Untitled

Observer, 21 December 1893, Page 11

OU don't believe in ghost, stories, I sup- . pose — the power of a human creature to . return, even for a few , fleeting moments, to j this earth of ours? Well, I was sceptical on the point myself once. Sceptical? Why the term is hardly strong enough to express my feelings on the subject. But those feelings have to a certain extent, undergone a change — due to a very remarkable and extraordinary experience. But I will tell you all about it, and you shall judge for yourself whether I have good reason or not to believe in the reality of ghosts. More years ago than I care to remember, when I was a new chum, too full of youth and health and high spirits to concern myself much about the future, and ready for anything that cropped up, so long as it had a spice of adventure about it, it so happened that I found myself in Auckland, whither I had drifted with some vague idea of proceeding to the Thames goldfields, at that time at the zenith of their fame. But I was not destined to see the Thames, as it turned out, for many a long day after that. The alteration in my plans was due to my chance meeting with a man named Adrian Boss. He was staying, like myself, at the old Auckland Hotel, in Queen-street, long since converted into storerooms, offices and shops. Boss was quite the most extraordinary fellow I have ..ever known. I think we became fast friends at once. What is that mysterious something that attracts us so strongly to some people at first sight and as strongly repels us from others? Personally I am a firm believer in the value of these first impressions. I have very rarely found them lead me astray. Boss, I soon discovered, had come out to New Zealand for the benefit of his health which had been seriously impaired by hard mental work. He was studying for the medical profession, and just as the coveted honours were almost within his grasp he was prostrated by brain fever, and when he arose from his sick bed, a shadow of his former self, the doctors ordered him off to sea for a long voyage. How true it is that troubles come not singly but in battalions ! The wreck of poor Adrian's health was but the prelude to the wreck of Adrian's fortune. During the long voyage to New Zealand in a sailing ship — it was before the days of steam communication with these distant colonies — a financial crisis occurred in London, and the bank in which Boss's little fortune was — he was an orphan — "suspended payment," and from being a man in fairly easy circumstances he was all but ruined. He took the reverse with extraordinary coolness, and having completely recovered health and strength during the four months' voyage, decided, instead of returning to England within a few months, as he had originally planned, to remain and seek independence in the colonies. At that time he was barely thirty, tall, very dark, and with one of those faces which, while they cannot claim for a moment to be considered handsome, are yet singularly attractive. The expression of the dark eyes was thoughtful and earnest, the rare smile particularly winning. But it was what, for the want of a better term, I must call the personal magnetism of the man that was so extraordinary. I verily believe that Boss, if he had set himself the task, could have won the confidence of anybody. One result of our meeting at the hotel was a compact to stick together. We would join forces, and seek our fortune in company. The prospect of such companionship delighted me. Boss was a fascinating companion, indeed, deeply read, thoroughly well informed, a brilliant conversationalist, and possessed of a store of information on out-of-the-way subjects at once my wonder and my envy. He took the deepest interest in psychological matters, for example, and although he shrank with the timidity of a girl from exhibiting his powers amongst strangers, was a very remarkable "medium," as I can testify from personal experience. And it was .after a night devoted to " manifestations" of this sort that we entered into another compact. It was this : that whichever of us two should die first should, if such a thing were possible, come back and appear to the other. Boss had no doubt whatever on the subject. To

Written fob the Observer by C. A. WILKINS. T

his mind, long accustomed to dwell on the mysteries beyond, the possibility of the spirit, freed from its earthly bonds, returning here, under certain conditions, had long ceased to be a problem. He regarded it with the calm conviction of one who knows. With me it was quite otherwise. I listened to his arguments, witnessed the extraordinary things he did, and while powerfully impressed, was yet unconvinced. After many suggestions as to our future plans, and just as we had ahnost decided to go to the Thames, a letter from Australia caused our thoughts to turn in that direction. Amongst Adrian's fellow-passengers in the sailing-ship from London was an old Australian digger,

