At four o'clock on Tuesday morning, we were commanded to fall in, dressed
and hobbled as we were. Captain Thomas, with the tone and voice of a
country parson, read to us his 'Order of the day,' to the effect that we
were now under his charge for our transit to Melbourne; that if any of us
stirred a finger, or moved a lip - especially across the diggings - his
orders were that the transgressor should be shot on the spot. This
arrangement, so Austrian-like, and therefore unworthy of a British officer,
did not frighten us, and I cried, loud enough, "God save the Queen!"
Inspector Foster sprang up to me with his hopping leg, put on me tighter
darbies, and together with the mulatto-rebel put us in front of the cart,
giving strict orders to shoot us both down if we attempted to turn our
heads. 'Veritatem dico, non mentior'; and so Messrs, Haynau, Jellachich,
and Co., from that morning my hatred for you is on the decline.
They rode us through the main road as fast is it was safe for the
preservation of our necks - the only thing they wanted to preserve
inviolate for head-quarters.
Though it was clear daylight, yet I did see only one digger on the whole
of the main road.
On passing through the Eureka, I got a glance of my snug little tent,
where I had passed so many happy hours, and was sacred to me on a Sunday.
There it lay deserted, uncared for! My eyes were choked with tears,
and at forty years of age a man does not cry for little.
Chapter LXXIV
Della Vita Lo Spello Dal Mondo Sciolto,
Al Mondo Vivo Perche Non Son Sepolto.
We were soon in Ballan. Good reader, please enter now within my mind.
The lesson, if read, learned, and inwardly digested, will be of good use
for the future. The troubles of this colony have begun.
It is eight o'clock of a fine morning; the spring season is in its full:
the sun in his splendour is all there on the blue sky. Nature all around
is life. The landscape is superb. It reminded me 'della Bella Cara
Itallia'. The bush around was crammed with parrots, crows, and other
chattering birds of the south. They were not prevented from singing
praises each in its own language to the Creator, and all was joy and
happiness with them. Unfortunately those lands lay uncultivated by the
hand of man; but were not left idle by nature. Lively, pretty little
flowers of the finest blue, teemed here, there, and everywhere, through
the splendid grass, wafed to and fro by a gentle wind.
Look now at the foot of the picture.
There were thirteen of us all healthy, honest, able-bodied men, chained
together on three carts. A dozen of dragoons, strong, sound-looking men,
were riding on horseback as sharp-shooters, in all directions, before our
carts in the bush.
