The Gold-diggers or The Miracle

"DEAR MOLL,

"This is exactly what happened yesterday. Young Outram says that it is very important for us to keep notes, in case the Thingummy Society should want to know all about it one of these days.

"To begin with I was late for breakfast, so I grabbed your letter and stuck it in my pocket, along with a roll, and bolted. Everything as usual till about 2.30. Bibs was trying to knock some maths into our heads, which I call pretty hard luck on a chap who has crawled to the top of his left wing while shots were dropping round like hail. He looked fairly fed-up. It was tremendously hot and my head ached, and Young Outram had a rag-nail on his first finger which he said was causing him frightful agony, when I suddenly remembered the roll and found your letter. So we ate the roll and read it, I mean we read your letter and ate it—anyway, we were looking at that photograph and thinking that the boy looked a pretty decent sort, and wishing we were him instead of ourselves when suddenly he appeared! He really did, I'm not making this up. At the window just where the parrot was yesterday. And the funny thing is that we don't usually sit at that desk for maths, but the other room was having something done to it, so we did yesterday. The chap stared at us, and Y. O. said, 'Hullo!' and he said, 'Hullo!' And Y. O. said, 'Who are you?' And he said, 'I'm a Time-traveller!' And we said, 'What the dickens is a Time-traveller?' And he said 'Like to come and see?' And we said, 'You bet your hat!' And he said, 'Hold my fist and shut your eyes!' So we did, and next thing we knew we were floating on our backs in the sea as calm and cool as cucumbers, and the raft was bobbing about, and you know the rest. At least, we suppose you do. That's what we want to know. Hugh told us the Time-traveller yarn. It sounds a fairly tall tale, but we've heard taller from chaps who were at the front. The point is, how can we go back? London is a rotten hole in this weather.

"Your affec. bro.,

"DICK."

Mollie read this letter as she ate her morning oatcake. So her spell had worked! The question was, would it work again? For obviously she could not continue sending away photographs without causing remarks to be made and questions asked. She did not see how she could do anything more herself; they must just trust to luck, at any rate till she saw Prudence again.

It was rather odd, when she came to think of it, that she had not questioned Dick yesterday about how they had got over. But the fact was that, after the first surprise of seeing them, she had forgotten. "I forget about Now and only remember Then," she said to herself. "There is so much to do the time simply flies and comes to an end far too soon."

When she arrived downstairs that morning she found that her sofa had been carried out of doors. It was a lovely day. Here in the country the leaves still retained their early freshness, and from where she lay she could see the downs, mistily green against the pale morning blue of the sky. The rose-garden, with its smoothly mown grass paths, its pergolas and arches, its standards and dwarfs, was coming into bloom so fast under the June sunshine that Mollie thought she might almost see a bud swell into a full-blown rose if she watched steadily enough. Caroline Testout had already dropped some of her pink blossoms, which lay scattered about the path in rosy patches, reminding Mollie of Grizzel and her shells. She smiled to herself and then sighed, as her eyes wandered from the rose-garden to the long red brick wall beyond, where the sweet cherries grew. The fruit was turning scarlet under an orderly net, which had been put up to protect it from the greedy little birds. Everything was so tidy, she thought. No one would dare to pull off those rose petals for scent-making purposes, nor to gather those cherries merely to play at making jam with. Chauncery was lovely and spacious compared to the house in North Kensington, and the well-kept gardens were a pleasure to look at, but——

"I don't think England is big enough to hold children," she said to Aunt Mary, who sat near, reading the Aeroplane, with some neglected needlework lying in her lap.

Aunt Mary looked up with a surprised expression: "I am sorry you are feeling so crowded up," she said. "Would you like me to move a little farther away?"

"No, thank you," Mollie answered, with a laugh, "I have room to breathe even with you there. What I mean is——" she paused for a moment, wrinkling her brow, and then went on: "London isn't like this; it's full of poky holes. Ours is bad enough, but from the train you can see much, much worse places than ours. Sometimes I wonder how people can live in them, and yet Mother says they are not the worst. There is simply no room for children to play, so they play on the streets and sometimes get killed. The Girl Guides are going to help, but it takes a long time "—Mollie shook her head thoughtfully—"and there is so little time too; at home I never have any time to do anything except work or Guiding. I have no time to think in, except after I am in bed, and I go to sleep so horribly soon." She shook her head again and sighed deeply.

"Well, that's one good thing to be thankful for," Aunt Mary said cheerfully, dropping her paper and taking up her sewing, "and there are the holidays for thinking in. I wouldn't think too much, if I were you. You'll get plenty of that when you are old," and Aunt Mary sighed too, as if she did not find her own thoughts very gay affairs always.

"But I want to think of things now that will be useful long before I am old," Mollie persisted. "There is such a tremendous lot of things to be done, Aunt Mary. And things have to be thoughts long before they are things. I expect the person who invented aeroplanes thought about them for ages and ages before he began to make one."

"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," Aunt Mary agreed, "but you are wandering from your subject, which was the smallness of Great Britain."

"No, I'm not—at least not exactly, I want to make Great Britain greater, and I can't think of a way. I should like to have plenty of room and plenty of time."

"That won't be an easy problem for you to solve, my lambkin," Aunt Mary said. "As a matter of fact there is room enough, in the country, but people prefer to live in towns. You will have to hire a pied piper and pipe all the babies into the fields."

