The Black Opal by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Opal mines and mining -- Australia -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2021-03-21T16:58:09+00:00

III

Lying under the coolebah at midday, after they had been burrowing from the shaft for about a week, and Michael was talking of clearing mullock from the drives, Potch said:

“I’m going to sink another hole, Michael—higher up.”

Michael glanced at him. It was unusual for Potch to put a thing in that way, without a by-your-leave, or feeler for advice, or permission; but he was not disturbed by his doing so.

“Right,” he said; “you sink another hole, Potch. I’ll stick to this one for a bit.”

Potch began to break earth again next morning. He chose his site carefully, to the right of the one he had been working on, and all the morning he swung his heavy pick and shovelled earth from the shaft he was making. He worked slowly, doggedly. When he came on sandstone he had been three weeks on the job.

“Ought to be near bottoming, Potch,” Roy remarked one day towards the end of the three weeks.

“Be there today,” Potch said.

Paul buzzed about the top of the hole, unable to suppress his impatience, and calling down the shaft now and then.

Potch believed so in this claim of his that his belief had raised a certain amount of expectation. His report, too, was going to make considerable difference to the field. The Crosses had done pretty well: they had cut out a pocket worth £400 as a result of their sinking, and it remained to be seen what Potch’s new hole would bring. A good prospect would make the new field, it was reckoned.

Potch’s prospect was disappointing, however, and of no sensational value when he did bottom; but after a few days he came on a streak or two of promising colours, and Michael left the first shaft they had sunk on the coolebah to work with Potch in the new mine.

They had been on the new claim, with nothing to show for their pains, for nearly two months, the afternoon Potch, who had been shifting opal dirt of a dark strain below the steel band on the south side of the mine, uttered a low cry.

“Michael,” he called.

Michael, gouging in a drive a few yards away, knew the meaning of that joyous vibration in a man’s voice. He stumbled out of the drive and went to Potch.

Potch was holding his spider off from a surface of opal his pick had clipped. It glittered, an eye of jet, with every light and star of red, green, gold, blue, and amethyst, leaping, dancing, and quivering together in the red earth of the mine. Michael swore reverently when he saw it. Potch moved his candle before the chipped corner of the stones which he had worked round sufficiently to show that a knobby of some size was embedded in the wall of the mine.

“Looks a beaut, doesn’t she, Michael?” he gasped.

Michael breathed hard.

“By God—” he murmured.

Paul, hearing the murmur of their voices, joined them.

He screamed when he saw the stone.

“I knew!” he yelled. “I knew we’d strike it here.”

“Well, stand back while I get her out,” Potch cried.

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