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Without a moment’s warning the treacherous bole slipped round; a small body bounded a couple of times against the sides of the shaft and fell at Mason’s feet, where it lay motionless!

“Mason!”

“Ay?”

“Put him in the bucket and lash him to the rope with your belt!”

A few moments, and–

“Now, Bob!”

Bob’s trembling hands would scarcely grasp the handle, but he managed to wind somehow.

Presently the form of the child appeared, motionless and covered with clay and water. Mason was climbing up by the steps in the side of the shaft.

Bob tenderly unlashed the boy and laid him under the saplings on the grass; then he wiped some of the clay and blood away from the child’s forehead, and dashed over him some muddy water.

Presently Isley gave a gasp and opened his eyes.

“Are yer–why–hurt much, Isley?” asked Bob.

“Ba-back’s bruk, Bob!”

“Not so bad as that, old man.”

“Where’s father?”

“Coming up.”

Silence awhile, and then–

“Father! father! be quick, father!”

Mason reached the surface and came and knelt by the other side of the boy.

“I’ll, I’ll–why–run fur some brandy,” said Bob.

“No use, Bob,” said Isley. “I’m all bruk up.”

“Don’t yer feel better, sonny?”

“No–I’m–goin’ to–die, Bob.”

“Don’t say it, Isley,” groaned Bob.

A short silence, and then the boy’s body suddenly twisted with pain. But it was soon over. He lay still awhile, and then said quietly:

“Good-bye, Bob!”

Bob made a vain attempt to speak. “Isley!” he said,”—“

The child turned and stretched out his hands to the silent, stony-faced man on the other side.

“Father–father, I’m goin’!”

A shuddering groan broke from Mason’s lips, and then all was quiet.

Bob had taken off his hat to wipe his, forehead, and his face, in spite of its disfigurement, was strangely like the face of the stone-like man opposite.

For a moment they looked at one another across the body of the child, and then Bob said quietly:

“He never knowed.”

“What does it matter?” said Mason gruffly; and, taking up the dead child, he walked towards the hut.

It was a very sad little group that gathered outside Mason’s but next morning. Martin’s wife had been there all the morning cleaning up and doing what she could. One of the women had torn up her husband’s only white shirt for a shroud, and they had made the little body look clean and even beautiful in the wretched little hut.

One after another the fossickers took off their hats and entered, stooping through the low door. Mason sat silently at the foot of the bunk with his head supported by his hand, and watched the men with a strange, abstracted air.

Bob had ransacked the camp in search of some boards for a coffin.

“It will be the last I’ll be able to–why–do for him,” he said.

At last he came to Mrs Martin in despair. That lady took him into the dining-room, and pointed to a large pine table, of which she was very proud.

“Knock that table to pieces,” she said.

Taking off the few things that were lying on it, Bob turned it over and began to knock the top off.

When he had finished the coffin one of the fossicker’s wives said it looked too bare, and she ripped up her black riding-skirt, and made Bob tack the cloth over the coffin.

There was only one vehicle available in the place, and that was Martin’s old dray; so about two o’clock Pat Martin attached his old horse Dublin to the shafts with sundry bits of harness and plenty of old rope, and dragged Dublin, dray and all, across to Mason’s hut.

The little coffin was carried out, and two gin-cases were placed by its side in the dray to serve as seats for Mrs Martin and Mrs Grimshaw, who mounted in tearful silence.

Pat Martin felt for his pipe, but remembered himself and mounted on the shaft. Mason fastened up the door of the hut with a padlock. A couple of blows on one of his sharp points roused Dublin from his reverie. With a lurch to the right and another to the left he started, and presently the little funeral disappeared down the road that led to the “town” and its cemetery.