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Books: Madame Midas

F >> Fergus Hume >> Madame Midas



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MADAME MIDAS

Fergus Hume






PROLOGUE

CAST UP BY THE SEA


A wild bleak-looking coast, with huge water-worn promontories
jutting out into the sea, daring the tempestuous fury of the waves,
which dashed furiously in sheets of seething foam against the iron
rocks. Two of these headlands ran out for a considerable distance,
and at the base of each, ragged cruel-looking rocks stretched still
further out into the ocean until they entirely disappeared beneath
the heaving waste of waters, and only the sudden line of white foam
every now and then streaking the dark green waves betrayed their
treacherous presence to the idle eye. Between these two headlands
there was about half a mile of yellow sandy beach on which the waves
rolled with a dull roar, fringing the wet sands with many coloured
wreaths of sea-weed and delicate shells. At the back the cliffs rose
in a kind of semi-circle, black and precipitous, to the height of
about a hundred feet, and flocks of white seagulls who had their
nests therein were constantly circling round, or flying seaward with
steadily expanded wings and discordant cries. At the top of these
inhospitable-looking cliffs a line of pale green betrayed the
presence of vegetation, and from thence it spread inland into vast-
rolling pastures ending far away at the outskirts of the bush, above
which could be seen giant mountains with snow-covered ranges. Over
all this strange contrast of savage arid coast and peaceful upland
there was a glaring red sky--not the delicate evanescent pink of an
ordinary sunset--but a fierce angry crimson which turned the wet
sands and dark expanse of ocean into the colour of blood. Far away
westward, where the sun--a molten ball of fire--was sinking behind
the snow-clad peaks, frowned long lines of gloomy clouds--like
prison bars through which the sinking orb glowed fiercely. Rising
from the east to the zenith of the sky was a huge black cloud
bearing a curious resemblance to a gigantic hand, the long lean
fingers of which were stretched threateningly out as if to grasp the
land and drag it back into the lurid sea of blood; altogether a
cruel, weird-looking scene, fantastic, unreal, and bizarre as one of
Dore's marvellous conceptions. Suddenly on the red waters there
appeared a black speck, rising and falling with the restless waves,
and ever drawing nearer and nearer to the gloomy cliffs and sandy
beach. When within a quarter of a mile of the shore, the speck
resolved itself into a boat, a mere shallop, painted a dingy white,
and much battered by the waves as it tossed lightly on the crimson
waters. It had one mast and a small sail all torn and patched, which
by some miracle held together, and swelling out to the wind drew the
boat nearer to the land. In this frail craft were two men, one of
whom was kneeling in the prow of the boat shading his eyes from the
sunlight with his hands and gazing eagerly at the cliffs, while the
other sat in the centre with bowed head, in an attitude of sullen
resignation, holding the straining sail by a stout rope twisted
round his arm. Neither of them spoke a word till within a short
distance of the beach, when the man at the look-out arose, tall and
gaunt, and stretched out his hands to the inhospitable-looking coast
with a harsh, exulting laugh.

'At last,' he cried, in a hoarse, strained voice, and in a foreign
tongue; 'freedom at last.'

The other man made no comment on this outburst of his companion, but
kept his eyes steadfastly on the bottom of the boat, where lay a
small barrel and a bag of mouldy biscuits, the remnants of their
provisions on the voyage.

The man who had spoken evidently did not expect an answer from his
companion, for he did not even turn his head to look at him, but
stood with folded arms gazing eagerly ahead, until, with a sudden
rush, the boat drove up high and dry on the shore, sending him head-
over-heels into the wet sand. He struggled to his feet quickly, and,
running up the beach a little way, turned to see how his companion
had fared. The other had fallen into the sea, but had picked himself
up, and was busily engaged in wringing the water from his coarse
clothing. There was a smooth water-worn boulder on the beach, and,
seeing this, the man who had spoken went up to it and sat down
thereon, while his companion, evidently of a more practical turn of
mind, collected the stale biscuits which had fallen out of the bag,
then, taking the barrel carefully on his shoulder, walked up to
where the other was sitting, and threw both biscuits and barrel at
his feet.

