All day long they worked together in the stream, stopping only at noon for a bite of bread and a pipe. So engrossing was the occupation that one seemed never to grow tired; the glittering reward was always a fresh incentive to try one’s luck again. Five pounds, four pounds, six pounds, three pounds! One lost all count, and the level of the tobacco-tin in which the golden sand was poured rose and rose in half-inch tides. Father Studby was almost angry when his companion declared it was time to go. He was hurt at such a suggestion; he was disappointed; he almost cried. Michael showed him his watch. Mercy of God, it was past five o’clock! Then he remembered, for the first time, his neglected duties: the morning service, the school, the woman who lay dying in Nofo’s house; the hundred calls, great and small, that kept his day so busy. He wondered at his own unconcern, at his own apathy and selfishness. He felt that his contrition lacked the proper sting; he asked himself whether, indeed, he cared. He was dizzy with the thought of gold, of cradles and rich pockets, of those bright specks that still stuck to his hands. He followed his companion in a sort of dream, silent and triumphant, trying to fasten on himself a remorse that would not come.
“I’ll never forget the first time I got into that valley,” said Michael, on the long road home. “It was the hardest job of my life to follow up that river. I climbed into places that would have scared a sea-faring man; and I was no sooner up one than I would have to risk my life shinning up another, hanging on to lianas and kicking for my life. Tired? Why, I would regularly lie down and gasp—when there was anything big enough to lie on; and the noise of those falls, those that I was on top of, and those that were still to come—my word! it made me sick to hear them. And when I at last got into the place, and sat down by a big pool, and saw the black sand with the shrimps wriggling in it, I simply said to myself, as quiet as that: ‘Here’s gold.’”
When they reached home Michael called loudly for brandy. The priest himself was glad of a little after that day of days; placer-mining was a new experience, even to that veteran of labour, and he felt extraordinarily stiff and tired. He remembered with contrition how often in the past he had grudged his companion the stimulant, and he now blushed for those trivial economies with a hot sense of impatience. Could he not take out in a day what they represented in a twelvemonth? With a new-found sense of freedom, he helped himself again to the bottle, and, for once in his frugal life, did not measure the allowance with his thumb. Then Michael, with an elaborate pantomime of secrecy, beckoned him into the other room, and, after shutting and bolting the door, threw open the top of his trunk. Beneath the rumpled heap of clothes there were a dozen tin cans of all shapes, some with their own original covers, others capped with packing-paper like pots of jam. The lay brother opened them one by one, lovingly, exultingly, his face shining with satisfaction. Each was filled to the brim with coarse gold-dust; each weighed down the hand like an ingot.
“Take one, father,” said Michael. “It is a little enough return for all your kindness.”
The priest trembled and drew back.
“No, no!” he cried.
“As you like,” said Michael, with a tone of affected indifference. “You will be doing as well yourself in a few days.”
“God help me!” exclaimed the priest, and buried his face in his hands.
The lay brother looked down at him strangely and said nothing. He knew something of the hidden conflict at that moment raging in the old man’s breast, and he had too much at stake himself to venture an incautious word. Everything depended now upon the priest, for good or evil; it lay with him to keep the secret inviolate, or to spread it to all the world; to accept the partnership thus tacitly offered, and allow them both to reap a colossal harvest; or, standing coldly on the letter of his vows, to open the door to a rush of thousands. The brother held his breath and waited for that supreme decision on which so much depended; he was afraid to speak, afraid even to move, as he looked down at his companion in a fever of suspense. The intolerable silence weighed upon him like a nightmare. He felt that it was the enemy of all his hopes; that every minute of it increased the hazard of his fortunes; that he was being tried, that he was being condemned.
“Father,” he broke out, “your name need not appear in this; you need do nothing but hold your tongue; you can be my partner without a soul to know it. As God sees me, I will divide with you to the last penny.”