Jack Davis, by name, who had taken a violent fancy to him, and who, hearing of the failure of the bank in which (Adrian had confided to him during the voyage) his money was, now wrote over to propose that he should join him "if he had nothing better in view" at the Kangaroo Flat diggings, about 70 miles out of Sydney. It was alluvial gold, wrote Mr. Davis, and there was plenty of it if we only got on the right patch, and he added that he rather thought that he and his party were on the right patch, but two of their lot had nevertheless sold out and gone to Sydney, and they were shorthanded. If Adrian would come he would be "as welcome as the flowers in May, and might, maybe, make good that bank loss, only he must send word right away as they couldn't afford to go short-handed for long." Our minds were made up at once. Jack Davis, Adrian assured me, was a fine specimen of the digger (a real white man), rough and ready, but good-hearted and as honest as the day. We arrived in Sydney all right, after a terribly rough passage, and next day took coach for "the new rush " at Kangaroo Flat. Jack Davis and his mate Charley Eogers were waiting for us at our journey's end, and piloted us over to the camp, seven miles away. Kangaroo township, where the coach put us down, was a wonderful place, streets of tents and bark huts, with here and there a corrugated iron store and no end of

weatherboard " hotels." The population was 7,000 then, and growing every day. And five months before the site of that township was a howling wilderness, given over to snakes and dingoes 1 And now the snakes and dingoes are once more in possession, for Kangaroo township ha? vanished off the face of the earth. Adrian was right : Jack Davis was one of the right sort. He told me all about the place and the prospects as we wended our way to the camp. Said he was jolly glad to get two such mates ; that he expected to bottom the new hole before very long, and that they were so anxious to finish that they had, while waiting Adrian's reply, taken on a couple of wages' men. "But," says he, looking with evident satisfaction at our athletic build, " we'll soon send them to the right-about now, for to tell you the truth I didn't half care about them. And Charley here thinks with me. Suppose we keep 'em on another week and then pay 'em up and let 'em go ? If Cooper and Oakley hadn't been in such a deuced hurry to get away on a wild goose chase to another rush, more than 200 miles the other side of Sydney, I never would have taken on Joe Driffield and Sam Burr. I wanted the other two to wait and see how this hole would pan out. But you see (his face fell) it's not the first we've sunk, and they were tired waiting, so we bought 'em out for a song, and put these chaps on. But here we are.' ' The slab-hut stood on a bit of a clearing, all by itself, the next hut was. half-a-mile away, or more, and hidden by scrub. It was a wild place. Driffield and Burr, the two wages men, just knocked off work, came in before long, and their appearance impressed Adrian and myself as little favourably as it had

Jack Davis and his mate. They looked like old "lags," and that is probably just what they were. Driffield was short, broad, bandy-legged and muscular. Burr was a sandy, freckled giant, gaunt, but immensely powerful. Both had that furtive, shifty look so characteristic of the habitual criminal. Both were taciturn, reserved, sullen. I drew Jack Davis aside the first chance I got, and asked him in the name of wonder how he could have taken on such fellows? "Because," he replied, "when Cooper and Oakley slipped us up we didn't know what to do, for hands, and wages' men, let me tell you, are pretty hard to get, just now. But now you two have come I shall pay them up and tell them to clear out." We went out, Adrian, Jack Davis, and myself, after tea that first night, to explore our surroundings. They were not inviting. There might have been a score or so of diggers round about, scattered over an area of two or three miles, because this was comparatively new ground, and a sort of offshoot, as it were, from the main field. There was one little store near us where they sold mostly everything diggers want (including grog — on the sly), and were open to buy gold, or take it in exchange for goods. Old Levy, the proprietor, made that branch of the business pay well. No, I can't say we fell in love with our surroundings, but what mattered, as Jack Davis said, so long as we " struck oil?" And he was confident we should do it, sooner or later Charley Eogers proved