He then flung himself wearily on the sand, and picking up a biscuit
began to munch it steadily. The other drew a tin pannikin from the
bosom of his shirt, and nodded his head towards the barrel, upon
which the eater laid down his biscuit, and, taking up the barrel,
drew the bung, and let a few drops of water trickle into the tin
dish. The man on the boulder drank every drop, then threw the
pannikin down on the sand, while his companion, who had exhausted
the contents of the barrel, looked wolfishly at him. The other,
however, did not take the slightest notice of his friend's lowering
looks, but began to eat a biscuit and look around him. There was a
strong contrast between these two waifs of the sea which the ocean
had just thrown up on the desolate coast. The man on the boulder was
a tall, slightly-built young fellow, apparently about thirty years
of age, with leonine masses of reddish-coloured hair, and a short,
stubbly beard of the same tint. His face, pale and attenuated by
famine, looked sharp and clever; and his eyes, forming a strong
contrast to his hair, were quite black, with thin, delicately-drawn
eyebrows above them. They scintillated with a peculiar light which,
though not offensive, yet gave anyone looking at him an
uncomfortable feeling of insecurity. The young man's hands, though
hardened and discoloured, were yet finely formed, while even the
coarse, heavy boots he wore could not disguise the delicacy of his
feet. He was dressed in a rough blue suit of clothes, all torn and
much stained by sea water, and his head was covered with a red cap
of wool-work which rested lightly on his tangled masses of hair.
After a time he tossed aside the biscuit he was eating, and looked
down at his companion with a cynical smile. The man at his feet was
a rough, heavy-looking fellow, squarely and massively built, with
black hair and a heavy beard of the same sombre hue. His hands were
long and sinewy; his feet--which were bare--large and ungainly: and
his whole appearance was that of a man in a low station of life. No
one could have told the colour of his eyes, for he looked
obstinately at the ground; and the expression of his face was so
sullen and forbidding that altogether he appeared to be an
exceedingly unpleasant individual. His companion eyed him for a
short time in a cool, calculating manner, and then rose painfully to
his feet.

'So,' he said rapidly in French, waving his hand towards the
frowning cliffs, 'so, my Pierre, we are in the land of promise;
though I must confess'--with a disparaging shrug of the shoulders--
'it certainly does not look very promising: still, we are on dry
land, and that is something after tossing about so long in that
stupid boat, with only a plank between us and death. Bah!'--with
another expressive shrug--'why should I call it stupid? It has
carried us all the way from New Caledonia, that hell upon earth, and
landed us safely in what may turn out Paradise. We must not be
ungrateful to the bridge that carried us over--eh, my friend?'

The man addressed as Pierre nodded an assent, then pointed towards
the boat; the other looked up and saw that the tide had risen, and
that the boat was drifting slowly away from the land.

'It goes,' he said coolly, 'back again to its proper owner, I
suppose. Well, let it. We have no further need of it, for, like
Caesar, we have now crossed the Rubicon. We are no longer convicts
from a French prison, my friend, but shipwrecked sailors; you
hear?'--with a sudden scintillation from his black eyes--
'shipwrecked sailors; and I will tell the story of the wreck.
Luckily, I can depend on your discretion, as you have not even a
tongue to contradict, which you wouldn't do if you had.'

The dumb man rose slowly to his feet, and pointed to the cliffs
frowning above them. The other answered his thought with a careless
shrug of the shoulders.

'We must climb,' he said lightly, 'and let us hope the top will
prove less inhospitable than this place. Where we are I don't know,
except that this is Australia; there is gold here, my friend, and we
must get our share of it. We will match our Gallic wit against these
English fools, and see who comes off best. You have strength, I have
brains; so we will do great things; but'--laying his hand
impressively on the other's breast--'no quarter, no yielding, you
see!'

The dumb man nodded violently, and rubbed his ungainly hands
together in delight.

'You don't know Balzac, my friend,' went on the young man in a
conversational tone, 'or I would tell you that, like Rastignac, war
is declared between ourselves and society; but if you have not the
knowledge you have the will, and that is enough for me. Come, let us
make the first step towards our wealth;' and without casting a
glance behind him, he turned and walked towards the nearest
headland, followed by the dumb man with bent head and slouching
gait.

