Part 29 (1/2)

'You reckoned on finding me greedy for gold.'

'I reckoned more on finding you willing to seize an opportunity of exacting from society some return for death, torture, and infamy!'

'There was a time when you might have prevailed.'

'That time may come again. It needs only a new grievance--the law to bruise you, the women to betray.'

Jim shook his head. He felt the disc of Lucy's locket pressing against his breast under his folded arms. 'I cannot believe it,' he said.

The other was silent for some moments, and Jim watched him with troubled eyes. None of the cruelty and the viciousness to which Ryder had given utterance found expression in his features, which were marked with sensitive lines and some refinement. Done thought of Brummy the Nut, and it seemed to him little short of miraculous that this man had been able to come through similar experiences and yet show no evidence of it in his face. Ryder arose and moved away a few paces.

'If you go from here to another field,' he said, 'leave word for me at one of the stores.'

'Are you going?'

'I may not leave Jim Crow for a few days.'

'You have something in hand?'

'Meaning some robbery? No; it is possible Solo has made a dramatic disappearance from contemporaneous history.'

You'll drop the game? Good! Good!'

'It all depends. I have the gold I need, but the sporting instinct may be too strong for me. Just now there is other work in view. Be a.s.sured, my intentions are not honourable, however. We shall meet again. My proposition may appeal to you later. You will not forget it.'

'Put it out of your head,' said Jim appealingly. 'Leave the country, take the gold if you must, live luxuriously if you care to, but dig out of your heart this devilish malice against people who have done you no conscious wrong. Do this for your own sake; the course you have decided upon is one of desolation and despair.'

'Least of all did I expect to find my brother a pulpiteer and a moralist with all the popular faith in the domestic virtues, and the quaint conviction that misery dogs the sinner,' said Ryder dryly.

'I have used no cant,' answered Jim, 'and I said nothing of sin or virtue. I don't ask you to trust G.o.d, but to trust man. Be at peace with your kind!'

'And this is the man they called the Hermit on board the Francis Cadman!'

'Yes; and I was wretched aboard simply because I met the free and hearty men around me in a spirit of sullenness and suspicion. But my sick misanthropy was not proof against the heart-quickening suns.h.i.+ne and the grand enthusiasm of those fine sane men.'

'Evidently your philosophy sprang from a disordered liver. The sea-voyage, in stimulating that, cured you of your cherished beliefs.

Another trip would probably make a devout Wesleyan of you,' said Ryder banteringly. 'Now, my liver is a perfect instrument, and you couldn't alter a single opinion of mine with a long course of antibilious treatment. In defiance of all Sunday-school precedents, I can be cheerful though wicked, and, having attained the splendid isolation of perfect selfishness, my happiness is not dependent on the gaiety or gloom of the crowd, My boy, you might remember that your experience is not so wide as to justify you in asking mankind at large to accept you as the touchstone for all human emotions. Good-bye.'

Jim gripped his brother's hand and held it. 'Good bye!' he said. 'I wish I could do something for you, but you leave me helpless.'

Ryder went off with a laugh, and a moment later his voice came back through the trees--a light, musical baritone, singing an Irish love-song, and Jim, listening, troubled in spirit, wondered how much of the true man he had been permitted to see.

Throughout the quiet months that followed Done lived a sober, methodical life. He saw no more of his brother while they remained on the Jim Crow diggings, but thought of him constantly, dreading to hear of some further daring escapade on the part of Solo, fearing more the possibility of his capture. Burton was perplexed by the note of gravity that had developed in his mate, until he made an accidental discovery of Lucy Woodrow's locket, and then he thought he understood all, especially as Jim's visits to Kyley's shanty were comparatively rare of late. Meanwhile, Jim had written once to Lucy, but had received no answer--a fact that did not disturb him, however, as the postal service on the fields and in the Bush was extremely erratic. He was quite satisfied now that he had been in love with his s.h.i.+pmate all the time, but it was not easy to account for Aurora. Certainly he had been very fond of her: he was fond of her still, and could not bring himself to regret having known her. He strove resolutely to refrain from applying conventional standards of judgment, with which, he a.s.sured himself, he had no sympathy, but little uneasinesses and awkward moments would obtrude. It was difficult to maintain the fine idea of rationalism. 'I won't have you bind the strange man you may be to-morrow with oaths,' Aurora had said; yet it was evident the change in him was a source of great distress to her.

'I haven't seen you for a fortnight, Jim,' she said one evening, with a tinge of reproach that she was striving to repress.

'No,' he said shortly.

'And absence hasn't made you particularly fond.'

He was leaning on the counter, and took her hand between his own, but was silent.