The Happy Adventurers by Lydia Miller Middleton (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

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. Tomorrow 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,