The rain and wind had been at work on this promontory, and their
combined action had broken off great masses of rock, which lay in
rugged confusion at the base. This offered painful but secure
foothold, and the two adventurers, with much labour--for they were
weak with the privations endured on the voyage from New Caledonia--
managed to climb half way up the cliff, when they stopped to take
breath and look around them. They were now in a perilous position,
for, hanging as they were on a narrow ledge of rock midway between
earth and sky, the least slip would have cost them their lives. The
great mass of rock which frowned above them was nearly
perpendicular, yet offered here and there certain facilities for
climbing, though to do so looked like certain death. The men,
however, were quite reckless, and knew if they could get to the top
they would be safe, so they determined to attempt the rest of the
ascent.

'As we have not the wings of eagles, friend Pierre,' said the
younger man, glancing around, 'we must climb where we can find
foothold. God will protect us; if not,' with a sneer, 'the Devil
always looks after his own.'

He crept along the narrow ledge and scrambled with great difficulty
into a niche above, holding on by the weeds and sparse grass which
grew out of the crannies of the barren crag. Followed by his
companion, he went steadily up, clinging to projecting rocks--long
trails of tough grass and anything else he could hold on to. Every
now and then some seabird would dash out into their faces with wild
cries, and nearly cause them to lose their foothold in the sudden
start. Then the herbage began to get more luxurious, and the cliff
to slope in an easy incline, which made the latter part of their
ascent much easier. At last, after half an hour's hard work, they
managed to get to the top, and threw themselves breathlessly on the
short dry grass which fringed the rough cliff. Lying there half
fainting with fatigue and hunger, they could hear, as in a confused
dream, the drowsy thunder of the waves below, and the discordant
cries of the sea-gulls circling round their nests, to which they had
not yet returned. The rest did them good, and in a short time they
were able to rise to their feet and survey the situation. In front
was the sea, and at the back the grassy undulating country, dotted
here and there with clumps of trees now becoming faint and
indistinct in the rapidly falling shadows of the night. They could
also see horses and cattle moving in the distant fields, which
showed that there must be some human habitation near, and suddenly
from a far distant house which they had not observed shone a bright
light, which became to these weary waifs of the ocean a star of
hope.

They looked at one another in silence, and then the young man turned
towards the ocean again.

'Behind,' he said, pointing to the east, 'lies a French prison and
two ruined lives--yours and mine--but in front,' swinging round to
the rich fields, 'there is fortune, food, and freedom. Come, my
friend, let us follow that light, which is our star of hope, and who
knows what glory may await us. The old life is dead, and we start
our lives in this new world with all the bitter experiences of the
old to teach us wisdom--come!' And without another word he walked
slowly down the slope towards the inland, followed by the dumb man
with his head still bent and his air of sullen resignation.

The sun disappeared behind the snowy ranges--night drew a grey veil
over the sky as the red light died out, and here and there the stars
were shining. The seabirds sought their nests again and ceased their
discordant cries--the boat which had brought the adventurers to
shore drifted slowly out to sea, while the great black hand that
rose from the eastward stretched out threateningly towards the two
men tramping steadily onward through the dewy grass, as though it
would have drawn them back again to the prison from whence they had
so miraculously escaped.




CHAPTER I

THE PACTOLUS CLAIM


In the early days of Australia, when the gold fever was at its
height, and the marvellous Melbourne of to-day was more like an
enlarged camp than anything else, there was a man called Robert
Curtis, who arrived in the new land of Ophir with many others to
seek his fortune. Mr Curtis was of good family, but having been
expelled from Oxford for holding certain unorthodox opinions quite
at variance with the accepted theological tenets of the University,
he had added to his crime by marrying a pretty girl, whose face was
her fortune, and who was born, as the story books say, of poor but
honest parents. Poverty and honesty, however, were not sufficient
recommendations in the eyes of Mr Curtis, senior, to excuse such a
match; so he promptly followed the precedent set by Oxford, and
expelled his son from the family circle. That young gentleman and
his wife came out to Australia filled with ambitious dreams of
acquiring a fortune, and then of returning to heap coals of fire on
the heads of those who had turned them out.

These dreams, however, were destined never to be realised, for
within a year after their arrival in Melbourne Mrs Curtis died
giving birth to a little girl, and Robert Curtis found himself once
more alone in the world with the encumbrance of a small child. He,
however, was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, and did not
show much outward grief, though, no doubt, he sorrowed deeply enough
for the loss of the pretty girl for whom he had sacrificed so much.
At all events, he made up his mind at once what to do: so, placing
his child under the care of an old lady, he went to Ballarat, and
set to work to make his fortune.

