The Happy Adventurers Part 17

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 circ.u.mstances, or all combined, it would be hard to say, but it seemed to d.i.c.k that the longer he lay in bed the more wakeful he became. The thought of the diamond began to worry him, and soon a.s.sumed 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. d.i.c.k'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 d.i.c.k, would remark "no can do", or words to that effect.

d.i.c.k 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_. d.i.c.k 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 a.s.s to imagine all that rubbish about it, and a much sillier a.s.s 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, d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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, G.o.d, let there be a miracle. Just this once, G.o.d. I'm sorry, G.o.d; I'll be good if you'll make a miracle. Only this once. I am very, very sorry." The crying began again.

"Grizzel!" exclaimed d.i.c.k, his fears all vanis.h.i.+ng 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 d.i.c.k calling. Are you in your tree? I'm coming--look out!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k put an arm round her: "Don't cry, kiddy; the diamond is all right."

"Oh, d.i.c.k, 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, d.i.c.k, if G.o.d would only make a miracle this _once_ and put my diamond back!"

d.i.c.k 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_ G.o.d hadn't forgotten the way! Oh, d.i.c.k, I am so glad! I am so glad! My own dear little diamond!"

d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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."

d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, 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 gla.s.s 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 d.i.c.k and Grizzel were sleeping as soundly as the other four Time-travellers.

"It is a green diamond," Mr. Fraser p.r.o.nounced 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, d.i.c.k, 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?"

CHAPTER VI

The Grape-Gatherers or Who was Mr. Smith?

Aunt Mary had gone up to London to do some shopping, and when Mollie came downstairs next morning she found Grannie installed in the drawing-room, instead of in the morning-room as usual, with another old lady who had come to spend the day.

"Mrs. Pell and I were at school together," she explained, as she introduced her grandchild, "and that was not yesterday," she added, as she settled Mollie in an easy-chair with the lame foot up on a cus.h.i.+oned frame. "My dear husband used this when he had gout," she continued, tucking a warm shawl round Mollie's bandages and large bedroom slipper. "It was made in the village under his own directions, and is most ingeniously constructed. Poor, dear Richard was such an active man; he could not endure to lie on a sofa, and I had the greatest difficulty in keeping him to his bed even when his attacks were severe."

Mrs. Pell shook her head as she looked admiringly at the foot-rest.