Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
Ryder knew now that his life depended upon the boy's fidelity, and that there was only one other person in the world upon whom he could rely in his extremity Jim Done. We left Done in a poor condition to help any man lying in Kyley's tent, enfeebled by sickness, clinging to Aurora's fingers as some sort of anchorage in a fragile world. When he awoke again Aurora was still by his side.
The mates continued to do well at Jim Crow, and Jim Done found himself growing tolerably rich without any marked gratification. He could not see what more gold could confer upon him. He was now a nightly visitor at Mrs. Ben Kyley's tent, but gambled with rather more spirit of late, and, finding himself a much less easy victim to Mary's rum, drank more than formerly.
'No, no; he'll not die easily he's tough stuff; but he's got two ugly wounds, and we'll have to handle him fine and gently. Pull yourself up, Aurora dear. She wound her strong arms fondly about the girl and kissed her cheek, and, with a restraining arm still about her, led her into the tent. Jim Done lay on Mary Kyley's comfortable white bed. His face was ghastly.
Ben Kyley became a favourite rendezvous. The girl's good looks and her good and Mrs. Kyley's own breezy, genial disposition, were sufficient to assure a large interest on the part of the men; but Aurora, in taking action against the troopers, had identified herself with the enemies of officialdom. Thenceforth she was a public character.
But ere this, and long before Jim Done was again conscious of the world about him, poor Mike Burton had been buried with the rest of the slain insurgents in a common grave. Fever supervened on Jim Done's injuries, and December passed as he lay helpless in Mary Kyley's tent, babbling of Chisley, of life on the Francis Cadman, and of Diamond Gully and Boobyalla.
A few blows, a scuffle, and then he was torn away. The next moment he found himself in Kyley's hands, and Aurora before him, her eyes flashing anger, her white teeth bared, her hands clenched exactly the termagant she had appeared on the night she confronted Quigley in her wrath; but to-night her fury was directed against him. 'How dare you interfere? she said.
A certain stage of intoxication an intoxication of the blood rather than the senses threw a roseate glamour over the gaieties of the shanty, and robbed him of that remaining reticence of manner and speech that would have kept him an observer rather than a participant. Police supervision was fitful and weak at Jim Crow, and there were wild nights at Mary Kyley's.
Better drop him the word, hadn't you? 'No. My sympathies are with the other man, and as he means something short of manslaughter, Stony can take his chances. It was not long after this that Jim encountered Stony in Mary Kyley's tent. He was drinking alone, and drinking with the feverish haste of a man who deliberately seeks intoxication.
You can get horses from Croker, but they'll cost you a bite. This was on Saturday. Jim was in Tarrangower an hour before noon on Sundays The first digger they met directed them to Mary Kyley's tent. Mary was busy preparing dinner, but dropped everything, and rushed at the visitors, half' smothering Jim in a motherly hug. 'Murder! you're looking peeky and thin, Jimmy! she cried.
Burton understood better later in the evening, when he saw Jim and Aurora sitting together at Kyley's in the dim corner furthest from the wide fireplace, and the Geordie touched him on the arm and jerked his thumb in their direction. 'She was down to your tent to see after her champion this mornin', he said. 'Spoils to the victor! said the Prodigal.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking