Wonderfully unreal, and smacking of ‘the golden prime of the good Haroun Alraschid,’ was the careless magnificence with which large sums of money were acquired, spent, lost, and regained. Ernest visited the various banks, and saw bags and drawers in which the precious metal lay heaped in all forms, from the dull red heavy dust to the lump, ingots, and precious fragments, in which a thousand pounds’ worth was lifted in the hand with as much ease as a paperweight. He saw the bronzed, stalwart miners handing insignificant-looking bags across the cedar counters, and crushing handfuls of ten-pound notes into their pockets as a schoolboy receives change for a shilling spent in marbles. He retired to rest about midnight, and on awaking at dawn heard the ceaseless click of the billiard balls in the adjacent saloon, apparently fated to go on until the day again merged into midnight. He found the table d’hôte every day filled, not to say crowded, by well-dressed people whose occupation he could at first merely guess at, but whom he found to be in nearly every case connected with the great industry—as officials, mine-owners, brokers, speculators, professional men, and others unspecified, with perhaps a rare tourist, lured hither by astounding rumours, or a feeling of justifiable curiosity, to behold the unbounded treasures of mother earth, so long and jealously guarded. There was a never-failing store of amusement and occupation spread out before the calibre of Mr. Neuchamp, and so absorbed did he grow daily in the ever-widening field of observation that he felt almost regretful to find the time at his disposal rapidly diminishing.
In no more friendly and hospitable region had he ever sojourned. He was voted an acquisition by the officials, and made free of all their small gatherings and merry-meetings. One day the Commissioner would drive him out to inspect a great sluicing claim, where the water, brought through races by miles of fluming, spouted clear and strong over heaps of auriferous earth, as when it left its far-away mountain rill. On another occasion he was invited to witness the hearing and settlement of a great mining dispute, ‘on the ground,’ where a thousand excited men were gathered—the evidence heard upon oath, and the immutable decision of the Lord High Commissioner given, by which the one moiety was deprived of all right to a presumable fortune, and the other gifted with a clear title to the same. Much temporary excitement and even irritation was produced by each and every such verdict. But miners, as a rule, are a law-abiding body; and, the mining laws of the period being as those of the Medes and Persians, all effervescence, however apparently allied to physical force, rapidly subsides.
In the intervals of such experiences and recreations, Mr. Neuchamp did not abstain from joining in diurnal billiard tournaments, and the nightly whist parties, in which trials of chance and skill he invariably found himself associated with Mr. Lionel Greffham and other pleasant persons, who, appearing to have no visible means of subsistence, were invariably well dressed, well appointed, and well provided with the needful cash. Mr. Greffham constituted himself his constant companion and mentor; the charm of his unremitting courtesy, joined to varied and racy experiences, with a never-failing flow of entertaining conversation, gradually broke down Ernest’s caution and reserve. They became, if not sworn friends, habitual acquaintances, and under his apparently disinterested guidance the time passed pleasantly enough. Yet Ernest began to perceive that, after the first few successes, his losings at cards and billiards commenced to add up to more serious totals than he had thought possible at the commencement of his sojourn at Turonia.
More than once Ernest fancied that the keen eyes of Mr. Merlin wore a depreciatory, not to say contemptuous, expression when fixed upon Mr. Greffham. The Commissioner evidently disapproved of him in a general way, and Mr. Bright, who was open and bold of speech, once took occasion to remark, àpropos of the elegant but inscrutable Lionel, that he considered him ‘to be a d—d scoundrel, who would stick at nothing in the way of villainy, if he had anything considerable to gain by it.’ But at this stage Ernest, at no time of a distrustful disposition, had formed an estimate of this fascinating freelance too favourable to be shaken by mere assertion unsupported by proof.
One morning, for some reason, an unusually large amount of gold and notes was despatched from one of the banks, with the object of meeting a branch escort a day’s ride from Turonia. Two troopers were detached for this service. They carried the compact but precious burden before them in valises strapped to their saddles.
A small group of habitués of the Occidental assembled to witness their departure, and Mr. Neuchamp bestowed much commendation upon the condition of the horses, the efficient appearance of arms and accoutrements, and the soldierly and neat appearance of the men. Curious to remark, Greffham was not among the admiring crowd, and Ernest alluded to the fact to the Inspector of Police, who was officially present.
‘What has become of Greffham?’ he inquired. ‘One would have sworn that we should have seen him here!’
Mr. Merlin replied that ‘Mr. Greffham was probably away upon business’; but a bystander volunteered the information that he had seen Mr. Greffham mounted, at daylight, upon his famous hackney Malakoff, apparently on the road to an adjacent diggings.
‘Where can he be going, Merlin?’ said Ernest. ‘He arranged to drive me over to the Hall to-day.’
Mr. Merlin replied, stiffly, that Greffham had apparently changed his mind, and that he, Merlin, had not the slightest acquaintance with Mr. Greffham’s business affairs.