In the Roaring Fifties | Page 4

waters.
The accommodation for the men was the roughest imaginable. Bunks
of unplaned timber were strung up in tiers under the forecastle, and
wherever space could be found for them in the dark and musty depths
of the ship. A few second-class male passengers shared these delectable
quarters with the sailors, and the Francis Cadman had secured a
complement of first-class patrons willing to pay exorbitant prices for
the dubious comforts and plain fare of the 'cabin' passage.
The gold lust was burning in the blood of Europe. Fabulous stories of
Australian treasures were flying about the nations; greedy ears drank
them in, and the wildest yarns were never doubted. In their frantic
eagerness to share in the golden harvests being reaped at Buninyong,
Clunes, Bendigo, and Ballarat, the people wasted no thought on the
hardships of the journey; there was not a ship too crazy or a doghole
too dark to carry the desperate adventurers.

Jim Done's bunk was in a third story. The den it was built in was like a
steam-warm pest-house in the hot latitudes, and in the cold a clammy
tomb; but he had no thought of complaints. A new country and a new
life lay before him; he cared little for the troubles and privations by the
way. To-night his mind was given over to reflections arising out of the
incidents of the last few hours. They were not pleasant reflections. The
adventure loomed like a misfortune. He hated the idea of the notoriety
it would bring him; and, picturing himself the object of the sentimental
admiration of a score of simpering busybodies of both sexes, fumed
fiercely, and framed biting invectives. A voice close to his ear startled
him. Turning sharply, he saw the head of Phil Ryan on a level with his
own. Phil was standing on the lowermost bunk, offering the first tribute,
a pint pannikin of steaming hot grog.
''Tis the thing the docthor orthered,' said Ryan, with timorous humour,
fearing an ungenerous response.
It was Jim's first impulse to refuse the offer with out compliments, but
at that moment the greasy ship's lantern swinging above them on a
rope's end illumined the Irishman's face, and Done saw his mark upon
it--a long purple wheal under the left eye, a week old yesterday, but still
conspicuous. For a reason he could not have explained even to himself,
that changed the young man's mind. He drank the liquor, and returned
the pannikin with a 'Thank you!' not over-cordial.
'Yer a proper man, Done,' said Ryan, 'an' I'm proud I fought wid ye, an'
mighty glad ye bate me. Good-night!'
'Good-night,' answered Done coldly. He had been too long at variance
with men to take kindly to popularity now.
II
NEXT morning Done lingered below till the day was well advanced,
but the darkness and the heavy atmosphere 'tween decks drove him into
the open. It was a fair day, a big placid sun was shining, and the breeze
followed them with a crisp suggestion of glittering ice-fields far down
in the south. The sailors and passengers were grouped in small parties

of six or seven, lounging about the deck in lazy abandonment, leaning
over the side, smoking comfortably, and spitting with a certain dreamy
satisfaction into the sweet, clean sea, or sitting in rings on improvised
seats, alert, and loud in argument.
Jim's youthful face was even more than usually forbidding that morning
as he stepped amongst the men to his favourite position on one of the
guns. He feared an attempt to break through his reserve, some
demonstration arising out of last night's adventure, that might be taken
advantage of by the men to force their society and friendship upon him.
He looked at none of the faces turned curiously in his direction, and his
expression of stubborn enmity killed the cheer that sprang from a few
of the forecastle passengers, and it tailed into a feeble absurdity.
Leaning upon the old wooden gun-carriage, with his arms supporting
his chin; he stared at the cleavage of the green sea and the swelling
foam, feeling at his back all the time the cackle of criticism, like an
irritation of the spinal marrow, chafing fretfully at this further proof of
the failure of his long endeavour to school himself into complete
indifference.
Absolute serenity in the teeth of public opinion--good, bad, or
indifferent--that was an ideal frame of mind, to the attainment of which
he had set himself when still a mere boy; but men and women remained
powerful to hurt and to auger him. He had acquired from his long moral
exercise a certain power of restraint up to the point at which his fierce
temper blazed; he reached the stage of ignition without those displays
of sparks and smoke that are usual