the wooden floor, George Woods rose from his place on the front bench. He turned and faced the men. The smoke from their smouldering pipes had created such a fog that he could see only the bulk of those on the near rows of forms. With the exception of M'Ginnis and half a dozen Punti men who had the far end of one of the front seats, the mass of men in the hall, who a few moments before had been cheering for Michael, were as inert as blown balloons. Depression was in every line of their heavy, squatted shapes and unlighted countenances.

"Well," George said, "it's been a bit of a shock what we've just heard. It wasn't easy what Michael's just done ... and Snow-Shoes, if he'd wanted it, had provided the get-out. But Michael he wouldn't have it.... At whatever cost to himself, he wanted you to have the truth and to stand by the Ridge ... he'd stand by it at any cost.... If there's a doubt in anyone's mind as to what he is, what he's just done proves Michael. I don't say, as he says himself, that it wouldn't have been better if he had handed the stones over to Paul when Sophie went away ... but after all, what does that amount to as far as Michael's concerned? We've got his record, every one of us, his life here. Does anybody know a mean or selfish thing he's ever done, Michael?"

No one spoke, and George went on:

"Michael's asked for trial by his mates—and we've got to give it to him, if it's only to clear up the whole of this business and be done with it.... I move we meet here to-morrow night to settle the thing."