The Gold Seekers (49 page)

“Aye,” Timothy Hayes agreed, “and we’ve a division of Irish pikemen, led by Mike Hanrahan. Some o’ them have muskets, and there’ll be the lads from Creswick, when they get here. Brownlow’s bullies and old Wise’s redcoats will have their work cut out to dislodge us, so they will!”

Then, to Jasper Morgan’s dismay, came the question he had dreaded. It came from George Black, in his accustomed quiet, polite tone. “And what of Captain Humphrey, if I may ask? You held commissioned rank in Her Majesty’s Foot Guards, did you not, sir, and have in your possession a medal for valor in Spain? Should you not be in command of a unit of our volunteers, instructing them in how to conduct themselves?”

Morgan’s cheeks drained of color. But he swiftly recovered his composure. “I’ve not been approached, George,” he answered. “And it is a long time since I followed the profession of arms. But naturally, if I am needed, I shall be only too ready to make myself available.”

He was saved from having to make good his offer by news that some four hundred diggers from Creswick had come in, drenched to the skin by a storm they had encountered in the

hills, and it appeared they were without food, dry clothing, or arms. Led by Peter Lalor, the committee left the store tent to welcome them.

Alone there, Morgan wiped the sweat from his brow, his mouth suddenly dry. The time had come, he knew, for him to make his getaway, if he did not want to be dragged into the coming battle. Brownlow would have to do without his services as informant; he would leave young Lachlan to fight and, at the first opportunity, slip out of the diggers’ stronghold. There were a number of men who, like Kennedy, had absented themselves in quest of supporters from neighboring fields or of arms and provisions for the stockade.

Despite the prominent position he occupied as a member of the reform league’s committee, if he chose his moment carefully, escape should present no real problem. And the gold—a fortune in gold—awaited him at the Treasury in Melbourne. It would be his, and his alone, when he went, with his receipt, to claim it. … Morgan found himself smiling as he moved about the defenses of the stockade and waited for an opportunity to run.

The opportunity came next evening, when Tom Kennedy’s volunteers from Creswick, finding neither food nor water in the stockade, left in a body to go in search of what they needed. Their example was followed by some of the Ballarat men, many of whom, however, progressed no farther than the nearest grogshop, where they paused to refresh themselves from the strenuous exertions of the day. Lachlan was on sentry duty, and satisfied that the boy would not desert his post, Morgan quickly packed what he could into his saddlebag and set off for the Geelong road.

He had covered only a few hundred yards when a huge figure loomed up in front of him and he found himself looking into the barrel of a leveled Colt.

“Not so fast, Captain Humphrey,” the owner of the Colt warned. In the dimness, Morgan stared at him in frank bewilderment, finally recognizing him as a miner named Goodenough, who was more often drunk than sober.

“Don’t be a damned fool, Goodenough!” he exclaimed impatiently. “Out of my way!”

“Trooper Goodenough,” the big man corrected. “Of the police.” He grinned unpleasantly and put out a massive hand to grasp Morgan’s rein. “Inspector Brownlow said you’d try to light out, and he told me to bring you in if you did. Are you coming quietly, or do I have to make you?” Morgan’s jaw dropped; he attempted bluster, but the trooper merely continued to grin at him, and the Colt was still aimed at his heart. At last he asked resignedly, “Where do you want me to go?”

“Why, to the government camp, of course—to Inspector Brownlow. And maybe we’d better walk, all friendly-like, just in case anybody spots us. Get down off that horse, Captain Humphrey, will you? That’s better.” The supposed drunk laughed at his captive’s discomfiture as Morgan sullenly dismounted. He added, as they fell into step together, the horse between them, “Played my part pretty well, didn’t I? You weren’t Brownlow’s only spy. I’ve been reporting to him, too, see, ‘cause he didn’t trust you.”

Morgan lapsed into angry silence. On reaching the government camp, they found Brownlow at the jail, the camp a fortress, and the troops and police standing to under arms. The police commandant dismissed Goodenough with a brief word of praise and a whispered injunction that Morgan did not hear. When the man had gone, Brownlow waved Morgan to a chair in the small, badly lit office.