Mollie shook her head, her eyes resting again upon the distant downs. "I don't know," she said seriously, "but something will have to be done some day, Aunt Mary, besides play-centres. They are good, but they aren't enough. Too many children die. Mother goes to a children's home once a week, and she took me once. You should just see those babies. And they could be such dear little things too. Why—" Mollie hesitated for a moment and then went on, "Why don't more people go to live in Australia and Canada? The maps are full of empty spaces."

"Ah, Mollie my dear, that's not so easy as it sounds," Aunt Mary said, folding up her work and rising to her feet. "There are all sorts of complications when it comes to shifting camp from the Old World to the New. But perhaps—perhaps if everyone in this old country could be persuaded to think of the children first—! In the meantime I must go and get lunch for my particular child."

Probably Aunt Mary's mind was running on those sick babies of the poor as she played to Mollie that afternoon, for her fingers wandered off into the tune of a song she had not heard sung since her childhood:

"'T is the song, the sigh of the weary:
Hard times, hard times, come again no more!
Many days you have lingered around our cottage door—
Oh, hard times, come again no more!"

Mollie lay listening, the unopened album in her lap. She was drowsy after her morning in the garden, and thought she would rest her eyes by closing them for five minutes. "A little darkness will do them good after all that sunshine," she murmured to herself.

It was very pleasant lying in the quiet room, on that broad sofa, listening to Aunt Mary's soft music. Mingling with the sound of the piano was the droning hum of a foolish bee, who had got on the wrong side of the window and was now making vain efforts to fly home again through the glass. A delicious scent came from somewhere—perhaps from the syringa bushes growing just outside the open window. Mollie's lazy eyelids fell over her eyes—"Just five minutes—"

"Five minutes," said the clock. "Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty—"

"How soundly the child sleeps," Aunt Mary whispered, peeping in a little later to look at her niece. "These afternoon naps are the best thing in the world for her overworked little brain. I wish I could fill Chauncery with children, and let them run wild in the garden." She felt, not for the first time, how duty seemed to pull two ways at once, for there were many things she would fain have done had her duty to her mother not stood in the way.

Someone else came and looked at Mollie.

"Asleep!" Prudence exclaimed, with a smile. "Never mind, I can manage.
It is getting very easy."

* * * * *

Mollie did not open her eyes the moment she woke up; she lay still, enjoying the warmth, the sweet scents, and the balmy air, so different from the cold winds of early spring. Presently she yawned, stretched herself like a sleepy kitten, and finally sat up and opened the lazy eyes.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "Prue must have come and found me asleep. I wonder where she is."

She rose to her feet and looked about her as usual. She was in a place quite different from any she had seen hitherto. At her back stretched an orange-grove—there was no mistaking it, for the trees, planted evenly in rows, were laden with thousands of oranges, ripe and unripe, while the waxy white blossom with its golden heart still grew in clusters among the glossy dark leaves, sending its perfume out with the warm wind far and near. Before her, divided from the grove by a narrow, roughly fenced road, Mollie saw a wide, undulating plain, its surface covered somewhat scantily with coarse grass and occasional clumps of bracken. There were gum trees, large and small, their thin blue-green leaves hanging limply from the grey boughs, and throwing but little shade on the ground beneath. Some distance away a creek wound between wide banks of shingly sand and low boulders. At the nearer end a gum tree had fallen across the stream and had been left to form a crossing. Mollie thought it did not look a very inviting bridge to cross on a dark night.

It looked hot out there in the open. Mollie turned back to the orange-grove, cool and inviting, and had almost decided to explore in that direction, when the sound of voices fell upon her ear, and, turning again, she saw a group of children crossing the scrub land in front. In spite of wide hats and sunbonnets they were easily recognizable. The boys were walking in front and carried spades and pickaxes over their shoulders; the two girls were loitering along behind, and carried between them a large round article which might be a tub, a cradle, or a sieve. They were heading for the creek, and, as Mollie watched, Hugh lifted his hand and pointed towards the fallen log.

"Dick and Jerry are first to-day, and they have got over without any help from me," Mollie said to herself, with a tinge of jealousy, which, however, she quickly got rid of—jealousy not being part of a Girl Guide's equipment. She put her hands up to her mouth in the way she had seen the Australians do, and shouted "Cooo-eeeeeee!", with a creditably sustained shrill note at the end. Her call brought the children to a standstill, and they waited for her to join them.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"We are going to dig for gold," Prudence answered, as they started again. "Hugh says there is gold in the river-bed. The boys dig, and we sift the diggings in this cradle, which rocks in the water so that all the dirt runs out and the gold stays in—at least, it would if there were any to stay. Last year we dug for ever so long, but never got any gold at all. We found some pretty crystals, though."

"I found a purple one just like an amethyst," Grizzel joined in; "but Mr. Fraser said it wasn't. Then I found a white one like a diamond, and a green one. I polished them with all my might, but I lost them except the green one. I hid it in a tree like the person who shot an arrow into the air, only my tree is a gum instead of an oak. I expect it is there still unbroke if it hasn't been stolen by a magpie or a blackie."

When they reached the creek the boys laid down their tools, and Hugh studied the lie of the land with an intent expression.

