Part 9 (2/2)
Simpson had this nugget mounted as a brooch for the lady to whom he was engaged to be married.
The sinking of the shaft was both difficult and dangerous. We struck water at about six feet, and then had to make frames from green timber cut in the vicinity and sink them, backed by slabs, as we took the shaft down. The water flow was very strong, so we had to bale continuously, night and day, for we dared not let it rise. We worked in four-hour s.h.i.+fts, with relays of native laborers. After sinking sixty feet, and nearly losing our lives in trying to save the shaft from buckling, the water drove us out and the work had to be abandoned. I still believe that there is gold, and plenty of it, at the bottom of that swamp.
Wolff was a Dane of gigantic thews. He had been a sailor. McGrath was an Australian gold-digger. One night the latter stepped barefoot out of the tent and was bitten on the instep by a snake. He collapsed almost immediately. We sent a runner down to the Lower Camp, which was nearly six miles away, for a.s.sistance. There was no qualified medical pract.i.tioner to be had; however, an amateur came up and treated the patient with strychnine. We had, in the meantime, scarified the injured part and applied ligatures above it. McGrath escaped with his life, but the greater portion of his instep rotted away, and he became a physical wreck. For a tune he completely lost the use of the muscles of his eyelids; for months he had to use his hands when he wanted to open or shut his eyes.
After abandoning the shaft, Wolff and I were instructed to drive a tunnel into the hillside on the southern fall of the saddle. We took this work under contract, at so much per foot. The driving involved the use of props and slabs; these had to be cut and trimmed in a forest situated more than a mile away, beyond a deep valley on the northern face.
South African timber is notoriously close-grained and heavy; consequently the humping of those green balks through the valley and over the saddle to the tunnel was almost the heaviest and most painful work I have ever perspired under. Felling the trees and dressing the timber was child's play compared to it.
One day while engaged in felling I had an adventure with a mamba. Wolff and I were working in a steep sided gully which contained small, isolated patches of timber; he was felling a tree about fifty yards above me. It crashed down, its crown striking a patch of scrub. Out of this a large mamba glided and came down the gully, straight for me. I could not climb out, so I made myself as small as possible against the gully-side. The snake pa.s.sed within a few feet of me, but made no attempt to attack.
Snakes and leopards were very plentiful about our camp. A large python dwelt in a krantz within less than a hundred yards of our tent. The creature was often seen, but it always escaped when we ran over with our guns on receiving a report that it was sunning itself. The trees were covered with the claw marks of leopards.
Before very long a few diggers came and prospected in the vicinity of the saddle for surface gold. Among them was one of the strangest characters I have ever met. His name was John Mulcahy. Originally from my own county, Tipperary, he had gone to California in the early days of the ”placer” mines. He and Bret Harte had been mates. Mulcahy had prospected far and wide among the Rocky Mountains, and had even crossed the Yukon River on one of his trips.
Solitary in his habits and possessed of a most violent temper, Mulcahy was usually disliked by those with whom he came in contact. But he attracted me very strongly. Aged, I should say, about forty five yellow-bearded, exceedingly handsome, strong, and tall there was, nevertheless, a suggestion of something sinister about him. To me he unbent considerably when we were alone.
Once in a burst of confidence Mulcahy told me that he had left California to escape the attentions of a certain widow, the proprietress of a saloon, who had fallen in love with him. He related how she had pursued him to a remote camp, burst into his tent one morning and, before he could resist, thrown her arms around his neck, and given him a kiss ”you might have wathered a mule at.”
Mulcahy and I first met at the Rotunda Creek Rush, and when that abode of ”wild cat” collapsed, we arranged to take a prospecting trip towards the Olifant River. We made a start, but after a week were driven back by some of the worst weather I have ever experienced. The climax came when we were caught one afternoon on a high mountain plateau by a succession of violent hailstorms. We crept under the lee of a rock for shelter, but our fire was smashed out over and over again by hurtling ma.s.ses of ice, so we s.h.i.+vered in darkness through what seemed to be an interminable night.
