"Good old Charley!" Michael thought, quickly appreciative of the man he loved.
He could hear them talking, Rouminof's voice thick and expostulatory, Charley's even and clear.
"Charley's all right. He's not showin', anyhow," Michael told himself. He wondered at that. Charley was not often more sober than his company, and he had been drinking a good deal, earlier in the evening.
Michael was a few yards behind them and was just going to quicken his steps and hail Charley, when he saw the flash of white in Charley's hand—something small, rather longer than square, a cigarette box wrapped in newspaper, it might have been—and Michael saw Charley drop it into the pocket of his coat.
Paul wandered on, talking stupidly, drowsily. He wanted to go to sleep there on the roadside; but Charley led him on.
"You'll be better at home and in bed," he said. "You're nearly there now."
Instinctively, with that flash of white, Michael had drawn into the shadow of the trees which fringed the track. Charley, glancing back along it, had not seen him. Several moments passed before Michael moved. He knew what had happened, but the revelation was such a shock that his brain would not react to it. Charley, his mate, Charley Heathfield had stolen Paul's opals. The thing no man on the Ridge had attempted, notwithstanding its easiness, Charley had done. Although he had seen, Michael could scarcely believe that what he had seen, had happened.
The two men before him staggered and swayed together. Their huts stood only a few yards from each other, a little farther along the track.
Charley took Paul to the door of his hut, opened it and pushed him in. He stood beside the door, listening and looking down the track for a second longer. Michael imagined he would want to know whether Paul would discover his loss or just pitch forward and sleep where he lay. Then Charley went on to his own hut and disappeared.
When the light glowed in his window, Michael went on up the track, keeping well to the cover of the trees. Opposite the hut he took off his boots. He put his feet down carefully, pressing the loose pebbles beneath him, as he crossed the road. It seemed almost impossible to move on that shingly ground without making a sound, and yet when he stood beside the bark wall of Charley's room and could see through the smeared pane of its small window, Charley had not heard a pebble slip. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, the stub of a lighted candle in a saucer on the bed beside him, and the box containing the opals lying near it as if he were just going to cut the string and have a look at them. The wall creaked as Michael leaned against it.