like Davis, a real trump, but the more we saw of Driffield and Burr the less we liked them, and when we heard Jack tell them that he wouldn't want them after that week we felt that we could bear the parting with something more than equanimity. The " wages men" took their "notice" sulkily enough, and kept aloof from us as much as possible. On the Saturday they left us, and intended, they said, to make tracks for Sydney. They were an ill-conditioned pair of ruffians, whose company had become intolerable, and we were delighted to see the last of them. A fortnight later we bottomed — and " struck oil." In other words, we struck a nugget, a tidy-sized one, too, and, roughly speaking, worth £500 or £600. Of course, by the terms of our agreement Ross and myself were not entitled to equal shares with Jack Davis and Charley Rogers, who had " borne the heat and burthen of the day," neither would it have been fair. Yet they insisted on our " getting a crumb or two from the cake," as they put it, and on our starting, share and share alike, from that out. Jack Davis's delight knew no bounds. He was like a child with a new toy. They had had a long spell of bad luck, you see, and, digger-like, Jack would have it that our coming had " turned " it. In fact, for an old hand, he went nearV off his head with excitement, and must needs go straight off to tell Levy, the neighbouring storekeeper, who had predicted, being a born croaker, that we should never make much more than tucker on that claim. And of course when Levy heard the news he wanted to trade, and Jack came back declaring " that jew would like to get the nugget himself at about 40 per cent off its value." " Never mind," says Jack, "I'll go up to Kangaroo tomorrow, and dispose of it there." But the next day was Christmas Eve, as it happened, and the banks at the township were all closed. However, Jack's head was fairly turned for the time, and he said he would go into town, all the same, and get some ' tucker ' for Christmas Day." Charley Rogers said he'd go too, and I had been anxious to go' in for some days to get my English letters at the post-office and transact a little pressing private business. " "Well, said Jack Davis, " then we'll all go in? What dye say ?" he continued, turning to Ross. "And leave the nugget to look after itself?" replied Adrian, with a smile, " that would hardly be wise, would it, and so many fellows about on the wallibi ?" " "Well," we can't take it into the township with us very well," rejoined Davis, "that's certain. There'd be nowhere to put it till after Boxing Day. Why not plant it there ? Who'd be any the wiser?" "Unfortunately, Jack," said Adrian, "you've let the cat out of the bag. Levy knows all about the find, and what Levy knows other people will very soon find out. Isn't that so ? No, plant the nugget here, by all means, but, by way of additional j>recaution, I will stop and keep watch and ward over it. I have a lot of letters I want to write for the next English mail, and I shall be jolly glad of the chance of a spell to get them off my mind. Lonely ? My good fellow, I see you do not know me. I never could ask, with Selkirk, ' Solitude, where are thy charms ? ' because I know and appreciate those charms too well. And I believe that I should have made a first-class Robinson Crusoe. Besides, you'll only be away one night : you'll be back in time to eat your Christmas dinner in camp — always provided the seductions of the Kangaroo hotels don't prove too strong for you. Pray don't bother about me, any of you. I haven't the faintest trace of nervousness in my composition, and am, I assure you, well able to take care of myself, and as for ghosts I am rather partial to their society than otherwise." We felt he meant it, so we just " planted" the nugget where we knew it would be right, and next day — Christmas Eve — went over to Kangaroo. Adrian, smoking the big carved meerschaum he reserved for high days and holidays, stood at the hut door and watched us leave. I think he must have gone off into one of those queer reveries of his, for he was standing at the door, smoking, in the same attitude, every time we looked back, until the hut grew indistinct in the distance. We three parted company pretty soon after our arrival at the township. I went straight to the postoffice to ask for letters for Ross and self, and then proceeded to the office (a lean-to) of the man with whom I had the private business, and which was the main cause of my visit to "town." Jack Davis and Charley Rogers went to make sundry purchases, and indulge, I suspect, in sundry drinks. It was arranged that we should meet next day — Christmas morning — and go back to the camp together. I put up at the Royal Hotel — a rather pretentious title for a sheet-iron building with a wide wooden verandah about it. But it was the best "house " in the township. Feeling unusually tired and strangely out of spirits — but I had been that for the last two days— l turned in early, between 10 and 11 o'clock. I was lucky enough to secure a single room, and although the noise made by rowdies in all stages of intoxication is not conducive to slumber, I felt so dead-beat that I was asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow. And I slept like a top for hours.

