I glanced at my mate, and saw him give his head a slight inclination: as a sign for me to accept the offer—which I did.
The money was paid down; and after all had finished tossing, number forty-seven was declared the winner. This had been my score. The woman, therefore, belonged to the young man, who had bought it from me. She was at once handed over to him; and inaugurated the “nuptials” by flinging her arms around his neck, and giving him a sonorous “buss” upon the cheek!
After we came away from the place, I learnt from my mate, that the affair was what he called “a sell.”
“Then why did you propose that we should take a chance?” I asked.
“Why,” he replied, with a significant shrug, “well, I’ll tell you. I was told to come to the raffle, because I was working with you—who they thought would be likely to take a share. Had you not taken one, they would have supposed that I had cautioned you not to do so; and I should have made enemies amongst some of the old hands—who look upon me as, being in all things, one of themselves.”
“And you think that the woman will not live with the young man who won her?”
“I’m sure of it. She’ll go along with him for awhile; but she won’t stay with him. She’ll run away from him—join, Brumming, again—and the two will repeat the same dodge at some other diggings.”
I divided the fifteen pounds with my partner; and retired to my tent—well pleased that I had so disposed of my chance, and no little amused at the grotesque chapter of “life on the Avoca,” it had been my fortune to be witness to.
A few weeks after the occurrence, I read in a newspaper: that the police on the Bendigo diggings had arrested a man for trying to dispose of his wife by a raffle; and I have no doubt that the man was “poor old Ned Brumming!”