While there his luck became proverbial, and he soon found himself a
rich man; but this did not satisfy him, for, being of a far-seeing
nature, he saw the important part Australia would play in the
world's history. So with the gold won by his pick he bought land
everywhere, and especially in Melbourne, which was even then
becoming metropolitan. After fifteen years of a varied life he
returned to Melbourne to settle down, and found that his daughter
had grown up to be a charming young girl, the very image of his late
wife. Curtis built a house, went in for politics, and soon became a
famous man in his adopted country. He settled a large sum of money
on his daughter absolutely, which no one, not even her future
husband, could touch, and introduced her to society.

Miss Curtis became the belle of Melbourne, and her charming face,
together with the more substantial beauties of wealth, soon brought
crowds of suitors around her. Her father, however, determined to
find a husband for her whom he could trust, and was looking for one
when he suddenly died of heart disease, leaving his daughter an
orphan and a wealthy woman.

After Mr Curtis had been buried by the side of his dead wife, the
heiress went home to her richly-furnished house, and after passing a
certain period in mourning, engaged a companion, and once more took
her position in society.

Her suitors--numerous and persistent as those of Penelope--soon
returned to her feet, and she found she could choose a husband from
men of all kinds--rich and poor, handsome and ugly, old and young.
One of these, a penniless young Englishman, called Randolph
Villiers, payed her such marked attention, that in the end Miss
Curtis, contrary to the wishes of her friends, married him.

Mr Villiers had a handsome face and figure, a varied and extensive
wardrobe, and a bad character. He, however, suppressed his real
tastes until he became the husband of Miss Curtis, and holder of the
purse--for such was the love his wife bore him that she
unhesitatingly gave him full control of all her property, excepting
that which was settled on herself by her father, which was, of
course, beyond marital control. In vain her friends urged some
settlement should be made before marriage. Miss Curtis argued that
to take any steps to protect her fortune would show a want of faith
in the honesty of the man she loved, so went to the altar and
reversed the marriage service by endowing Mr Randolph Villiers with
all her worldly goods.

The result of this blind confidence justified the warnings of her
friends--for as soon as Villiers found himself in full possession of
his wife's fortune, he immediately proceeded to spend all the money
he could lay his hands on. He gambled away large sums at his club,
betted extensively on the turf, kept open house, and finally became
entangled with a lady whose looks were much better than her morals,
and whose capacity for spending money so far exceeded his own that
in two years she completely ruined him. Mrs Villiers put up with
this conduct for some time, as she was too proud to acknowledge she
had made a mistake in her choice of a husband; but when Villiers,
after spending all her wealth in riotous living, actually proceeded
to ill-treat her in order to force her to give up the money her
father had settled on her, she rebelled. She tore off her wedding-
ring, threw it at his feet, renounced his name, and went off to
Ballarat with her old nurse and the remnants of her fortune.

Mr Villiers, however, was not displeased at this step; in fact, he
was rather glad to get rid of a wife who could no longer supply him
with money, and whose presence was a constant rebuke. He sold up the
house and furniture, and converted all available property into cash,
which cash he then converted into drink for himself and jewellery
for his lady friend. The end soon came to the fresh supply of money,
and his lady friend went off with his dearest companion, to whose
purse she had taken a sudden liking. Villiers, deserted by all his
acquaintances, sank lower and lower in the social scale, and the
once brilliant butterfly of fashion became a billiard marker, then a
tout at races, and finally a bar loafer with no visible means of
support.

Meantime Mrs Villiers was prospering in Ballarat, and gaining the
respect and good opinion of everyone, while her husband was earning
the contempt of not only his former friends but even of the
creatures with whom he now associated. When Mrs Villiers went up to
Ballarat after her short but brilliant life in Melbourne she felt
crushed. She had given all the wealth of her girlish affection to
her husband, and had endowed him with all kinds of chivalrous
attributes, only to find out, as many a woman has done before and
since, that her idol had feet of clay. The sudden shock of the
discovery of his baseness altered the whole of her life, and from
being a bright, trustful girl, she became a cold suspicious woman
who disbelieved in everyone and in everything.