Suddenly I awoke. It was a minute or two before I recollected where I was. Then it all came back to me. It was, perhaps, three o'clock in the morning, and the house was as hushed and still as the grave. Everyone was in bed, at last. The room was flooded with brilliant moonlight. I could have read a newspaper by that bright light. Did you ever wake, suddenly, in the middle of the night, and feel that someone was in the room — though you could not see anyone, and you knew perfectly well tnat the door and window were securely fastened before you turned in ? It is not a pleasant feeling, and I earnestly and fervently hope it may never be my lot to experience it again, as I did upon that awful Christmas Eve. The night was " muggy " and oppressive — a true Australian summer's night — and yet I shivered as I lay in my bed. There seemed all at once, as it were, to be an awful chilliness in the room. Suddenly came a puff of ice-cold air. I saw it stir the long, white window-curtains, and then, great heavens ! was I dreaming ? — the curtains parted, and a figure glided into the room. It came straight towards me. I couldn't move, I seemed to have lost the power of speech. But my brain was as clear as it is at this moment. The silent figure paused at the foot of my bed. I can see the moonbeams play upon its f atures now. It was Adrian Ross. He was dressed in his rough digger's jersey, his moleskins, heavy boots and soft felt hat. His flannel shirt was open at the throat, but its left side was drenched with blood, and the agonised? appealing look on the ghastly white face, its deathly pallor heightened by the moonbeams, I shall never forget as long as I live. He looked fixedly at me and pointed to his side. I saw his lips move. He seemed to try to speak. And then, overcome by the horror of the whole thing, I lost consciousness. When I came to myself again I was alone once more.

I was up at daybreak, and so feverishly anxious to get back to the camp that I didn't wait for Davis and Rogers, but walked out at once. I called at Levy's on my way, and by dint of a good deal of persuasion induced the old man to go up with me to the camp. Yes, I dreaded to go alone. For well I knew what was to come. The hut wore a peculiarly lonely and deserted aspect as we approached it. The silence seemed to me, in my excited state, an awful and oppressive one. We quickened our steps, but neither of us said a word. We couldn't speak. The same nameless dread and horror of what was to come was on us both. With quickened pulses and hearts strangely chilled by fear we pushed open the door. Someone was seated at the table with his back towards us. He turned as we entered. . " Hallo, Armagh ! What's up ? You look as if you had seen a ghost ! And what the dickens does Levy want ?" The speaker was Adrian Ross. He was having breakfast. He looked rather better than usual. Levy, the storekeeper, just gave me one look, one glance of withering contempt which said volumes, a whole library, in fact — and walked away without a word. Ross stared hard at me, as if asking for an explanation. And how he laughed when I described my "vision of the night." "I'm all right, old man," he said, as he pushed away the table and drew out his favourite meerschaum for a comfortable after-breakfast smoke, " and the nugget's all right. But it was just as well I stopped. Messrs Driffield and Burp did pay me a visit, but I rather fancy they regretted it afterwards. If lam not very much mistaken they have carried away a slight mark of my esteem in the shape of a revolver bullet apiece in the calves of their legs or in some other portion of their rascally anatomies. They came last night, having doubtless learned of the comparatively defenceless condition of the camp, in the hope of annexing that nugget. But although I was in my bunk I was pretty wide awake, and when they came in and began to prospect for that lump of gold I just let them have it — not the gold, but the bullets in the legs. Their yells were terrific. But they got clean away. . I should have followed, but didn't know how many mates the cowardly brutes might not have waiting about outside. And, thinking discretion the better part of valour, I contented myself with barricading the hut and preparing for a possible siege. However they let me alone after that. All's well that end's well, old man. But where are the other boys?" The "other boys " soon arrived, and we had one of the j oiliest Christmases I ever remember spending. I have never had a r other "vision," and if I should have another depend upon it I shall take it cooler than I did the one I had that sultry Christmas Eve at Kangaroo township. Though, by the way, Ross declared to this hour that there was " something in" that nocturnal appearance of his. His theory is that when the " sticking up " by Driffield and Burr took place he was in a terrible "funk" about the nugget, for he didn't know how many " pals' ' the pair of ruffians might have lurking about outside, and that in that moment of intense anxiety his thoughts turned to me, and mentally he summoned me to his assistance.