"We'll begin about here," he decided presently. "Last year we dug higher up, but I shouldn't wonder if gold silts downwards and collects in a hollow. This is about the hollowest place I have found yet. The soil in these old alluvial beds is often auriferous," he went on; "Mr. Fraser says this was once quite a respectable river, but years of dry seasons shrank it up. It will never go quite dry, because there is a good spring up there, and that is why he chose this place for his oranges. Irrigation is absolutely necessary for an orange-grove."

"Are we allowed to eat the oranges?" Dick asked anxiously, as a breath of scented wind blew across him.

"Oh yes—as many as we like. But we must dig first," Hugh replied firmly, lifting his spade as he spoke and planting it upright in the sandy soil. "First we must peg out our claims. There's a good deal of luck about gold-digging, of course, but you'd better look round and choose your own spot."

After some consideration the children decided to throw in their lot with Hugh, who was the only one among them who knew what gold looked like in its raw state.

"You can keep half and the rest of us will go shares in the other half," Dick suggested, quite forgetting in his interest that Time-travellers cannot carry profits with them on their travels. The plan sounded fair, however, so they agreed to it.

"It is possible that we may not find gold," Hugh said, as he marked out a square within which to begin operations; "but we are pretty sure to find something. Australian soil is extraordinarily rich in products. I should think it must be about the richest soil in the world."

"I hope it won't be ants," Prudence said nervously. "I do hate ants."

"Aunts!" exclaimed Jerry, not understanding Prue's Scottish-Australian pronunciation. "Why the dickens should we find aunts in a river-bed? Do they all drown themselves out here? Aunts can be jolly nice too—or jolly nasty, according to circs."

"They're always nasty here," Grizzel said emphatically, "I never met a nice ant in my life. They bite like red-hot nippers."

"Bite! Oh, I see," said Jerry, "you mean black aunts," vague memories of Uncle Tom's Cabin and Aunt Chloe floating in the back of his brain. "I thought you meant white aunts. I didn't know that aborigines were as fierce as all that."

"I have never seen any white ants here," said Prudence, who called the native Australians blacks when she spoke of them and a-borry-jines when she read about them. "Uncle Jim says there are a great many in India, and they eat his books."

Jerry looked bewildered. "Of course there's lots of 'em in India," he said, "but I never heard of them eating books."

"I expect your uncle means that they devour novels," suggested Mollie.

"No, he doesn't. He says they eat a tunnel through all his books from one end to the other. And they stuff up the keyholes."

"Your uncle's aunts must be quaint old birds then," Jerry said unbelievingly.

"But they aren't birds at all, they're ants," cried Grizzel.

A loud cackle from Hugh, whose grin had been growing wider and wider, now interrupted the discussion: "Ho, ho, ho! One of you is talking about aunts—your Aunt Maria—and the other is talking about ants—the beasts that go to the sluggard," he exploded. "You are a pair of muffs! He, he, he!"

"'Go to the ant, thou sluggard'," Mollie quoted slowly. "Oh—Jerry—"

It took them some time to recover from this little misunderstanding.
"Next time I see Aunt Mary—bites like red-hot nippers—oh dear!"

"Well, come on and dig now," Hugh ordered at last, twisting a cord neatly round his last peg as he spoke. "If you go on laughing like that you'll soon begin to cry, and this mine will never get started."

Thus adjured they rolled up their sleeves and set to work. Pickaxes were of no use in that sandy soil. The boys used their spades, and the girls carried the turned-up sand to the creek, washing it with the utmost care in the cinder-sifter. But their efforts met with no success. Neither gold nor anything else, except pebbles, rewarded their toil.

"It's always like that," Hugh said at last, sitting down on the edge of the hole they had dug. "Gold is the most gambly stuff imaginable. We know a lady who was as poor as a washerwoman one day, and then at breakfast one morning she got a letter to say her goldmine shares had struck a reef, and she got so rich she simply didn't know what to do with her money. She came to see Papa about it. She was an old maid, so naturally there wasn't much she wanted. You never know who is going to be rich and who poor, with a goldmine. Some of these pebbles are quite valuable," he continued, running a handful of shingle through his fingers, "there are amethysts and opals and topazes in some river beds. I have never found one myself, but I've picked up some pretty good crystals."

"I think I'll go and look for mine," said Grizzel. "I hid it in a tree near here. I am tired of gold-digging, and my feet are hot. I shall dabble them in the creek and eat an orange."

She got up as she spoke and went off towards a particularly gaunt-looking tree. Its trunk had split open, showing a hollow large enough to hold several people; for some distance around its roots protruded through the ground like old bones. Grizzel disappeared into the hollow trunk, whence she presently emerged with an air of triumph. "I've got it safe and sound. Now I'm going to get an orange."

Jerry eyed the orange-grove lovingly. Digging is thirsty work.

"Let's all go," said Hugh. "Orange juice is one of the most restorative things in the world; if we eat enough we will be ready to make a fresh start in half an hour or so. Very likely we shall have better luck next time."

It was hot, and the change from the glaring sunshine into the cool dampness of the orange-grove was very pleasant. The beautiful fruit hung invitingly from the branches with a colour and fragrance unknown to London shops. There were many varieties, and the Australian children wandered critically from tree to tree.