As the weather remained unsettled, we decided to return to camp and there refit. Besides, we badly needed recuperation after the more than ordinary hards.h.i.+ps we had undergone. We arrived at the Lower Camp one morning at about nine o'clock, more than half-starved. I shall never forget my wolfish sensations as we flung down our swags at Stopforth and Bowman's eating-house and called for breakfast. I then enjoyed the heartiest meal of my life, after which I sat back pulling at my pipe and noting with astonishment the amount of food which Mulcahy consumed.
I thought he would never stop; plateful followed plateful in an apparently endless endeavor to sate the insatiable. However, all things must come to an end; so, eventually, did Mulcahy's Gargantuan meal. As he paid the prescribed fee of two s.h.i.+llings, I thought Stopforth looked pensive.
After resting for some ten days, and the weather having in the meantime cleared, we made another start. We had decided to commence our journey after a good meal, so struck our tent early one morning at the Upper Creek, and tramped down to the Lower Camp, once more to bestow the doubtful favor of our custom upon Stopforth and Bowman.
We put down our swags at the door and entered. It was barely eight o'clock, so no other customers had arrived. The eating-house was a large marquee tent, with rough tables and benches on either side of a pa.s.sage down the middle. At the end of this pa.s.sage a square piece had been cut out of the canvas, and it was through the resulting aperture that plates were pa.s.sed to and from the kitchen. Bowman it was who presided over the cooking while Stopforth did the waiting.
We took our seats at one of the tables and called for breakfast.
Stopforth stood for a few seconds and regarded Mulcahy with a somber eye. Then he strolled slowly down the pa.s.sage and called through the aperture:
”Bill.”
”Hullo?”
”Breakfast for ten; here's this son of a back.”
My partner was enormously pleased at this compliment to his prowess; for months afterwards he used to chuckle at the remembrance of it.
After Mulcahy moved up to ”The Reef” he kept more than ever to himself, discouraging advances even from me. This, we afterwards found, was due to his having struck rich gold from the very first, and to his desire to keep the circ.u.mstance from being known. He worked his cradle at a small spring about a hundred and fifty yards away. To this spring he had scarped a footpath along the mountain side, and over this footpath he harrowed his stuff. He seemed seldom or never to sleep. It was his custom to knock off work comparatively early in the afternoon. Until about nine o'clock he would stroll about. Then he would recommence work, and we would often hear the barrow going all night long. Most of the daytime he spent cradling at the spring.
Occasionally, in the evening, this strange being would come and stand near our tent. Wolff, who hated him, strongly objected to this; he thought the man came to listen to our conversation. My theory, which I fully believe to have been the right one, was that the lonely creature sometimes felt an irresistible longing for human companions.h.i.+p.
The belief currently held regarding Mulcahy was to the effect that he had been a noted ”road agent” that is to say, a highway robber in California. One incident, of which I was a witness, might be taken to indicate that at least he had something very heavy on his conscience.
One evening Wolff and I were watching the approach of a very violent thunderstorm. Just as it broke, and while we were in the act of fastening the tent-door, Mulcahy appeared and, to my surprise, asked if he might come in. Wolff gave no answer, but I replied in the affirmative. Mulcahy entered, and the three of us sat down, Wolff and I on one bunk and the visitor on the other. The table was between the bunks.
Our tent had what is known as a ”fly”; that is to say, a second roof pitched about six inches above the ordinary one. The rain came down in torrents and the wind blew with great violence. The inner roof remained dry, except where the outer one flapped against it. This contact happened just over where Mulcahy was sitting, and occasioned a wet mark resembling, in rough outline, the head, shoulders, and outstretched arms of a human being. The mark was fully visible to Wolff and me, but could not be seen by Mulcahy, although the canvas on which it appeared sloped immediately over him.
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