“You did not see fit to tell me that the blasted diggers’ stockade was virtually undefended, did you, Captain Humphrey?” he accused coldly. When Morgan did not answer, he went on, with an abrupt change of tone. “I had an idea you’d try to make a run for it before things came to a head, and without waiting for the escort to Melbourne I promised you. And that don’t suit me, you know. It don’t suit me at all, because I’m counting on acting as your escort. But of course I can’t leave here till we’ve settled the diggers’ hash—not that it’ll take long. We’re going to attack them in a couple of hours’ time, if it’s of any interest to you.”

“What in God’s name do you mean, Brownlow?” Morgan flung at him. “And why in hell should you want to be my escort?” But the ugly truth was starting to dawn on him, and he cursed his own stupidity for having put his trust in a rogue.

“I worked out what your game was awhile ago,” Brownlow said. He leaned back in his chair, his thick lips twisted into a parody of a smile. “That gold my men took to the Treasury for you—for you and your partners, I mean—there was a hell of a lot more than you let on, wasn’t there? More than those Broome lads ever knew about, and you weren’t intending to give them their share, were you?”

Shocked, Morgan could find no words to answer him, and the policeman’s smile widened into one of genuine amusement. “No,” he said, answering his own question. “01 course you didn’t mean to share it … and I’ve only just managed to find out what it’s worth. Well, Captain bloody Humphrey, you’re going to share it after all. You’re going to share it with me. When tonight’s business is finished and those Chartist swine in their stockade have been given a taste of cold steel, you and I are going to Melbourne, to the Treasury, with your receipt and your proof of identity. Do you get my meaning?”

His hands clenching into impotent fists, Morgan stared back helplessly, conscious that he had been deceived, out-witted, and driven into a corner by the man he had for so long considered to be his own inferior in intellect. And … yes, in cunning. There was now, he recognized, nothing he could do save allow Brownlow to call the shots and appear to acquiesce in his demands—until a chance to escape from him should arise. And perhaps it would. Much could happen in the next few hours.

He lifted his trembling hands in an elaborate gesture of surrender. “I understand,” he managed, controlling himself with difficulty. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll share the gold with you. We’ll go to Melbourne together when this is over.” He hesitated, watching the other man’s face. “And now? What do you propose to do with me?”

Relishing his triumph, Brownlow laughed aloud. “Well,” he observed gloatingly, “I’ll give you a choice, shall I, eh? You can ride with my troopers when we go in to drive your former friends out of their miserable stockade … and take a chance that they’ll spot you. Aye, and maybe kill you for betraying them. Or I’ll lock you up here in my jail. Either way, I want your receipt from the Treasury.”

Jasper Morgan’s face drained of its last vestige of color. His life was at stake, he knew, whichever choice he made. If he decided to stay in the comparative safety of the jail, Brownlow could accuse him of rebellion and have him hanged with the rest of the reform league’s leaders when they were defeated—as clearly they would be, with so few of them left to defend the stockade they had so painstakingly erected. But— The sweat broke out on his brow, and his hands were suddenly clammy. If he rode with the police and the troops, he would have at least a slender chance of survival, perhaps of escape, if he could contrive to make a run for it in the darkness and head for the hills, for Mount Korong or Omeo. That would mean starting again, it was true, but there was always the hope of a rich strike. The Omeo lode was said to be promising… . He made a great effort to regain his lost composure.

He would have to escape. Whatever Brownlow said, once possessed of the Treasury receipt, the rogue had no intention of going with him to Melbourne or sharing the gold he had deposited there. He would be kept in jail… .

“Well?” Brownlow prompted. He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it pointedly. “Time marches on, Humphrey. Which is it to be?”

“I’ll ride with you,” Morgan gritted, his lips stiff with contained fury.

“Very well.” The police commandant rose to his feet, his hand outheld. “The Treasury receipt, if you please.”

There was no help for it. Shaking with the intensity of his feelings, Jasper Morgan took the precious scrap of paper from his breast pocket and put it into the hand of his tormentor.

Brownlow flashed him a pleased smile. “Thank you,” he said, with cynical courtesy. He thrust the receipt into his own breast pocket and opened the door. Goodenough was wailing in the outer office.

“All right, Captain Humphrey,” Brownlow said, “you can go now—but not far. Remember, you’ll be under my eye. If you run, I’ll brand you a fugitive from justice and have you hunted down. Either way, I wouldn’t stake a lot on your chances.”

