after half an hour’s hard work, they managed
to get to the top, and threw themselves breathlessly
on the short dry grass which fringed the rough cliff.
Lying there half fainting with fatigue and hunger,
they could hear, as in a confused dream, the drowsy
thunder of the waves below, and the discordant cries
of the sea-gulls circling round their nests, to which
they had not yet returned. The rest did them
good, and in a short time they were able to rise to
their feet and survey the situation. In front
was the sea, and at the back the grassy undulating
country, dotted here and there with clumps of trees
now becoming faint and indistinct in the rapidly falling
shadows of the night. They could also see horses
and cattle moving in the distant fields, which showed
that there must be some human habitation near, and
suddenly from a far distant house which they had not
observed shone a bright light, which became to these
weary waifs of the ocean a star of hope.
They looked at one another in silence, and then the
young man turned towards the ocean again.
‘Behind,’ he said, pointing to the east,
’lies a French prison and two ruined lives—yours
and mine—but in front,’ swinging round
to the rich fields, ’there is fortune, food,
and freedom. Come, my friend, let us follow that
light, which is our star of hope, and who knows what
glory may await us. The old life is dead, and
we start our lives in this new world with all the
bitter experiences of the old to teach us wisdom—come!’
And without another word he walked slowly down the
slope towards the inland, followed by the dumb man
with his head still bent and his air of sullen resignation.
The sun disappeared behind the snowy ranges—night
drew a grey veil over the sky as the red light died
out, and here and there the stars were shining.
The seabirds sought their nests again and ceased their
discordant cries—the boat which had brought
the adventurers to shore drifted slowly out to sea,
while the great black hand that rose from the eastward
stretched out threateningly towards the two men tramping
steadily onward through the dewy grass, as though it
would have drawn them back again to the prison from
whence they had so miraculously escaped.
THE PACTOLUS CLAIM
In the early days of Australia, when the gold fever
was at its height, and the marvellous Melbourne of
to-day was more like an enlarged camp than anything
else, there was a man called Robert Curtis, who arrived
in the new land of Ophir with many others to seek
his fortune. Mr Curtis was of good family, but
having been expelled from Oxford for holding certain
unorthodox opinions quite at variance with the accepted
theological tenets of the University, he had added
to his crime by marrying a pretty girl, whose face
was her fortune, and who was born, as the story books
say, of poor but honest parents. Poverty and
honesty, however, were not sufficient recommendations
in the eyes of Mr Curtis, senior, to excuse such a
match; so he promptly followed the precedent set by
Oxford, and expelled his son from the family circle.
That young gentleman and his wife came out to Australia
filled with ambitious dreams of acquiring a fortune,
and then of returning to heap coals of fire on the
heads of those who had turned them out.
