CHAPTER LX,

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1592, 16 September 1882, Page 5

CHAPTER LX,

The cold and gloom of the mine agreed with the dai'kness of Sniggle Snickers' soul. The dripping water, the ogielikc shadows,' the mysterious sounds of the miners at work, well accorded with the gloom of this man's thoughts. He found Obadiah sitting on a piece of quartz, listening to the explanations of the captain of the shift, who was endeavoring to give a lucid description of the " country," through which they would have to pass before they came to tho reef. Obadiah was smoking a cigar with a supercilious air. In early life he had neither drank nor smoked, being a (■launch teetotaller— for it suited hi& purpose — but when he became wealthy, he changed his mind as to what was lawful ; and as smoking a cigar was the correct thing for a millionaire, Obadiah indulged; and occasionally he would take a glass of champagne, for that, also, was the right thing to do. There was a sparkle of pleasure in Sniggle's eye as ho noticed this ; fate itself seemed in his favor. " You have gone over all the levels where we are working," said he to Obadiah. " I think you had better come with me now and examine the old level where we obtained the great yields. I think if a crosscut were put in from the end "we might strike something." " You'd better be careful," said the captain of the shift, "that there level's where we keep the powder now." " Oh ! no danger," said Obadiah jauntily ; "I aught to know my way about in the mine, for I worked hi this claim years enough." Obadiah said this wifcheringly. He prided himself upon having risen from tho ranks when in the company of workmen, and was ever thrusting before them his perseverance and success — as much as to say that it was their fault they were not as well off as he. " Will I go with you ?" asked the captain. "No, thank you." said Obadiah, who thought t\\ o were company and three were not when there was a confabulation in prospect. Lighting two candles Obadiah and Sniggle moved along the level, the former admonishing the nien to go on with their work. Sniggle led the way. It was well for his scheme that he did, otherwise Obadiah might have detected in his face signs of the fate that was coming. After a good deal of turning and winding they at last came to the opening of a level which had every appearance of being deserted. The "setts" of timber were decayed, the floor covered with slime and water, which flowed down in the centre, red with peroxide of iron. Close to the mouth a large number of kegs of powder were stored in a drive above. ■ " There's no danger of the powder getting wet ?" asked Obadiah in an economical mood. " Not tho slightest," replied Sniggle, "You leave me alone for that. It's safe there." " And you are sure it's not wasted?" asked Obadiah. " Powder's risen you know." " Certain," was the reply, " I know the amount that should be used to a grain." After travelling in the slippery, damp level for some time they reached the face— a great excavation narrowing to a point. It was here that the reef had tapered out to nothing. " Well," said Obadiah as they rested, " there was a lot of gold got out of this, wasn't there? If that fool Jack had only stuck to his share of it he wouldn't be digging now." " Indeed," said Sniggle absently. " Well, fools will be fools," said Obadiah in a self-satisfied tone. " If there weion't fools wise men would not be rich."' A darker shade came across Sniggle's face. He was one of the fools. " But what do you want me to see here ?" asked Obadiah. " Well," was the reply, " the truth is that, I wanted to give you a surprise. You know when the reef gave out so suddenly I had my suspicions that there were something we did not understand. And there was. That continued flow of water could not be there unless there was a reef close at hand." Obadiah was all attention. "Reefs don't give out so suddenly," continued Sniggle in a strange tone. "When they end in one spot, they generally make again somewhere else. And this reef does." Obadiah could hardly,speak with excitement. The very idea of the richest reef ever dis 7 covered in Grit being again fouqd, was sufficient to arouse in his ayaricious mind visions of a mammoth fortune. ■ " Well, I brooded over it," continued Sniggle Snickers, "until at last, after we had abandoned these workings, and turned them into a powder magazine, I came down one Sunday with pick and drill and fuse and worked away at the eastern side of the face. I thought I detected a lava streak and I followed it. It wasn't long before I came on a vein of stone, and that stone is richer than ever the other part of the reef was." < Obadiah rose in a delirium of joy. " Show it to me, Sniggles," said he, " Show it to me.. Good, good !, How rich I will be." Sniggle looked at him with eyes emitting such baleful fire, that 'if Obadiah ,were not almost beside himself with joy^at the discovery he would have noticed it.' ' '' "You shall have your pay doubled," said Obadiah, as if he were rewarding' ',th,e man above "his deserts. Sniggle stfut Ms teeth fiercely f at this; he was afraid his passion , would get the -better of him, and his scheme fall stillborn to the ,grqund. jiEe'begap^'carefully rempv^ng,^ hea^ of t mull6cl£ fVhic'h^ j?as * piled aga,mst 'the^driye. '* In, a few 1 minutes^ii' had beenVcleared off,,ana'Bnig'glesWeaTiis hat ,wjMi*w i a.ser. ' ThrowmgaJew^haffulpV'Of water 'oy^r' f the',stbne',^do.n ■, reyealed^a $nbf/y reefjfin wnicli'could'b 4 e eSsily dlscer%edfS]|eckS' and. streaks -of gold, goii^bt th^i^^efy^lSrfje^

