‘I’ve been diggin’ nigh hard thirty year—been a “forty-niner,” and so help me, God Almighty! I never dropped across a show like this afore—or within miles of it—for the real, solid stuff.’
‘Well, but five hundred pounds is a large sum. I’m not a rich man, you all know. It gives me enough to do to pay the butcher and baker. I should have to give security over everything I possess to raise it. Mr. Bright, the banker, would not advance it without security, to save my life, I had almost said. He dared not do it, for one thing.’
‘Now, look here, Commissioner! did you ever know me tell a lie? I drink a bit, sometimes, but’—and here the wasted form was straightened with an effort, and the hollow eyes gazed into the magistrate’s face with an intensity almost appalling—‘no [9] ]living man can say that Jack Waters told a lie, or hid the truth. When I say I saw and touched, by the Lord Almighty! what ’ud make you and me, and a dozen more, rich for life, won’t you believe me?’ and here, as if exhausted by the temporary excitement, the old man sank upon his knees, and raising his hands, as if in prayer, cried aloud, ‘For God’s sake, Commissioner! for the sake of your wife and children, go into this thing with me, or you’ll repent it to the last day of your life.’
Arnold Banneret gazed at the kneeling figure, stood for one minute in earnest thought, and then said: ‘All right, I’ll risk it. We’d better call it “The Last Chance,” for if it fails, I’m a ruined man.’
‘You’ll never be ruined this side of the grave, sir,’ said the miner, as he slowly rose to his feet. ‘If you mortgage the shirt on your back, and the shoes off your feet, it’s the best day’s work you ever did. I’ve seen a man write a cheque for a half share in the No. 1 British Hill, as was offered him on the ground floor. He jibbed on it, and tore up the cheque. He knows now that he tore up a fortune that day. But you’ll be right, Commissioner. There’s no go-back in you, I know from old times.’
‘True enough, Jack; I don’t change my line. Well, we must get to business. I’ll have an agreement drawn up, in case of accidents, as well as a transfer of the half share in the claim—I’ll find the five hundred pounds. By the bye, there’s another thing—how about the grog?’
[10]
]‘From the day I leave here, sir, I don’t touch a drop, if it was to save my life, till the first crushing’s out. Then you’ll have enough to pay managers and wages men, enough to run a town—you can do without poor old Jack Waters, even if he does break out, and something tells me he won’t—till the biggest part of the thing’s through. What’s more, I’ll make my will, and leave you the whole boiling, so if anything should happen to me, you’ll have the lot.’
‘That’s unnecessary. I couldn’t take your share, in any case, on any account. Your relations ought to come first, you know.’
‘Relations?’ echoed the old man, with a strange laugh. ‘When I ran away from home in Cornwall, I had only two people as cared to own me—my poor mother, the fellow that married her, and killed her with ill usage. She’s dead years ago, and he’s in—well, I won’t say where—he might have repented, you know. There’s no living soul claimed kin with me when I was poor, and I’m not going to give ’em a chance when I’m rich. No, you shall have the lot, to do what you like with, when poor old Jack takes up his last claim in the alluvial. And now I’ll have a bath, a square meal, and a good sleep till to-morrow, while you take charge of these specimens, and work the Bank business—Mr. Bright is a good sort, and he’ll spring a bit if he sees his way.’
. . . . . . . . .