"I'm not sure whether I like navels or bloods best," Hugh remarked, "but perhaps on the whole, for pure refreshment, navels."

He stopped, as he spoke, before a tree on which grew oranges larger than the London children had ever seen in their lives—immense, smooth, opulent-looking globes of rich golden yellow. For a time silence reigned, while six people covered themselves with juice, "Like the ointment that ran down Aaron's beard," Grizzel said, and the ground in the neighbourhood assumed an auriferous hue that made the inventor sigh.

"I wish we could find a place where nuggets lay about like that," he said rather pensively; "it would be awfully jolly."

"It would be," agreed the others, "most awfully jolly."

"I think I'd as soon have oranges as gold," Grizzel said reflectively, looking down at the peel-strewn earth. "Think how nice it would be if you were in the very middle of a scorching desert, and dying of thirst like the men in Five Weeks in a Balloon, to find a lovely orange tree covered with juicy oranges. It would be nicer than finding gold."

"You do talk silly slithers," Hugh said derisively. "Who ever found a beautiful orange tree in the middle of a desert? You might find gold and bribe an Arab to give you water."

"You might find an orange tree in an oasis," Grizzel said huffily. "I am going to bathe my feet in the creek. Go and look for your old gold. You won't find it."

"All right, Carroty-cross-patch. You won't get any if we do," Hugh replied politely.

"Don't want it, Goggle-eyed-guinea-pig." Grizzel got up and walked off, her sun-bonnet dangling down her back and her red curls waving over her head. No one took any notice of these little amenities. No one remembered that the ointment which ran down Aaron's beard was like brethren dwelling together in unity—a good and pleasant thing. They were all brothers or sisters and accustomed to such mellifluous modes of address.

"We'd better go back and dig in a new place," said Hugh; "the light will begin to fade before very long."

They gathered up their orange peel and buried it tidily, and then stepped out of the cool grove into the hot sunshine with some reluctance. But gold-digging is not mere play, as Hugh reminded them. If you want to find a large nugget you begin by looking for small ones, and the search undoubtedly entails some hard work.

The new diggings were no more productive than the old. The boys worked industriously, digging widely rather than deeply. It was decidedly monotonous work, and Dick began to think that for pure excitement gold-digging showed up poorly beside football. Their backs ached, their hands were blistered, and the shingly pebbles got into their shoes. They were hot and thirsty, and into the minds of four of them crept a suspicion that Grizzel had chosen the better way of spending the time. They could see her sitting on a boulder, her feet in the water and her hands occupied with her crystal, which she was rubbing in a leisurely way on a stone, as one sharpens slate-pencils. The afternoon wore on; the sun seemed to gain in speed as he slanted down the sky, and tree shadows lay about the ground like long thin skeletons. A herd of cows, on their way to the milking-shed, trailed lazily past the weary diggers, reminding them of tea-time with its refreshing drinks and soothing cream and butter.

Jerry stood up, dropping his spade and stretching his arms above his head.

"I'm tired," he announced. "Let's hang our spades on a gummy tree and sit beside Carrots for a bit. I'd like to dabble my little feet too, before walking home."

Hugh assented somewhat reluctantly; he would have preferred to continue digging while daylight lasted. "We've done something," he said, as they took off their shoes and stockings; "we've found where gold isn't, and that's rather important."

"I know lots of places where it isn't," said Dick, putting his hands in his pockets, "I could have told you that without digging for a whole afternoon, if I'd known it was important."

"Of course I mean when it isn't where it might be," Hugh amended, taking no notice of Dick's gibe. "It's what Papa calls the process of elimination. You've got to do it with almost everything worth having really. You've only got to look at this river bed to see there's pretty sure to be something worth having there—in fact I know there is. It may not be gold, but it's something."

"How do you know it?" Mollie asked curiously. "I don't see anything particular about the river bed. It doesn't look half so likely as the gold patch in the road beside your cherry garden."

"I can't tell you how, but I do. Just you wait and see. To-morrow I think I'll try the old place again. I shall go on trying till I find something, either gold or precious stones. There might even be diamonds; there are in some river beds."

"Look," said Grizzel, holding out her hand with the stone in it, "I have rubbed a bit off one side at last. If I rub long enough it will come bright all over."

A small, roughly eight-sided crystal lay in the palm of her hand. Six sides were dull and colourless, the remaining two sides were clear and transparent.

"I rubbed my bit off exactly opposite the bit that was clean already," she went on, "so that I could look through it at the sun." She turned the crystal over and held it up as she spoke. A dazzling flash of pale-green light darted out, as though an unearthly finger were pointing at the sun. It was gone in a moment, and the stone looked dull and rough as before.

"What was that?" Grizzel asked, in a startled voice. "Is it going to go off like fireworks?"

"Give it to me," said Hugh, taking it from Grizzel's unresisting fingers. He held it up as she had done, and again the pale-green light flashed out. He moved it slightly from side to side, and with his movements the green light took on the shining hues of a rainbow.

"It's like a diamond," said Prudence in an awed voice.

"It is a diamond," cried Hugh. "I knew it! I knew it! I said so! Grizzel found it in the place we dug last year. Grizzel found it, but it was me that looked for it, because I knew! Where this one was there will be more. We have found a diamond bed!"

"If Grizzel hadn't rubbed it so hard you would never have known,"
Prudence reminded him. "She rubbed that bit for weeks last year."

Hugh turned the crystal over and over, examining it on every side. "Diamonds are terrifically hard," he explained more calmly. "It takes months to cut and polish a diamond properly. Grizzel's pretty good at sticking to a thing; I'll say that for her. I'm glad the first diamond was found by her."

"Well—it will take me some time to polish it all over," Grizzel said, with a sigh. "If I did nothing else all day long but rub it on a stone it would be clean in about six months."

"Who does this land belong to?" Jerry asked. "Is it your father's?"

"Oh, no—it's Mr. Eraser's. For miles around the land is his. That's the man we are staying with."

"Then the diamond is Mr. Fraser's, not yours or Grizzel's," Jerry pronounced.

There was a short silence. "Mr. Fraser said I might have all the gold I found," Hugh said, in a doubtful tone.

"I expect he guessed that you wouldn't find any," Jerry responded. "But a diamond like that is a different thing. If it really is a diamond it is probably pretty valuable—perhaps it is worth a hundred pounds. You can't walk off with a hundred pounds without telling."

"Well, we'll show it to him. Of course we'll tell him we have found a diamond bed," Hugh answered.

"It's my diamond," Grizzel declared. "I found it and I rubbed it and it slept under my pillow, and I hid it and I love it and it's mine. I don't care what anybody says."

"Mr. Fraser will most likely give you lots of money for it," Mollie suggested soothingly, "and then you can go and buy something nicer than a diamond."

"I don't want lots of money. I want my own dear little stone that I rubbed myself," Grizzel repeated, tears starting to her eyes. "Why should Mr. Fraser take my stone and chop it all up with horrible sharp grinding knives? It's mine. I found it."

"You'll have to show it to him first," Hugh said decisively, "whether you found it or not. If you keep it you will be a thief, and perhaps you will be sent to prison."

"Then I'd rather let it go back to its home in the river bed," Grizzel cried passionately. As she spoke she snatched the crystal from Hugh's hand; there was a flash of green light—a splash—and it was gone.

She turned and ran, sobbing and crying. Prudence followed, bent upon comforting her. Mollie looked scared, Jerry laughed, Hugh shrugged his shoulders:

"Just like a girl!" he said. "It doesn't matter; we'll find more. But that was a good diamond; I'd have liked to show it to Mr. Fraser. We'd better collect our things and go home."

Three of them turned away, but Dick lingered behind. His quick eyes, trained to watching the flight of balls of all sizes from footballs to golf-balls, had taken accurate note of the spot where that little splash had been. There were still circles widening round it. The creek looked shallow just there.

"If I scooped up the sand carefully now, as likely as not I'd retrieve that stone," he said to himself. "Grizzel is a decent little kid; she'll be sorry by and by, and, besides, the old chap ought to have his diamond if it really is a diamond. Diamonds aren't so jolly easy to come by as Hugh seems to think. That white stone is almost in the middle of the circle—I'll make for that."

"Don't wait for me," he shouted after the others, "I'm coming in a jiff." He waited till he saw them turn their somewhat dejected and preoccupied backs upon the scene of the late disaster, and then transferred his attention to the creek. At the point where he stood the water was comparatively deep; it had evidently formed a channel for itself, helped, probably, by a slender waterfall which dropped over a large boulder on the higher ground some distance beyond the fallen tree.

"I can crawl over that and drop off at the shallow part," he thought,
"I'll have to look sharp or the circles will be gone."

He rolled up his already short flannels and started. The tree was by no means steady—it rolled and shook under his weight; but, as the worst that could happen would be a good soaking, he did not worry overmuch, and soon slid off into the shallow stream. As he had predicted, the water there barely reached to his knees. He scrutinized the ever-widening circle, now faint and irregular, and, calculating the distance from its edge to its centre, he fixed his eyes intently upon the white stone and cautiously waded towards it, his movements in the water breaking up the last traces of the circle. When he reached the white stone he halted.

"It was here, almost to a T, or my name is not Richard Gordon," he muttered, and, stooping carefully, he scooped up a double handful of shingly sand from the river bottom. He stood up, letting the water run away through his tightly closed fingers. As he bent his head to examine the pebbles left in his hand, a sunbeam darted over his shoulder—there was a flash of pale green.

"Got it, by jinks!" he chuckled exultantly. "First go-off! Good for you, Richard, my boy—your eye is pretty well in and no mistake. Come out of that, my young diamond, and let's have a look at you—you'd do A1 for heliographing with."

Dick soon scrambled to shore, and stood for a moment looking after the others, now far ahead. "I'll put him back in the hollow trunk where Grizzel hid him," he decided, with a twinkle in his eyes. "It might be rather a lark—"

A sharp sprint brought him up with the other two boys, who were awaiting his arrival seated on the top of a slip-rail, Mollie having gone in search of Prudence and Grizzel.

"What on earth have you been doing?" Hugh demanded. "Have you been swimming?"

"I was only having a look round," Dick answered, with a wink at Jerry;
"I thought I'd do a little prospecting on my own."

"Why didn't you tell me, you beast?" Jerry asked, linking his arm into
Dick's affectionately.

Dick answered by a friendly punch on the head. "Who is Mr. Fraser?" he asked Hugh, settling himself in his place on the rail.

"He is a man we know," Hugh replied rather vaguely. "He owns all this part and is as rich as a nabob, but he isn't married, so he lives up here all alone, with two or three Chinese servants in the house. He once lived in China. He's awfully fond of gardening, and pictures, and that sort of thing, like my mater. He's a merchant and he owns ships. He's a great friend of the pater's, and he comes in about once a week to hear the mater sing, and they yarn away about home and spout poetry. But he is quite a jolly sort of chap when you get him alone. His house is called Drink Between, which wouldn't be a bad name for a book if you wanted to write one."

"Jolly good name for a pub, if you wanted to keep one," Jerry remarked. "I shouldn't wonder if he got it from some old coaching inn of the olden times—though, of course, we are in the olden times already, if it comes to that—fairly old, at any rate."

"No, he got it from a place at home where Prince Charlie once had a drink. When the girls are here he gets in a couple of women to look after them. Other times he only has his heathen Chinee lot, and jolly good they are! That is, of course, if you like stewed puppy and bird's nest," Hugh added solemnly; "I love 'em myself."

"Adore 'em," Jerry said, smacking his lips. "Never lose a chance of having puppy-tail hash when we can get it, do we, old son?"

"Rather not," Dick replied. "Remember those bird's-nest tarts our old woman at the tuck-shop used to make before butter got so scarce? Scrumptious!"

The appearance of the girls interrupted these flights of masculine fancy. Grizzel still looked subdued, but the tears were dried, and she was listening politely to Mollie's tuneful advice to "Pack your troubles in your own kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile". Hugh shouted to them to hurry up or they would be late for tea, and soon the little party was under way again, as cheerful as if diamonds had never been heard of. They were now in sight of Drink Between; a square, solidly built house, with a wide veranda and balcony on three sides of it, completely hidden at present under a pale-purple drapery of wistaria.

"It looks like an amethyst," Mollie said admiringly, as they drew near.
"I never saw such a purple house as that before."

The inside of Drink Between was entirely different from any of the other Australian houses which Mollie had been in. They entered by a side door which opened straight on to a narrow stairway. The girls climbed up to their bedroom, a large airy apartment opening on to the balcony.

"Where are your father and mother and Baby?" Mollie asked, as they washed away the remains of oranges and gold-digging.

"Papa and Mamma have to go and meet an immigrant ship to-morrow, so they aren't coming up till afterwards. And Baby and Bridget are with them."

"What's an immigrant ship?" asked Mollie.

"A ship full of immigrants," Prudence replied, brushing out her curls with conscientious care. "Immigrants are people who get their passage out for nothing, or for very little, and then they go to work here. Mamma is getting a new cook because ours is going to be married. And Papa likes to meet the Scotch immigrants and say welcome to Australia to them. Bridget was an immigrant, but she says she will soon be Australian."

"I see," said Mollie thoughtfully. "Are they ever married? I mean—do children come with their parents?"

"Yes, lots of them. Are you ready, Mollie? The boys are getting impatient. I can hear them growling."

Feeling very fresh and clean in white muslin frocks with pale-blue sashes, the girls descended by a different and much wider staircase than the one they had gone up by. They stepped off the stairs straight into a large hall, or living-room, which apparently occupied half the floor of the house, for on two sides it opened on to the veranda, and on the third side into a large bamboo house; the fourth wall was unbroken but for one door. The room was painted white, and the floor covered with fine white Chinese matting, over which lay a few Eastern rugs, their once rich and glowing colours now dimmed by time and the tread of generations of feet. Through the wide-open French windows could be seen the long, graceful streamers of wistaria, hanging from the arched boughs round the veranda like a lace veil. Against this background grew masses of pale-pink and blue hydrangeas, with their flat fragile flowers and broad leaves. The bamboo house was given wholly to ferns, over which a fountain was playing, and under the fine spray the green fronds glistened as freshly as though they grew in the heart of an English wood.

The sun was now setting, and its crimson glow shone through the mauve wistaria, filling the room with an opal-coloured light which made Mollie think of fairyland. It fell with a peculiarly pleasant effect upon a round tea-table spread for tea. She had never seen such fine and snowy damask, such shining silver, or such delicately transparent china cups and saucers. Even Grannie's well-kept table paled before the exquisite freshness of this one. As for the food part—there was a crystal bowl of yellow clotted cream, a plate of gossamer balls which were probably intended to pass for scones, a twist of gold which was most likely meant for bread, and dishes of preserves unknown to the English children—tiny green oranges in syrup, scarlet rose-berries, and jellies like amber and topaz, looking as though some of Hugh's precious stones had been cooked for his tea.

They were about half-way through this beautiful meal when there was a sound of footsteps on the matting, and a Chinese servant appeared, bearing a large iced birthday cake set on a silver tray.

"Hullo, Ah Kew! What you gottee there?" called Hugh, under the impression that he was speaking pidgin-English to perfection.

"Master talkee to-day b'long he burfday," Ah Kew replied. "He talkee my, wanchee cook makee one piecee burfday-cake." He set the cake down in front of Prudence as he spoke.

"Welly good, Ah Kew, Master b'long quitey righty," said Hugh approvingly. "Cook makee jolly-good cakee, me eat jolly-good cakee. Cook pleased, me pleased, cakee pleased, all jolly-welly pleased."