answer. 'j "Yes, yes," said Obadiah quickly; "we'll pick down the sides to see if it bulges put. We mustn't say anything about it till I pick up all the shares, and then the menU be put on to try the old workings, and you'll put in a blast that'll prevent your work being Noticed, but will show the reef." Ec spoke to empty air. Sniggle was gone. So Obadiah began to examine the reef, his fin, me thrilling with rapture. J3ut did Sniggle go for the pick ? No ; lie merely went to the mouth of the level, and turned to the alcove where the powder ,was stored. His heart was beating wlidly ; his face, , hitherto pale, was flushed with the blood that was being driven rapidly through his system. Still he handled the powder kegs warily, and breaking two of them, he strewed the contents in a train leading from the entrance of the level. After carefully communicating this with the pile of kegs, he retired a little distance, and taking a newspaper from his pocket, he rolled it up in the rnauner of a flambeau. He then took his stand close to the, train, and putting his hand to his mouth, shouted — " Mr. Sweetcomfort." No answer. » " Obadiah Swectcomforfc !" Only the echoes of the caverns replied. " Obadiah Sweetcomfort !" Now Obadiah was heard. " Yes." "Come this way." Then followed a dead silence, only broken by the dripping of the water as it fell from the roof of the drive, and the faint sound of the miners at work and the creaking and clanking of the cages. But soon Obadiah's light appeared, making daikness visible in the level. " Stand there !" said Sniggle in a terrific voice, Avhen Obadiah had come within speaking distance. Obadiah shook with fear. There was something so awful in Sniggle's " voice, that it seemed to him like the trump of doom. "What is the matter?" he cried, in a quavering tone. " Matter I" replied Sniggle. " Death is the matter! Don't stir a foot or you ( are a dead man." " Oh, my God 1" cried Obadiah. " Don't call upon God, you hypocrite," said his enemy sternly. " Listen to me Obadiah Sweetcomforfc. You think you are wise ; yet you allowed a man whom you know to be poor, who has been injured by you, used as a tool and poorly rewarded, to see that you weie the possessor of half the shares in this mine, when that man had known a long time that there was within reach a licher reef than had ever been worked. That's your wisdom." " You are mad or joking," cried Obadiah, his coward heart now betraying itself. "Oh 1 don't speak to me in that way." " I will speak !" cried the other, in a frenzy of passion 1 " I will speak. Have you not made me your tool and paid me nothing? Have you not humbled me at every opportunity ? I have brought wealth untold into your purse, yet you never gave me a farthing except my wages. Had I done for Jack what I did for you he would have made me a wealthy man. You looked down upon me; you thought me a creature not worthy of attention ; yet when you were puffed up with pride at your own cleverness I, Sniggle Snickers, was laughing at you. What I was telling you a little while since was a lie. I knew the reef made again that very night when you and all the rest thought it had gone out for ever. I bided my time, and that time lias conio. Had you rewarded me and given me means to buy the shares when they were low this would not have happened. You thought you had made me commit myself so that I could not turn' upon you and demand my pay. But see what your plotting has done." Blind with terror, paralysed with fear, Obadiah sank upon his knees. " Sniggles, my old friend 1 , my dear friend," he said, "you won't do anything. I'll give you half my shares, half my money, half of everything. We will share and share alike. There will be enough and to spare. 0, Sniggles ! remember our long acquaintance ; what we have done for one another." " Yes, I do remember," said the man who had now become mad with rage and hate. " I do remember, and it is worse for you. I remember the example you set me when you caused Jack to be buried alive in this very mine. You set me the example ; now I only follow your lead. As for your promises, I would no more heed them than 1 would the voices of the wind. If I were to give way, the moment we got above ground, you would hand me over to the law, and there would be no mercy. 0, 1 do know you." " No, no," cried Obadiah ; "as sure as there is a heaven above us, I would not; save my life, and take.eVerything." "You talk about heaven," cried %Sniggles, with a sneer; "neither you nor I should mention it. Neither of us believe in all that nonsense, although when you were poor, you made a stalking-horse of religion to mount to higher ground. Who betrayed' my wife? Obadiah Sweetcomfort. Who broke up my happy home, and made me a by -word amongst my fellow-miners ? Obadiah Sweetcomfort." Obadiah did not reply ; he cowered down upon the ground in abject supplication. "Pity me, pity me," he 'cried, almost' inarticulately. " Not if I pity myself," replied Sniggles ; " I have your 10,000 scrip, and to-morrow 1 will be wealthier than ever you wore. Prepare to die, Obadiah Sweetcomfort ; prepare to meet the God you have mocked, it there is such a Being ; get ready to face the souls you have ruined, at His judgment seat." And he made a movement to cast the paper, which he had now lighted, into the train. Obadiah uttered, an awful cry — one that echoed and re-echoed through the caverns of the mine; one that rang in his murderer'sears for, ever after. But that cry hastened his fate. , Fearing that it might be heard, Sniggles threw the flaming paper into the- train of powder and rushed away into 'the darkness.