To an immoderate degree this thing agitated him--some whisper in the back of his head--some half-thought: he began now to root furiously, with a frowning intentness.

But suddenly he shuddered: a finger seemed to touch his shoulder behind; and he twisted with wild eyes, caught up the light, peered, saw no black man--nothing: but quite five minutes he stood defiant, with clenched fists; then resumed the work, though with a constant feeling now that he was being watched by the unseen seers.

After two new strokes he struck upon something hard, and, digging eagerly round it, found a quart-can, full of earth. And instantly all doubt vanished: for this must have been the beer-can carried by Bates.

Strong curiosity now wrought in Hogarth, a zeal to lay eyes upon that object which had careered through the heights of s.p.a.ce to find that beech-wood and that elm-tree; and during fifteen minutes his little implement digged with the quick-plying movement of a distaff-shuttle, he fighting for breath, anon casting a flying wild glance behind, but still digging.

Now, frequently, he came upon burned objects, twigs, cinders. Even the marl had a scorched look; and his agitation grew to ecstasy.

Something very singular had happened to his mind with regard to this "affair" of Bates: Bates had said that it had fallen on the asteroid night; and O'Hara had told him--falsely, indeed--that a piece of the asteroid, fallen upon the French coast, had had diamonds; yet, somehow, never once had his mind a.s.sociated the Fred Bates "affair" with the thought of diamonds, but only with the "thousand pounds" which Bates had been promised by old Bond. So at the moment when he had begun to dig, his whole thought was of "a thousand pounds"; but, somehow, by the time his implement at last grated against something two feet down, that word "diamonds" had grown up in his brain.

But diamonds! In the midst of his shovelling the thought flashed through him: "The world is G.o.d's! and to whom He wills He gives it...."

Now at last the thing lay definitely before him: he grated the spade from end to end, sc.r.a.ping away the marl; and it was very rough....

The size and shape of a man's leg, and red, anyway in the red lantern-shine--his sight dim--he moved and saw in an improbable dream; and when he tried to lift the object and failed, for a long time he sat on the edge of the trench, pa.s.sing one palm across and across his forehead, till the lantern-light leapt, and went out.

He sprang upright then--awake, sure: they were diamonds, those bits of gla.s.s, big celestial ones, not of earth, in hundreds; when he pa.s.sed his hand along the meteorite he felt it leprous, octahedron, dodecahedron, large and small: if they were truly diamonds, he divined that their owner must be as wealthy as some nations.

About three in the morning he managed to raise the meteorite; refilled the trench; and since it still rained, rolled the meteorite to the hollow of the elm, put on his caftan, and with his back on the interior of the tree, his feet on the meteorite, tumbled into a wonderful slumber.

XXIV

FRANKL SEES THE METEORITE

He was awaked by a footstep, and, starting, saw rocking along the forest path one Farmer Pollock, wearing now fez and ta.s.sel, and he saw his clothes all clay, and, with a smile of fondness, saw how, even beneath its grime, the meteor dodged and jeered, with frolic leers, in the beams of a bright morning that seemed to him the primal morning, a fresh wedding-morning, swarming with elves and sh.e.l.l-tinted visions, imps and pixy princes, profligate Golcondas.

Going first to the spot where he had digged, to give to the surface a natural look, he trampled the lantern into the mire, threw the tin can far, then, taking a quant.i.ty of marl, plastered the meteorite, to cover its roughness; then boldly left it, starting out with consummate audacity for Thring, where everybody, police and all, knew him well.

A singular light now in his eyes, an evil pride; and he had the step of a Prince in Prettyland. Corresponding to an inward majesty, of which, from youth, he had been conscious, he now felt an outward, and had not been awake eight minutes when his brain was invaded by plans--plans of debauchery, palaces, orgy, flying beds of ivory arabesqued in fan-traceries of sapphire, in which Rebekah Frankl lolled, and smiled; and on toward Thring he stepped, prince new-crowned, yet by old heredity, high exalted above laws, government, and the entire little muck of Man.

At one point where the path ran close to Westring-park proper, the park on higher ground, a gra.s.s-bank seven feet high dividing them, he saw a-top of the bank in caftan, priest-cap, and phylacteries, taking snuff--Baruch Frankl.

Hogarth skipped up, and stood before the Jew, having drawn his face-cloth well forward.

"What's the row?" asked Frankl.

"Could you give a poor man a job?"

"You a Jew?"

"Yes", replied Hogarth, not dreaming how truly: "London born".

"A Froom?"

"I keep the fasts".

"What you doing about here?"

"Tramping".

"Fine mess you are in".

"I slept in a hollow tree down yonder--an elm tree".

"Well, there's many a worse shake-down than that. Who are you? Ever been about here before?"

"I was once".

"You put me in mind of an old chum of mine....Well, here's half-a-crown for you to go on with".

"Make it a crown", said Hogarth, "and get me to clean up down there; in a shocking state with mast and leaves".

Frankl considered. "All right, I don't mind".

"I shall want a spade, and--a barrow".

"Go down the path yonder, till you come to the stables, and tell them".

Frankl resumed his musing stroll, and Hogarth ran for the barrow.

In twenty minutes he was again at the elm tree, and, with a scheme in him for seeing Rebekah, heaped the barrow with refuse, pushed it between a beck and the wood, till, wearying of this, he was about to get the meteorite into the barrow, when he had the mad thought that Frankl must be made to see and touch it, so set off to seek him: and a few yards brought him face to face with Frankl.

"Well, how goes it?" asked the Jew.

"There is a weight there which I can't lift", said Hogarth. "Then you must do the other thing. Don't lift it, and you don't get the pay. What weight is it?"

"It is here".

Hogarth led him, led him, pointing. Frankl kicked the meteorite.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It can't be a branch", said Hogarth; "too heavy--more like a piece of old iron".

"Well, slip into it. A strapping fellow like you ought to be able to do that bit".

"But suppose it's valuable?"

"I make you a present of it, as you are so hard up".

Now Hogarth, by tilting the barrow, with strong effort of four limbs, got the meteorite lodged, while Frankl, his smile lifting the wrinkles above his thick moustache, watched the strain: then, with arms behind, went his contemplative way.

Hogarth rolled the barrow toward Thring.