But she was of too restless and ambitious a nature to be content
with an idle life, and although the money she still possessed was
sufficient to support her in comfort, yet she felt that she must do
something, if only to keep her thoughts from dwelling on those
bitter years of married life. The most obvious thing to do in
Ballarat was to go in for gold-mining, and chance having thrown in
her way a mate of her father's, she determined to devote herself to
that, being influenced in her decision by the old digger. This man,
by name Archibald McIntosh, was a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman, who
had been in Ballarat when the diggings were in the height of their
fame, and who knew all about the lie of the country and where the
richest leads had been in the old days. He told Mrs Villiers that
her father and himself had worked together on a lead then known as
the Devil's Lead, which was one of the richest ever discovered in
the district. It had been found by five men, who had agreed with one
another to keep silent as to the richness of the lead, and were
rapidly making their fortunes when the troubles of the Eureka
stockade intervened, and, in the encounter between the miners and
the military, three of the company working the lead were killed, and
only two men were left who knew the whereabouts of the claim and the
value of it. These were McIntosh and Curtis, who were the original
holders. Mr Curtis, went down to Melbourne, and, as previously
related, died of heart disease, so the only man left of the five who
had worked the lead was Archibald McIntosh. He had been too poor to
work it himself, and, having failed to induce any speculator to go
in with him to acquire the land, he had kept silent about it, only
staying up at Ballarat and guarding the claim lest someone else
should chance on it. Fortunately the place where it was situated had
not been renowned for gold in the early days, and it had passed into
the hands of a man who used it as pasture land, quite ignorant of
the wealth which lay beneath. When Mrs Villiers came up to Ballarat,
this man wanted to sell the land, as he was going to Europe; so,
acting under the urgent advice of McIntosh, she sold out of all the
investments which she had and purchased the whole tract of country
where the old miner assured her solemnly the Devil's Lead was to be
found.

Then she built a house near the mine, and taking her old nurse,
Selina Sprotts, and Archibald McIntosh to live with her, sank a
shaft in the place indicated by the latter. She also engaged miners,
and gave McIntosh full control over the mine, while she herself kept
the books, paid the accounts, and proved herself to be a first-class
woman of business. She had now been working the mine for two years,
but as yet had not been fortunate enough to strike the lead. The
gutter, however, proved remunerative enough to keep the mine going,
pay all the men, and support Mrs Villiers herself, so she was quite
content to wait till fortune should smile on her, and the long-
looked-for Devil's Lead turned up. People who had heard of her
taking the land were astonished at first, and disposed to scoff, but
they soon begun to admire the plucky way in which she fought down
her ill-luck for the first year of her venture. All at once matters
changed; she made a lucky speculation in the share market, and the
Pactolus claim began to pay. Mrs Villiers became mixed up in mining
matters, and bought and sold on 'Change with such foresight and
promptitude of action that she soon began to make a lot of money.
Stockbrokers are not, as a rule, romantic, but one of the fraternity
was so struck with her persistent good fortune that he christened
her Madame Midas, after that Greek King whose touch turned
everything into gold. This name tickled the fancy of others, and in
a short time she was called nothing but Madame Midas all over the
country, which title she accepted complacently enough as a forecast
of her success in finding the Devil's Lead, which idea had grown
into a mania with her as it already was with her faithful henchman,
McIntosh.

When Mr Villiers therefore arrived in Ballarat, he found his wife
universally respected and widely known as Madame Midas, so he went
to see her, expecting to be kept in luxurious ease for the rest of
his life. He soon, however, found himself mistaken, for his wife
told him plainly she would have nothing to do with him, and that if
he dared to show his face at the Pactolus claim she would have him
turned off by her men. He threatened to bring the law into force to
make her live with him, but she laughed in his face, and said she
would bring a divorce suit against him if he did so; and as Mr
Villiers' character could hardly bear the light of day, he
retreated, leaving Madame in full possession of the field.

He stayed, however, in Ballarat, and took up stockbroking--living a
kind of hand-to-mouth existence, bragging of his former splendour,
and swearing at his wife for what he was pleased to call--her
cruelty. Every now and then he would pay a visit to the Pactolus,
and try to see her, but McIntosh was a vigilant guard, and the
miserable creature was always compelled to go back to his Bohemian
life without accomplishing his object of getting money from the wife
he had deserted.