Villiers thought a moment, then turned to go.

‘I’ll try,’ he said, as he went out of the door, ’but it’s no go, I tell you, she’s stone,’ and with a dismal nod he slouched away.

‘Stone, is she?’ cried the old man, pounding furiously on the floor with his wooden leg, ’then I’d smash her; I’d crush her; I’d grind her into little bits, damn her,’ and overcome by his rage, Slivers shook Billy off his shoulder and took a long drink.

Meanwhile Mr Villiers, dreading lest his courage should give way, went to the nearest hotel and drank pretty freely so that he might bring himself into an abnormal condition of bravery.  Thus primed, he went to the railway station, took the train to the Pactolus claim, and on arriving at the end of his journey had one final glass of whisky to steady his nerves.

The last straw, however, breaks the camel’s back, and this last drink reduced Mr Villiers to that mixed state which is known in colonial phrase as half-cocked.  He lurched out of the hotel, and went in the direction of the Pactolus claim.  His only difficulty was that, as a matter of fact, the solitary mound of white earth which marked the entrance to the mine, suddenly appeared before his eyes in a double condition, and he beheld two Pactolus claims, which curious optical delusion rather confused him, inasmuch as he was undecided to which he should go.

‘Itsh the drinksh,’ he said at length, stopping in the middle of the white dusty road, and looking preternaturally solemn; ’it maksh me see double:  if I see my wife, I’ll see two of her, then’—­with a drunken giggle—­’I’ll be a bigamist.’

This idea so tickled him, that he commenced to laugh, and, finding it inconvenient to do so on his legs, he sat down to indulge his humour freely.  A laughing jackass perched on the fence at the side of the road heard Mr Villiers’ hilarity, and, being of a convivial turn of mind itself, went off into fits of laughter also.  On hearing this echo Mr Villiers tried to get up, in order to punish the man who mocked him, but, though his intentions were good, his legs were unsteady, and after one or two ineffectual attempts to rise he gave it up as a bad job.  Then rolling himself a little to one side of the dusty white road, he went sound asleep, with his head resting on a tuft of green grass.  In his white linen suit he was hardly distinguishable in the fine white dust of the road, and though the sun blazed hotly down on him and the mosquitos stung him, yet he slept calmly on, and it was not till nearly four o’clock in the afternoon that he woke up.  He was more sober, but still not quite steady, being in that disagreeable temper to which some men are subject when suffering a recovery.  Rising to his feet, with a hearty curse, he picked up his hat and put it on; then, thrusting his hands into his pockets, he slouched slowly along, bent upon meeting his wife and picking a quarrel with her.