Ah Kew smiled a slow and mysterious smile, his black eyes closing up under his slanting eyebrows, and his blue-capped head nodding. He glanced over the tea-table.

"Tea b'long all plopper?" he asked anxiously. "S'pose you wanchee more can have plenty more."

"No, thank you, Ah Kew, me eatee more me bustee," Hugh replied politely. Ah Kew nodded his head again and departed, his pigtail flapping against the long skirts of his blue cotton coat.

Prudence cut the beautiful cake and distributed large slices all round. No grown-up person was present to make sensible remarks about not eating too much, which was a good or a bad thing "according to circs" as Jerry would say.

The children were all tired after their hard work and excitement; Mr. Fraser was not coming home till late, and had left a message to say that he expected to find everyone fast asleep in bed when he got back; so, after a tour of exploration round the house and its immediate neighbourhood, they went off to their rooms, and soon most of them were asleep.

Not all of them, however. Whether it was the cake, or the change of air, or the strange bed, or still stranger circumstances, or all combined, it would be hard to say, but it seemed to Dick that the longer he lay in bed the more wakeful he became. The thought of the diamond began to worry him, and soon assumed gigantic proportions in his mind. Suppose it got lost. Perhaps it was worth a hundred pounds, as Jerry had suggested. Suppose a magpie flew off with it. It might be worth more than a hundred; perhaps two hundred pounds. What if a blackfellow stole it, or the tree fell down in the night, or got burnt up. It is true that none of these things had happened during the months in which it had lain there before, but then no one had known that it was valuable. It would be just like luck, or rather unluck, if something happened this particular night. Dick's knowledge of diamonds was so small that it could be hardly said to exist, and he now began to have nightmarish visions of huge sums of money—thousands of pounds perhaps, lost through his folly. To be sure, no one knew that he had put the diamond back in the tree. But he knew himself, which was the main thing. He tossed from side to side restlessly. A new thought perplexed him. How could anything he did or left undone matter now, seeing that he wasn't going to be born for another thirty years? He belonged to the future, and the future could not influence the present—at least, he supposed not, but funny things did happen. Anyhow, this was his present for the moment, and he had his usual irritating conscience.

He got out of bed at last and went to the window. There was such a flood of moonlight that out-of-doors was almost as light as day. Why not slip into his clothes and scoot down to the bottom of the scrub-land, and collect that diamond? It would be better than tossing about in bed, and afterwards he would go calmly to sleep. The difficulty would be to get out of the house. Probably Ah Kew was on the watch for his master, and, if he saw Dick, would remark "no can do", or words to that effect.

Dick went to the edge of the balcony and looked over; it was not very far from the ground, but it was too far to jump. How about the wistaria boughs? They looked pretty tough—he decided to try, and if he fell—well, he had smashed himself up before this more than once, and no doubt would do so again. A few tumbles more or less wouldn't make much difference to him, especially, he reflected, as he was bound to get back to 1920 somehow or other. He could hardly kill himself now if he tried.

He reached the ground with nothing worse than a few scratches to his credit, and set off along the path by which they had come in the afternoon, keeping well in the shadow of the hedge in case Ah Kew's beady eyes should be on the outlook. So long as he was within the grounds of the house he felt confident and cheerful, but when he reached the slip-rail and looked over into the land beyond he felt some of his courage oozing away.

It looked eerie, that strange, unfamiliar country, in this white light. There were dead trees standing here and there, and their pale trunks took unpleasant shapes—they might conceivably be something else than trees—not ghosts, of course; there were no such things as ghosts. All the tales he had ever read about Australia suddenly started up in his mind—tales of deadly snakes, of bushrangers, of blackfellows, who had methods of their own of doing you in. One might go through a good deal without being actually killed. Now that he came to think of it, Australia in the 'seventies was a wildish sort of place—in some parts at any rate. He wished that he was surer where he was—how far away from civilization. He supposed that Ned Kelly and his gang were still at large.

But, of course, he could not go back. He stepped cautiously from tree to tree, keeping to the black shadows as much as possible. He could hear the sound of that little waterfall quite distinctly, and see the moonlight on the rippling shallows of the creek—now he could see the gum tree he was making for—he had taken particular notice of a crooked bough—what on earth was that?

A wild piercing shriek from somewhere beyond the creek brought him suddenly to a standstill, his heart in his mouth. Undoubtedly a woman was being murdered or tortured. Blackfellows, probably, as Ned Kelly made a point of not hurting women—at least so it said in Robbery Under Arms. Dick wondered what exactly the blackfellows had done to the woman—and there was the blood-curdling shriek again!

He stood still. After all, why not leave the diamond till daylight? He had been a silly ass to imagine all that rubbish about it, and a much sillier ass to leave his safe bedroom and come out to this wild and desolate spot all alone. If he had brought Jerry—

Ah, Jerry! There had been that affair of Jerry's eldest brother and the guns. Ten wounds. Both legs shot off. "Stick it out, you chaps." The very last words he spoke in this world, sweeter in Jerry's ear, Dick knew, than the finest poetry ever written. He gathered himself together and went on. It would never do to begin a habit of not sticking it out. For, wherever he was, he was always Dick Gordon to himself—a person for whom he wished to have a considerable amount of respect.

He wished that the orange grove, so cool and lovely by day, did not look so dark and mysterious by night.

