‘How brave of you, Uncle William,’ said one of the girls, her cheeks glowing and her lips trembling with excitement, as she gazed admiringly at the Colonel’s hawk nose and bright blue eyes, which nearly matched his turquoise ring. ‘And did the poor lady escape altogether?’
‘Lady?’ said the latter-day Paladin, in tones of astonishment. ‘Lady Jane was a thoroughbred English mare that I’d just given three hundred for, worse luck, for I never did see her again, or any of my goods and chattels, from that day to this.’
‘And what did you do then, uncle?’ said the other sister, the humane sympathiser with Lady Jane being too much astonished and discomposed to continue the examination.
‘I was on my old Arab, Roostoom, luckily,’ said the Colonel, ‘a horse known all over India. When I saw there was nothing for it, I turned his head straight across country for Delhi, and after missing a few shots, rode one hundred and thirty miles before I stopped. Next morning I fell in with a troop of irregular horse of Jacob’s, and stayed with them till we entered Delhi together at the Cashmere gate. I say, we have squared accounts with the Pandies; and I thought we were going to ride over to the diggings after lunch.’
Accordingly, about three o’clock, behold the whole party, including the two young ladies and Mr. Neuchamp, mounted and cantering along the extremely well-marked road which led to the mining township of Turonia. The young ladies rode with grace and spirit upon well-groomed, well-bred horses, drawing forth many encomiums from the horse-loving and gallant Colonel, who said that their steeds would fetch a thousand rupees in Calcutta, and the young ladies receive half a dozen proposals of marriage the very first day they appeared on the Maidan.
The young ladies, in return, declared that there was only one man in the district to be compared to their uncle; and as he sat with easy military seat upon a strikingly handsome thoroughbred bay, with a star, the whole affair, from the well-brushed hat to lower spur-leather, ‘exquisite as a piece of lace,’ he justified their appreciation. As they neared the widely-extended collection of huts, shafts, heaps of mullock, and imposing structures of weatherboard and iron, thronged with a stalwart army, ten thousand strong, of bronzed and bearded gold-miners, they were joined by a semi-military-looking personage, dressed in uniform not all devoid of gold lace, and followed by a highly efficient-looking, well-mounted trooper.
‘Ha! Stanley,’ said Mr. Branksome, ‘well met; how do you do? This is my friend, Mr. Frank Stanley, the Commissioner of the goldfield. Allow me to introduce you to him. Are your subjects peaceable enough to venture among; and how does the escort get on?’
‘I will answer for my diggers,’ said Mr. Stanley, bowing to the young ladies, ‘being the most genuinely polite people in the world, especially to ladies; and the escort was a little over ten thousand ounces last week.’
‘You don’t say so?’ said Mr. Branksome; ‘three thousand ounces more than last week. Why, how much do you intend to get at by the end of the year?’
‘Several, rich leads have been discovered lately,’ said the Commissioner, with a slight air of importance. ‘If they find a deeper deposit below the basalt, as many of the experienced miners think likely, we shall eclipse California.’