A TALE OF THREE LIONS
Page: 6

earth with it, in the hope of finding the coin; but all in vain. At
last in sheer annoyance I struck the sharp end of the pickaxe down
into the soil, which was of a very hard nature. To my astonishment it
sunk in right up to the haft.

"'Why, Harry,' I said, 'this ground must have been disturbed!'

"'I don't think so, father,' he answered; 'but we will soon see,' and
he began to shovel out the soil with his hands. 'Oh,' he said
presently, 'it's only some old stones; the pick has gone down between
them, look!' and he began to pull at one of the stones.

"'I say, Dad,' he said presently, almost in a whisper, 'it's precious
heavy, feel it;' and he rose and gave me a round, brownish lump about
the size of a very large apple, which he was holding in both his
hands. I took it curiously and held it up to the light. It /was/ very
heavy. The moonlight fell upon its rough and filth-encrusted surface,
and as I looked, curious little thrills of excitement began to pass
through me. But I could not be sure.

"'Give me your knife, Harry,' I said.

"He did so, and resting the brown stone on my knee I scratched at its
surface. Great heavens, it was soft!

"Another second and the secret was out, we had found a great nugget of
pure gold, four pounds of it or more. 'It's gold, lad,' I said, 'it's
gold, or I'm a Dutchman!'

"Harry, with his eyes starting out of his head, glared down at the
gleaming yellow scratch that I had made upon the virgin metal, and
then burst out into yell upon yell of exultation, which went ringing
away across the silent claims like shrieks of somebody being murdered.

"'Be quiet!' I said; 'do you want every thief on the fields after
you?'

"Scarcely were the words out of my mouth when I heard a stealthy
footstep approaching. I promptly put the big nugget down and sat on
it, and uncommonly hard it was. As I did so I saw a lean dark face
poked over the edge of the claim and a pair of beady eyes searching us
out. I knew the face, it belonged to a man of very bad character known
as Handspike Tom, who had, I understood, been so named at the Diamond
Fields because he had murdered his mate with a handspike. He was now