Outside, a grinning Goodenough mounted up, then motioned Morgan to take the rein of his own animal.

“It’s off to the barracks for us, for a little nap,” he said, then added, in what purported to be a conspiratorial whisper, “There’s fewer than two hundred diggers in the stockade, Captain Humphrey, and most of ‘em are asleep. The rest are all out foraging—or drinking themselves footless! I reckon by tomorrow morning you’ll find you chose the right side after all.”

Morgan ignored the thrust. He climbed stiffly into his saddle, feeling for the stock of his rifle. The rifle was gone, but the Colt he had purchased from one of the Californians was still in his saddlebag. He took it out and slipped it into his waistband, unobserved.

Luke had been in Melbourne for six long and frustrating weeks before necessity drove him to volunteer for service with the Victoria Mounted Police.

With the quadrupling of its population as a result of the gold rush and the steady influx of men from the diggings who had struck it rich and wanted only to spend their fortunes on drink and women, the once small and peaceful settlement had become the worst of boomtowns. To Luke, it seemed almost indistinguishable from San Francisco, with its gambling and drinking dens, its muddy, unpaved streets, roistering inhabitants, and sky-high prices. Substantial brick buildings were springing up, owned by speculators and erected by the labor of disillusioned and unsuccessful diggers—lavish restaurants and hotels, which charged exorbitantly for the services they provided; the nucleus of a railway system; banks sailing on a wave of sudden prosperity, thanks to the gold they had purchased; and a veritable host of houses of prostitution.

The Canvas Town, as it was known, provided squalid accommodation for new arrivals. Lacking street lighting, passable roads, and sanitation, it nonetheless demanded high prices for those unfortunate enough to have nowhere else to go. Luke sampled its hospitality for the first two weeks and then gravitated to a dirty wooden hut near Liardet’s Beach, with no heating and scant protection from the rain, surrounded by piles of undisposed garbage and overrun by rats and seemingly ownerless pigs, hens, and dogs.

But he found the Banshee, almost unrecognizable in her new, sad role as a hulk doing service as a rooming house, and learned, at last, from her new owner that the man he sought—now going by the name of Captain Humphrey—

had equipped himself for the gold diggings and was believed to be in Bendigo or Ballarat.

He would have set off at once in pursuit, but even while he was engaged in bargaining for a horse and supplies, his much depleted savings had been stolen from him one black dark night by a pair of footpads, whose faces he did not see and whose identities he could only guess at. Afterward he had sought employment, ready to tackle any job, however menial, in order to raise the money he desperately needed, and for the next three weeks worked as a dishwasher at the Criterion Hotel, in Collins Street, owned by a fellow American by the name of Moss. It was an affluent establishment, popular with all his countrymen, at which the new Governor and his lady were several times entertained as guests of the elegantly dressed proprietor and where another enterprising young American named George Train was frequently to be seen, when not engaged in the profitable business of running coaches to the goldfields.

Luke marveled at the commercial success they enjoyed but did not envy them, his search for Jasper Morgan ever uppermost in his mind. He managed to save enough to buy a ticket on one of Train and Cobb’s coaches to Ballarat, but later that day made the mistake of displaying it in the squalid eating house to which hunger had driven him.

“I’m on my way to the field at last,” Luke told the proprietor, unable to hide his jubilation, “and I’m booked on Mr. Cobb’s coach, too! All the way to Ballarat!”

A pretty but shabbily dressed young woman, whom he had noticed with no more than casual interest as he had passed her table, rose suddenly to her feet with a strangled cry. Gathering her threadbare shawl about her shoulders, she abandoned her meal and came to stand in front of him. Her eyes, Luke saw, were moist, her smile by contrast warm and ingratiating, and she plucked nervously at her shawl, baring shapely shoulders and disclosing more of her swelling bosom than strict propriety normally permitted.

Embarrassed by her proximity and the attitude she had adopted, Luke stood up. He asked uncertainly, “Can I be of service to you, miss?” Young women of easy virtue thronged the Melbourne streets, he was aware, but their quarry were

the diggers who had struck it rich, and few spared so much as a glance for those who, like himself, were patently too impoverished to show them the good time they were seeking. He shuffled his feet awkwardly. “I don’t have any money. I’ve not been to the goldfields yet. I—”