Like his comrade above, his costume consists of flannel shirt, dark trousers, and big boots. His shirt sleeves being rolled up to the shoulders, display a pair of arms that a sculptor might gaze on with admiration.
This strong man pants and gasps more than ever with the heat as he drives the pick and tears up the earth for gold. Presently the candle burns dim; the air is getting foul.
“Hallo, the candle’s going out!” cries the dark miner, scrambling towards the bottom of the shaft on his hands and knees.
“Ha! time to take a mouthful o’ fresh air, Jack,” remarks the fair miner, looking into the hole.
In another moment a wild dishevelled clay-bespattered figure comes to the surface, rises like a giant out of the earth, and the countenance and proportions of our friend John Bax are revealed, in spite of the strange costume and black moustache and beard and incrustations of clay which more than half disguise him.
“Whew! how hot it is,” said Bax, as he stepped out of the hole.
“You may say that,” observed his friend, rising; “but come along, Jack, let’s get up the stuff and wash out as much as we can before dinner. Mind, you’ve got to write home this afternoon, and won’t be able to help me much in the evening.”
“Come along then,” said Bax, going to work again with redoubled energy.
There was a windlass over the hole by which the clay was raised to the surface. Bax wrought at this, and his mate went below to fill the buckets. Then they washed it out, and flooded away cartloads of worthless soil, until a small residue of clear shining particles remained behind. This they gathered carefully together, added it to the bag that held their fortune, remarked that there were “no nuggets this time,” and that it was “hard work and little pay;” after which they flung down their tools, washed their hands and faces, and went into their tent to dine.
Thus did Bax and his mate (an old acquaintance unexpectedly met with after arrival in Australia) dig, and sweat, and toil for gold.