poke, his antagonist
threw him heavily back. I knew it was upon poor Williams, for a low
moan reached my ear, and I sprang forward just in time to intercept
the victor, who stumbled over me as he rushed out, and a heavy bag
rolled from him. The next moment the other was at my side, and I stood
face to face with the captain and his brother in the broad moonlight.
The bag for which they had sneaked, and sinned, and scuffled, had
burst by the fall, and its contents--stones, gravel, and sand, with
some small sparkles of gold-dust amongst them--were scattered at my
feet. Both stood stupefied, and I stepped into the hut; but Bill was
dead, and growing cold, with his stiff hands stretched out, as if
clutching at something, and a wild expression of pain and anger in the
ghastly face, which lay turned up to the moon. Her light filled the
hut, and lay upon plain, and tent, and river. It was a glorious night,
such as sometimes shines in the gold-country. I woke up my comrades,
and told them what I had seen, but they all said: 'Poor Bill! How
could they help it? and it was a good thing that the captain and his
chum had been disappointed;' upon which every man composed himself
again to sleep.

Next morning, the captain and mate were gone with all their traps,
having joined, as we afterwards heard, a company returning to San
Francisco. We laid Bill beside the gold-seekers who rested in the
coppice, and our company broke up, and scattered away: some settled at
San Francisco; some went to the United States; and I, having collected
through so many hardships almost a pound of dust, returned to the
employment I had left in London with such high contempt. From an old
comrade, however, still located at the diggings, I heard by letter
that a party of Americans had made a great discovery of gold among
some rocks in a creek of the Sacramento, and that they had found,
sticking fast in a crevice close by, a small spade marked with the
name of Bill Williams, which the poor fellow had cut on the handle, as
I well remembered, in one of his many idle hours. This explained to me
Bill's long absence when he went to look for the Indians, his
after-anxiety, and where he had been in the delirium of the fever,
filling up that canvas bag which so fatally deceived the captain and
his brother. The last I heard of these worthies was, that they had
gone to the diggings in Australia; and I never see gold in any shape
without a recollection of their disappointm