The Black Opal

A string of vehicles moved slowly out of the New Town, taking the road over the long, low slope of the Ridge to the plains.

Nothing was moving on the wide stretch of the plains or under the fine, clear blue sky of early spring, except this train of shabby, dust-covered vehicles. The road, no more than a track of wheels on shingly earth, wound lazily through paper daisies growing in drifts beside it, and throwing a white coverlet to the dim, circling horizon. The faint, dry fragrance of paper daisies was in the air; a native cuckoo calling.

The little girl sitting beside Michael Brady in Newton’s buggy glanced behind her now and then. Michael was driving the old black horse from the coach stables and Newton’s bay mare, and Sophie and her father were sitting beside him on the front seat. In the open back of the buggy behind them lay a long box with wreaths and bunches of paper daisies and budda blossoms over it.

Sophie knew all the people on the road, and to whom the horses and buggies they had borrowed belonged. Jun Johnson and Charley Heathfield were riding together in the Afghan storekeeper’s sulky with his fat white pony before them. Anwah Kaked and Mrs. Kaked had the store cart themselves. Watty and Mrs. Frost were on the coach. Ed Ventry was driving them and had put up the second seat for George and Mrs. Woods and Maggie Grant.

Catching sight of them, he had turned and come towards them.

“We’re on opal,” he cried; “on opal!”

There was a feverish light in his eyes; he was trembling with excitement.

He had pulled a small, washed oatmeal bag from his pocket, untied the string, tumbled some stones on to the outstretched palm of his hand, and held them for Potch to look at.

“Not a bad bit in the lot.⁠ ⁠… Look at the fire, there in the black potch!⁠ ⁠… And there’s green and gold for you. A lovely bit of pattern! And look at this⁠ ⁠… and this!” he cried eagerly, going over the two or three small knobbies in his hand.

Potch looked at him dazedly.

“Didn’t they tell you⁠—?” he began.

Her father had closed his hands over the stones and opal dirt.

“I’m going in now,” he said, thrusting the opals into the bag.

He had gone towards the house again, shouting: “We’re on opal! On opal!”

Sophie followed him indoors. Mrs. Grant had met her father on the threshold of the room where her mother was.

“Why didn’t you come when I sent for you?” she asked.

“I didn’t think it could be as bad as you made out⁠—that she was really dying,” Sophie could hear her father saying again. “And we’d just struck opal, me and Jun, struck it rich. Got two or three stones already⁠—great stuff, lovely pattern, green and orange, and fire all through the black potch. And there’s more of it! Heaps more where it came from, Jun says.

Michael was a few yards behind them and was just going to quicken his steps and hail Charley, when he saw the flash of white in Charley’s hand⁠—something small, rather longer than square, a cigarette box wrapped in newspaper, it might have been⁠—and Michael saw Charley drop it into the pocket of his coat.

Paul wandered on, talking stupidly, drowsily. He wanted to go to sleep there on the roadside; but Charley led him on.

“You’ll be better at home and in bed,” he said. “You’re nearly there now.”

Instinctively, with that flash of white, Michael had drawn into the shadow of the trees which fringed the track. Charley, glancing back along it, had not seen him. Several moments passed before Michael moved. He knew what had happened, but the revelation was such a shock that his brain would not react to it. Charley, his mate, Charley Heathfield had stolen Paul’s opals. The thing no man on the Ridge had attempted, notwithstanding its easiness, Charley had done. Although he had seen, Michael could scarcely believe that what he had seen, had happened.

The two men before him staggered and swayed together. Their huts stood only a few yards from each other, a little farther along the track.

Charley took Paul to the door of his hut, opened it and pushed him in. He stood beside the door, listening and looking down the track for a second longer.

In a vivid, circling flash, Michael’s inspiration came to him. He went across to his hut, lighted a candle when he got indoors, and took the black pannikin he kept odd pieces of opal in, from the top of a bookshelf. There was nothing of any great value in the pannikin⁠—a few pieces of coloured potch which would have made a packet for an opal-buyer when he came along, and a rather good piece of stone in the rough he had kept as a mascot for a number of years⁠—that was all. Michael turned them over. He went to the corner shelf and returned to the table with a cigarette box the same size as the one Rouminof had kept his opals in. Michael took a piece of soiled wadding from a drawer in the table, rolled the stones in it, and fitted them into the box. He wrapped the tin in a piece of newspaper and tied it with string. Then he blew out his candle and went out of doors again.

He made his way carefully over the shingles to Charley’s hut. When he reached it, he leaned against the wall, listening to hear whether Charley was still asleep. The sound of heavy breathing came slowly and regularly. Michael went to the back of the hut. There was no door to it. He went in, and slowly approached the chair in which Charley was sleeping.

He could never come to any clear understanding with himself as to how he had done what he did.

Sophie put out her hand, trembling, filled with childlike awe and emotion. She stretched her fingers. The stone weighed heavy and cold on them. Then there was a thin, silvery sound like the shivering of glass.⁠ ⁠… Her hand was light and empty. She stood staring at it for a moment; her eyes went to Potch’s face, aghast. The blood seemed to have left her body. She stood so with her hand out, her lips parted, her eyes wide.⁠ ⁠…

After a while she knew Potch was holding her, and that he was saying:

“It’s all right! It’s all right, Sophie!”

She could feel him, something to lean against, beside her. Michael lifted the candle. With strange intensity, as though she were dreaming, Sophie saw the men had fallen away from the table. All their faces were caricatures, distorted and ghastly; and they were looking at the floor near her. Sophie’s eyes went to the floor, too. She could see shattered stars⁠—red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst⁠—out across the earthen floor.

Michael put the candle on the floor. He and George Woods gathered them up. When Sophie looked up, the dark of the room swam with galaxies of those stars⁠—red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst.

She stood staring before her: she had lost the power to move or to think. After a while she knew that the men had gone from the room, and that Potch was still beside her, his eyes on her face. He had eyes only for her face: he had barely glanced at the floor, where infinitesimal specks of coloured light were still winking in the dust. He took her hands. Sophie heard him talking, although she did not know what he was saying.