Part 16 (2/2)
”Thank you, Jack, thank you,” said the miner heartily, ”for the interest you take in me. I do intend to persevere.”
”I know that, Jacob, I know it; but I want you to believe that you have no chance of success unless you first become a follower of Jesus Christ.
He is the _only_ Saviour from sin. Your resolutions, without Him, cannot succeed. I have found that out, and I want you to believe it, Jacob.”
”I _do_ believe it,” said the miner earnestly. ”Dear Dan used to tell me that--often--often. Dear Dan!”
”Now,” added Jack, ”we shall have to part soon. There is another thing I want to mention. There is a bag of gold with my name on it, worth some few hundred pounds, more or less. I want you to accept it, for I know that you have not been so successful as we have during our short--”
”But I won't take it, Jack,” interrupted Buckley.
”Yes you will, Jacob, from an old friend and comrade. It may tide you over a difficulty, who knows? Luck does not always last, as the saying goes.”
Still Buckley shook his head.
”Well, then,” continued Jack, ”you can't help yourself, for I've left the bag under your own pillow in the tent!”
Buckley's reply was checked by a shout from Captain Samson. They had reached the parting point--a clump of trees on an eminence that overlooked a long stretch of undulating park-like region. Here they dismounted to shake hands and say farewell. Little was said at the time, but moistened eyes and the long grasp of hard muscular hands told something of feelings to which the lips could give no utterance.
The party could see that knoll for miles after leaving it, and whenever Polly reined up and looked back, she saw the st.u.r.dy forms of Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley waving a kerchief or a hat, standing side by side and gazing after them. At last they appeared like mere specks on the landscape, and the knoll itself finally faded from their view.
At San Francisco they found their vessel, the _Rainbow_, a large full-rigged s.h.i.+p, ready for sea. Embarking with their boxes of gold-dust they bade farewell to the golden sh.o.r.e, where so many young and vigorous men have landed in hopeful enthusiasm, to meet, too often, with disappointment, if not with death.
Our friends, being among the fortunate few, left it with joy.
The _Rainbow_ shook out her sails to a favouring breeze, and, sweeping out upon the great Pacific, was soon bowling along the western coast of South America, in the direction of Cape Horn.
CHAPTER TEN.
CHANGE OF SCENE AND FORTUNE.
The fair wind that swept the good s.h.i.+p _Rainbow_ away from California's golden sh.o.r.es carried her quickly into a fresh and purer atmosphere, moral as well as physical. It seemed to most, if not all, of the gold-finders as if their brains had been cleared of golden cobwebs.
They felt like convalescents from whom a low fever had suddenly departed, leaving them subdued, restful, calm, and happy.
”It's more like a dream than a reality,” observed Ben Trench one day, as he and Polly sat on the after part of the vessel, gazing out upon the tranquil sea.
”What seems like a dream?” asked Philosopher Jack, coming aft at the moment with Watty Wilkins, and sitting down beside them.
”Our recent life in California,” replied Ben. ”There was such constant bustle and toil, and restless, feverish activity, both of mind and body; and now everything is so calm and peaceful, and we are so delightfully idle. I can hardly persuade myself that it is not all a dream.”
”Perhaps it is,” said Philosopher Jack. ”There are men, you know, who hold that everything is a dream; that matter is a mere fancy or conception, and that there is nothing real or actually in existence but mind.”
”Bah!” exclaimed Watty with contempt; ”what would these philosophers say if matter, in the shape of a fist, were to hit them on their ridiculous noses?”
”They'd say that they only imagined a fist and fancied a blow, I suppose,” returned Jack.
”And would they say that the pain and the blood were imagination also?”
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