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Potona or Unknown New Zealand

Chapter XVIII. Making the Best of It—Golden Sands—Hot Water—Our Nerves are Shaken

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Chapter XVIII. Making the Best of It—Golden Sands—Hot Water—Our Nerves are Shaken.

The following morning, we all set out to explore the country beyond the spur in front of us. To do this, we had to cross the little river already mentioned.

On arriving on its bank we were struck with the sight of numerous small yellow particles amongst the sand. On a close examination there remained no doubt in our minds but what we had found gold, and in great abundance. Of what value if any the discovery might be, under our present circumstances, we could not say, nor did we stop to determine. Just then we had another object in view, and we forded the stream, and descended the hill side.

On reaching the top of the spur, we had even a more extensive prospect than we had anticipated. We found the coast line trended away to the south as far as the eye could reach. The country appeared very broken, taking it all together. Not a very cheerful prospect, but the discovery we had just made, which we all regarded as a good omen, combined with the glorious day, made our hearts much page 121 lighter than they would otherwise have been—and to tell the truth, we had met with so many reverses and misfortunes, that others were now looked upon as a matter of course.

We determined, as we should be obliged to spend some time in the neighborhood, to collect as much of the precious metal as possible. To facilitate this, we, on returning to camp, immediately removed our tent to the river bank. Setting to work with renewed energy, we made rough cradles and sluices, and in a few days our mining operations were in full swing.

The results, however, did not come up to our expectations; as they rarely do in any venture of the kind; and we spent some months at washing, without collecting more than what would have returned us about £50 a-piece.

And now the wet season gave signs of approaching again, and we had made no preparations to meet it; in fact we never thought we should have remained here so long; and in the absorbing interest of our new pursuit, the time had glided away without our noticing it.

There was no escape now, and we hurriedly made the best of a bad job, by erecting a rude and very small hut, which neither in size or comfort could compare with the former one we had erected.

This winter passed much as the previous ones had done.

At first the hut proved anything but waterproof, the chimney smoked, and numerous other defects became painfully evident, all of which were remedied in time.

Pat's pet, the laughing-bird, had died some time before; so he had taken charge of one of the parrots, and he and Spanish Joe set up a violent opposition, creating a serious estrangement between the hitherto amicably-disposed birds. In fact there was a regular split in the camp of our two pets; and as each of them knew the private affairs of the other, fearful disclosures were of daily occurrence.

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How Pat's bird would have gloried had he been alive to hear!

Nothing of note occurred during the long stormy season.

When the rainy weather ended, and the river sunk to its summer level, we found that a fresh supply of gold had been brought down.

This set us to conversing whether we should not find it more plentiful higher up, and an expedition was arranged for the first favorable day.

With such equipment as our stores afforded, we started; but were ill-fortified against the rugged obstructions which soon beset our course. We travelled some miles without observing any great difference in the rocky and boulder-strewn river bed; but at last came to a spot where another branch joined the main stream, and here the indications were much more promising.

Pat, who as usual was the first to set to work, proceeded a little distance up the tributary stream, and began operations. Hardly had his hand touched the water when he gave vent to a yell of mingled pain and terror.

“Och! Musha murther! I'm kilt intoirely! Oh, the ould boy fly away wid ye!”

“What's the matter, Pat?” we exclaimed, as we hurried up, to find him jumping about, cutting all manner of wonderful capers.

“Howly mother, the water's biling!” he shouted.

“Boiling! nonsense!” we answered.

“Thry it!” was Pat's laconic reply, and on dipping our fingers in the stream, we found it was far too hot to be pleasant.

On looking up the little hollow down which it ran, I saw light clouds of stream or smoke ascending, behind a jutting page 123 point of rock. Calling my companions to follow me, I hastened in that direction, and in a few minutes we came to where a boiling spring bubbled up apparently out of the solid rock. Interesting as was the spectacle of the boiling fountain, we were far more gratified at the evident indicacations of auriferous wealth. There was the vein whence the glittering particles had been carried down the stream. All about the spring the quantity of gold was wonderful. We could gather it almost in handfuls!

Our time was now divided between the camp and golden river. The difficulties of the way were forgotten.

Every day we returned to the spot, and in a month or at the most six weeks reckoned we possessed at least four hundred pounds' worth each. Another month, and the supply showed evident signs of diminution; so we decided to rest content with what we had already got, amounting to the value of about six hundred pounds for every individual, and set to work to build boat number three, and get away before another winter overtook us.

We had a good four months of fine weather before us.

Our greatest difficulty would be now to procure suitable timber, that in our neighborhood chiefly consisting of low knotty-stemmed trees. But on the evening we had finished our mining operations everything was discussed, and we determined to make the attempt.

The fact was, we were all thoroughly well satisfied with ourselves and our late run of good luck.

As we disposed of our frugal breakfast, the following day, which was gloriously fine, we indulged in mutual congratulations, and not a little pleasant castle-building, varied by the occasional sparring in which the Hibernian and the Spaniard loved to indulge.

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“Bedad, who sez now Pat Moroney won't cut it for a raal gintleman that he ought to be if he isn't, when he sees Ould Oireland agin?”

“As if an Irishman ever could be a person of any respectability,” remarked Hunter.

“Faith, and what may ye call yerself, ye spalpeen?” exclaimed Pat.

“Me—why a Cornishman!” exclaimed Hunter.

“Yes; but what degree of a man?”

“Well, I never heard of there being but one degree of a man before,” laughed Hunter, “unless you include the monkeys alone with us.”

“Faix, honey! an' that's not what I mane. Do ye call yerself a gintleman or a swell, a working man or a run-a-muck, or nothing at all?”

“What's a run-a-muck?” inquired Harry.

“Why, it's not exactly anything in particular,” answered Pat, “a kind o' half an' half; nather a gintleman nor a working man, but a go-between the two, an' who will be acknowledged by nather—a miserable sort of creetur who is always running a-muck to thry to be a gintleman and can't.”

“I suppose we shall soon be separated from one another after we land in the settlements,” I remarked; “I wonder if we shall ever meet again?”

“Why, as for that,” said Harry, “now that our pockets are pretty full of cash, I expect we shall make for the old country before long.”

“I know I shall for one, sir,” answered Hunter, “I've had enough of this part of the world to last me the rest of my lifetime.”

“Good—Buenos muchez,” joined in our little Spaniard, “me go to mine own country; nevare leave dere once more.

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“Thrue for ye, Joe, an' I've niver been able to guess what yer kith an' kin were about, iver to allow such a mite as you to go wandering unprotected over the face o' the earth.”

Spanish Joe's eyes flashed, and he was preparing an angry retort, when I joined in.

“And how came you to go to sea, Pat,?” I asked.

“Waal, Captin, an' it's not the loikes o' me that wad tell a lie. Shure an' I broke a head at an Orange procession one twelth o' July. A spalpeen of a constable had the impudence to saze me for a brache o' the pace. In a wink, all the blood of the Moroneys was up in me. Bedad, as it got up, the blackguard wint down; his comrades made a rush for me, but I niver waited to be taken a second time, I jist bolted on board a smack and turned sailor.”

“About the best thing that could have happened, as it has turned out, Pat; don't you think?” I asked.

“Only supposing we don't get oblitherated intoirely before we set foot in a civilized place again,” he answered.

“Well, ‘there's many a slip,’ you know, Pat,” I continued, “but I think we may reasonably calculate on making a port this time. Our Yankee friend, I imagine, has cheated the hangman at last. That last move of his was a fatal mistake.”

“Niver mintion him,” said Pat, with an air of disgust. “He's in Davy Jones's looker by this time—and a good riddance too. But let his sowl rest, if it can. Sorry I should be to see his ugly mug or hear his voice again. But d'ye know now,” sinking his voice mysteriously, “it's unlucky to talk of a dead murtherer—and there' no praste nearer than four or five hundred miles away, bad cess to it. And I've not had the ring of his voice out o' my ears since I drank that pison whisky o' his. I'll be glad indade to be on the say agin—I'm mighty unnisy here.”

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“Nervous fancies, Pat,” I said. “A life like this is likely to make one morbid.” Our little party, lounging on the grass in front of the hut, and enjoying the sunshine, had at that moment anything but a gloomy appearance, I must confess.

“Remember, too,” said Harry, “that we have something to thank the Yankee for, after all. If he had not stolen our boat, we should never have discovered our goldmine, and made our fortunes.”

“I no tank Jim Days for my luck—not so,” growled the Spaniard. “He dead now, sure enough, and Pat big fool to trouble over him.”

“Wa'al strangers!”

A galvanic shock could not have brought us to our feet in less time. Looking in each other's faces, we saw but one expression—of utter mystification. The sound had come from the back of the hut, apparently, but though we were on the spot in less than a second from the time it was uttered, nothing was to be seen. Every coppice and nook within the radius of half-a-mile was scoured, and with the same result. One by one we returned, baffled and perplexed.

“I tould ye so,” said Pat, with an air of something like triumph, that ill-accorded with his blanched cheek and trembling lips.

Was there anything in Pat's superstition after all? And was it a voice from the dead? But for the fact that there were four witnesses we should have begun to doubt the evidence of our senses.

“Surely!” exclaimed Harry, “we cannot all have been the victims of a delusion. I won't accept Pat's theory—the fellow has stolen upon us quietly, and must even now be in hiding not far away. Let us look inside the hut.”

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Wa'al strangers!” This time unmistakeably from the interior of our abode. In we tumbled, determined this time to secure our prisoner hard and fast. No one there!

“Sold again,” said Harry, whose invariable presence of mind did not prevent him from presenting a very puzzled appearance.

“A rum go,” was Hunter's vnlgar comment. “You must be right, Pat—it's his ghost. And I must say, it's the most gentlemanly thing he has done yet, to call at this time of day, when he might have frightened us out of our wits at midnight.”

Pat's face had been gradually brightening, as he vigorously scratched his head, as if under the influence of a new idea. Theu he gave way to peals of laughter.

“Dat de way you treat your ghost, eh?” said Joe, “you no laugh when he keep you awake all night.”

“Faix, it's meself that don't belave it's Jun Days, at all, alive or dead,” said Pat, when his fit of laughter was over.

“What is your new theory?” I said, a little annoyed at him. “Perhaps you will show some light on the matter, and tell us who it was?”

“Well, captin, I jist belave it was nary one but thim parrots yonder.”

“What put that into your head, Pat?” I asked.

“Bekase nayther of thim have spoken a blessed word for a week, and I tould Joe they were hatching some new mischief in their ugly heads.”

The reasonableness of the idea commended itself to us all, and any lingering doubts which might have remained were soon put to flight by both our feathered pets simultaneously yelling out “Wa'al strangers” again, and in a voice so much like the original that we were quite taken aback for page 128 a moment. How the birds had kept the expression in their heads all this time without repeating it, we were at a loss to understand.

“The ould gintleman fly away wid yez!” exclaimed Pat, addressing his parrot, “an' who tould ye to repate that blackguard's words? I've a great moind to wring yer neck fur yez.”

And Pat was no more troubled by the unquiet ghost of the Yankee.