A Millionaire of Yesterday [72]
the eyes of all the natives. I believe they thought every moment that we should be struck dead, and they stood round in a ring, making an awful row, but they never dared interfere. He burnt the place to the ground, and then what do you think he did? From the King downward he made every Jack one of them come and work on his road. You'll never believe it, but it's perfectly true. They looked upon him as their conqueror, and they came like lambs when he ordered it. They think they're slaves you know, and don't understand their pay, but they get it every week and same as all the other labourers - and oh, Aunt Ernie, you should see the King work with a pickaxe! He is fat and so clumsy and so furiously angry, but he's too scared of Trent to do anything but obey orders, and there he works hour after hour, groaning, and the perspiration rolls off him as though he were in a Turkish bath. I could go on telling you odd things that happen here for hours, but I must finish soon as the chap is starting with the mail. I am enjoying it. It is something like life I can tell you, and aren't I lucky? Trent made me take Cathcart's place. I am getting 800 pounds a year, and only fancy it, he says he'll see that the directors make me a special grant. Everything looks very different here now, and I do hope the Company will be a success. There's whole heaps of mining machinery landed and waiting for the road to be finished to go up, and people seem to be streaming into the place. I wonder what Cathcart will say when he knows that the road is as good as done, and that I've got his job!
"Chap called for mail. Goodbye. "Ever your affectionate "FRED. "Trent is a brick."
Ernestine read the letter slowly, line by line, word by word. To tell the truth it was absorbingly interesting to her. Already there had come rumours of the daring and blunt, resistless force with which this new-made millionaire had confronted a gigantic task. His terse communications had found their way into the Press, and in them and in the boy's letter she seemed to discover something Caesaric. That night it was more than usually difficult for her to settle down to her own work. She read her nephew's letter more than once and continually she found her thoughts slipping away - traveling across the ocean to a tropical strip of country, where a heterogeneous crowd of men were toiling and digging under a blazing sun. And, continually too, she seemed to see a man's face looking steadily over the sea to her, as he stood upright for a moment and rested from his toil. She was very fond of the boy - but the face was not his!
CHAPTER XXXI
A special train from Southampton had just steamed into Waterloo with the passengers from the Royal Mail steamer Ophir. Little groups of sunburnt men were greeting old friends upon the platform, surrounded by piles of luggage, canvas trunks and steamer chairs. The demand for hansoms was brisk, cab after cab heavily loaded was rolling out of the yard. There were grizzled men and men of fair complexion, men in white helmets and puggarees, and men in silk hats. All sorts were represented there, from the successful diamond digger who was spasmodically embracing a lady in black jet of distinctly Jewish proclivities, to a sporting lord who had been killing lions. For a few minutes the platforms were given over altogether to a sort of pleasurable confusion, a vivid scene, full of colour and human interest. Then the people thinned away, and, very nearly last of all, a wizened-looking, grey-headed man, carrying a black bag and a parcel, left the platform with hesitating footsteps and turned towards the bridge. He was followed almost immediately by Hiram Da Souza, who, curiously enough, seemed to have been on the platform when the train came in and to have been much interested in this shabby, lonely old man, who carried himself like a waif stranded in an unknown land. Da Souza was gorgeous in frock coat and silk hat, a carnation in his
"Chap called for mail. Goodbye. "Ever your affectionate "FRED. "Trent is a brick."
Ernestine read the letter slowly, line by line, word by word. To tell the truth it was absorbingly interesting to her. Already there had come rumours of the daring and blunt, resistless force with which this new-made millionaire had confronted a gigantic task. His terse communications had found their way into the Press, and in them and in the boy's letter she seemed to discover something Caesaric. That night it was more than usually difficult for her to settle down to her own work. She read her nephew's letter more than once and continually she found her thoughts slipping away - traveling across the ocean to a tropical strip of country, where a heterogeneous crowd of men were toiling and digging under a blazing sun. And, continually too, she seemed to see a man's face looking steadily over the sea to her, as he stood upright for a moment and rested from his toil. She was very fond of the boy - but the face was not his!
CHAPTER XXXI
A special train from Southampton had just steamed into Waterloo with the passengers from the Royal Mail steamer Ophir. Little groups of sunburnt men were greeting old friends upon the platform, surrounded by piles of luggage, canvas trunks and steamer chairs. The demand for hansoms was brisk, cab after cab heavily loaded was rolling out of the yard. There were grizzled men and men of fair complexion, men in white helmets and puggarees, and men in silk hats. All sorts were represented there, from the successful diamond digger who was spasmodically embracing a lady in black jet of distinctly Jewish proclivities, to a sporting lord who had been killing lions. For a few minutes the platforms were given over altogether to a sort of pleasurable confusion, a vivid scene, full of colour and human interest. Then the people thinned away, and, very nearly last of all, a wizened-looking, grey-headed man, carrying a black bag and a parcel, left the platform with hesitating footsteps and turned towards the bridge. He was followed almost immediately by Hiram Da Souza, who, curiously enough, seemed to have been on the platform when the train came in and to have been much interested in this shabby, lonely old man, who carried himself like a waif stranded in an unknown land. Da Souza was gorgeous in frock coat and silk hat, a carnation in his