At last! Here was the old tree. Now for it. He stepped round, prepared to enter the empty hollow regardless of possible snakes or blacks, when he heard a sound that made the hair rise on his head and the back of his neck feel queer, for it was unmistakably a child crying inside the tree. The child of the murdered woman, he thought. So the blacks were near—perhaps inside the tree at this very moment. The idea flitted across his mind that there was an extraordinary difference between reading about a thing and experiencing it. As the child's sobs continued he shrunk together—he would rather meet an enemy in the open and be shot at twenty times than face these savage and mysterious blacks—and then he suddenly decided that, if there were a child there, he must go and look for it and do his best, blacks or no blacks.

But at that very instant the crying stopped and turned to speaking:

"Please, God, let there be a miracle. Just this once, God. I'm sorry, God; I'll be good if you'll make a miracle. Only this once. I am very, very sorry." The crying began again.

"Grizzel!" exclaimed Dick, his fears all vanishing like darkness before light. "How on earth did she get there? She'll be frightened into fits if she sees me." He moved back a little distance and stopped to think. The best plan would be to call her softly, he decided.

"Grizzel! Where are you, Grizzel? Are you there, kiddy? It's Dick calling. Are you in your tree? I'm coming—look out!"

[Illustration: DICK STARTED VIOLENTLY]

He came up to the hollow opening and looked in. It was Grizzel sure enough, in her little dressing-gown, her face blotched with tears and her curls crushed and tumbled. Dick put an arm round her: "Don't cry, kiddy; the diamond is all right."

"Oh, Dick, I did hope there might be a miracle," she sobbed, burying her head on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. My poor little diamond, all those years and years shut up in the ground! It had just one look at the sun and then I threw it back. Oh, Dick, if God would only make a miracle this once and put my diamond back!"

Dick felt a choky sensation in his throat as the thin little arm tightened round his neck.

"It's all right, Grizzel," he whispered, "we'll find the diamond—let my arm loose a moment." He groped round, and in another minute the stone was in his hand. He turned it over, and a pale-green ray darted out, more unearthly than ever in the moonlight.

Grizzel gave a cry as he laid it on her palm. "My diamond! The miracle! I thought it would happen! I just thought God hadn't forgotten the way! Oh, Dick, I am so glad! I am so glad! My own dear little diamond!"

Dick had not the heart to explain at the moment that there had been no miracle, and Grizzel was far too preoccupied with her own joy and relief to wonder what had brought Dick to her tree just then; and besides, he thought vaguely, one never knows.

"We must be going in," he said; "it's ever so late and we'll be cotched. How on earth did you get out?"

"Down the back stairs. The others were asleep, but I could not sleep, thinking of my little diamond in the cold river—" at that moment a wild shriek rang out again, and Dick started violently.

"It's only a curlew calling to his friend," Grizzel said, creeping out of the hollow. "They scream exactly like people being killed, but it's only their way; they mean to be kind."

Dick drew a long breath. A wild bird and a crying child! Suppose he had gone back! Thank goodness he hadn't, but it was a near shave.

The boy and girl walked happily along, hand in hand. They had reached the slip-rail and were climbing over, when a tall man appeared from the garden of Drink Between.

"Grizzel! What in the wide creation are you doing here at this hour of night, or rather morning? Do you know it is nearly one o'clock? And what are you doing, young man?"

"Oh, Mr. Fraser—it's Mr. Fraser," she explained, turning to Dick, and such a confused tale followed, in which crystals, gold-mines, diamonds, wickedness, and miracles were all jumbled together, that Mr. Fraser decided that a glass of milk, a biscuit, and bed, had better pave the way to a fuller explanation next day.

Ah Kew let them in with a wise smile and several nods of his head, and soon both Dick and Grizzel were sleeping as soundly as the other four Time-travellers.

"It is a green diamond," Mr. Fraser pronounced next morning, "but what its value is we cannot tell until it is cut and polished. Then it will belong to Grizzel, to have and to hold till death do them part. If you really have found a diamond-mine, youngsters, something will have to be done about shares. Who finds keeps, you know. We'll have the place properly surveyed and see what happens. But don't begin counting your chickens too soon—these Australian diamond-mines are tricksy things; you never know how they are going to pan out. Wait a bit before you plan what to do with your fortune."

Mollie, Dick, and Jerry suddenly felt very sad as they remembered that they were out of this stroke of luck. Whatever happened, Fortune was not preparing to smile on them, at least not in a way that would be of any immediate practical use to them when they got back to London. And a fortune apiece would have come in so very handy just now—just forty years hence, that is. The boys made up their minds to investigate this matter of fortunes in the colonies directly they got home.

Hugh tossed up his hat and caught it again: "We'll be jolly rich," he cried. "The Mater will get her trip home, and the Pater needn't worry about bills and subscription lists any more, and I'll get that camera—oh, 'hard times, hard times, come again no more!'"

* * * * *

Mollie sat up. The clock was still ticking minutes into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and months and years.

"Oh dear," she said, "I do wonder—"

"Wonder what, my Molliekins?" asked Aunt Mary, preceding Hester with the tea-tray.

"I wonder," Mollie repeated, and then began to laugh. "I don't suppose you ever bit like red-hot nippers, did you, Aunt Mary?"