MOON IN LEO, NEW
In which Mannering, driving Anna Wetherell to Kaniere, perceives in her a new quality, a hardness, a kind of distance; an observation that moves him, internally, to pity, though when he speaks, some three miles after this observation is first made, it is not to console her, the intervening miles having wrought in him a hardness of his own.
‘Misery won’t do. Misery is bad for business, whatever the business. A man won’t bet on it, and a man won’t bet against it—and it has to be one or the other, you see, in our line of work. Do you see?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘I see.’
He was driving her to Chinatown, where Ah Sook was waiting with his resin and his pipe.
‘I’ve never had a girl murdered, and I’ve never had a girl beat,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘So you can trust me,’ he said.
SUN IN LEO
In which Staines confides in Mannering to the extent that he admits regret in having entered into a sponsorship agreement with Mr. Francis Carver, explaining that the initial opinion that he, Staines, formed of Carver’s character and history was and is grievously in error, his opinion now being that Carver is a villain of the first degree, and one not at all deserving of good fortune; to which Mannering, chuckling slightly, proposes a somewhat thrilling, because dastardly, solution.
‘There’s only one true crime upon a goldfield,’ said Mannering to Staines as they stamped through the undergrowth towards the southern edge of the Aurora claim. ‘Don’t you bother your head about murder, or theft, or treason. No: it’s fraud that’s the crime of crimes. Making sport of a digger’s hopes, you see, and a digger’s hopes are all he has. Digger fraud has two varieties. Salting a claim is the first. Crying a duffer is the second.’
‘Which is considered to be the more grievous?’
‘Depends on what you call grievous,’ said Mannering, swiping away a vine. ‘Salt a claim and get caught, you might get murdered in your bed; cry a duffer and get caught, you’re liable to get lynched. Cold-blooded, hot- blooded. That’s your choice.’
Staines smiled. ‘Am I to do business with a cold-blooded man?’
‘You can decide for yourself,’ said Mannering, throwing out his arm. ‘Here it is: the Aurora.’
‘Ah,’ said Staines, stopping also. They were both panting slightly from the walk. ‘Well—very good.’
They surveyed the land together. Staines perceived a Chinese man, squatting some thirty yards distant, his panning dish loose in his hands.
‘What’s the opposite of a homeward-bounder?’ said Mannering presently. ‘A never-going-homer? A stick-it- to-Mr.-Carver?’
‘Who’s that?’ said Staines.
‘That’s Quee,’ said Mannering. ‘He’ll stay on.’
Staines dropped his voice. ‘Does he know?’
Mannering laughed. ‘“Does he know?” What have I just told you? I’m not keen on getting murdered in my bed, thank you.’
‘He must think this a terribly poor enterprise.’
‘I haven’t the first idea what that man thinks,’ said Mannering, scornfully.
ANOTHER KIND OF DAWN
In which Ah Quee, placing his hands upon the armoured curve of Anna’s bodice, makes a curious discovery, the full significance of which he will not appreciate until eight days later, when the complete rotation of Anna’s four muslin gowns has given him a mental estimation of the extent of the riches they contain, excluding, of course, the dust contained within the gown of orange silk, which Anna never wears to Kaniere.
Anna lay perfectly still, her eyes closed, as Ah Quee ran his hands over her gown. He tapped every part of her corset with his fingers; he traced each flounce; he picked up the weighted hem and poured the fabric through his hands. His methodical touch seemed to anchor her in time and space; she felt that it was imperative that he touched every part of the garment before he touched her, and this certainty filled her with a lucid, powerful calm. When he slid his arm beneath her shoulders to roll her over, she complied without a sound, bringing her limp hands up to her mouth, like a baby, and turning her face towards his chest.
PART NINE
Mutable Earth
MOON IN VIRGO, CRESCENT
In which Ah Quee fills his firebox with charcoal, meaning to smelt the last of the dust excavated from Anna’s gown, and to inscribe the smelted bars with the name of the goldmine to which he is indentured, the Aurora; and Anna, as she sleeps, mutters syllables of distress, and moves her hand to her cheek, as if intending to staunch a wound.
When Anna woke, it was morning. Ah Quee had moved her to the corner of his hut. He had placed a folded blanket beneath her cheek, and had covered her with a woollen cape, his own. She knew upon waking that she had been talking in her sleep, for she felt flushed and disturbed, and much too hot; her hair was damp. Ah Quee had not yet noticed that she had woken. She lay still and watched him as he fussed over his breakfast, and examined his fingernails, and nodded, and hummed, and bent to rake the coals.
