There was nothing to do but wait for Carver’s sentence to elapse. Ah Sook sailed to Victoria, and began to dig the ground; he acquired some facility in English, apprenticed himself to various trades, and dreamed, with increasing lucidity, of avenging his father’s murder by taking Carver’s life. In July 1864 he sent a written inquiry to Cockatoo Island requesting to know where Carver had gone upon his liberation. He received an answer three months later, informing him that Carver had sailed to Dunedin, New Zealand, upon the steamer Sparta. Ah Sook bought a ticket there also—and in Dunedin, the trail suddenly went cold. He searched and searched—and found nothing. At last, defeated, Ah Sook gave up the case as lost. He bought a miner’s right and a one-way ticket to the West Coast—where, eight months later, he chanced upon him: standing in the street, his face newly scarred, his chest newly thickened, counting coins into Te Rau Tauwhare’s hand.
Ah Sook found Ah Quee sitting cross-legged on a shelf of gravel, some few feet from the boundary peg that marked the Aurora’s southeast corner. The goldsmith held a prospector’s dish in both hands, and he was shaking the dish rhythmically, flicking out his wrists in the confident motion of a man long-practised in a single skill. There was a lit cigarette in the corner of his mouth, but he did not appear to be smoking it: the ash shredded finely down his tunic as he moved. Before him was a wooden trough of water, and beside him, an iron crucible with a flattened spout.
His rhythm followed a circular pattern. First he shook the largest stones and clods out of his dish, keeping to a persistent tempo, so that the finer sands tumbled, by degrees, to the bottom of the pan; then he leaned forward, dipped the far edge of the pan into the clouded water, and with a sharp movement tilted the pan back towards his body, swirling the liquid carefully clockwise, to create a vortex in the dish. Gold was heavier than stone, and sank to the bottom: once he skimmed the wet gravel from the surface, the pure metal would be left behind, shining wetly, tiny points of light against the dark. Ah Quee plucked out these glistering flakes with his fingers, and transferred them carefully to his crucible; he then refilled his dish with earth and stones, and repeated the procedure, with no variation whatsoever, until the sun sank below the treetops to the west.
The Aurora was a good distance from both the river and the sea, an inconvenience that accounted, in part, for its undesirability as a goldmine. It was necessary for Ah Quee to transport his own river water to the claim every morning, for without water, his task was all but impossible; once the water was clouded with dirt and silt, however, it was very hard to see the gold, and he was obliged to tramp back to the river, in order to fill his buckets again. A tailrace might have been constructed from the Hokitika River, or a shaft might have been dropped for a well, but the goldmine’s owner had made it clear from the outset that he would spare the Aurora no resources at all. There was no point. The two acres that comprised the Aurora was only barely payable ground: it was only a dull patch of stones, treeless. The tailing pile at Ah Quee’s back, testament to long hours of solitary industry, was long and low; a burial mound, under which no body had been interred.
Ah Quee looked up as Ah Sook approached.
‘Neih hou.’
‘Neih hou, neih hou.’
The two men regarded each other with neither hostility nor kindness, but the gaze they shared was long. After a moment Ah Quee plucked the last of the cigarette from his mouth, and flicked it away over the stones.
‘The yield is small today,’ he said in Cantonese.
‘A thousand sympathies,’ replied Ah Sook, speaking in his native language also.
‘The yield is small every day.’
‘You deserve better.’
‘Do I?’ said Ah Quee, who was in an irritable temper.
‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook. ‘Diligence deserves to be rewarded.’
‘In what proportion? And in what currency? These are empty words.’
Ah Sook placed the palms of his hands together. ‘I come bearing good news.’
‘Good news and flattery,’ Ah Quee observed.
The hatter took no notice of this correction. ‘Emery Staines has returned,’ he said.
Ah Quee stiffened. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You have seen him?’
‘Not yet,’ said Ah Sook. ‘I am told that he will be in Hokitika tonight, at a hotel upon Revell-street where a celebration has been planned to welcome his return. I have been invited, and as a gesture of my good faith, I extend my invitation to you.’
‘Who is your host?’
‘Anna Wetherell—and the widow of the dead man, Crosbie Wells.’
‘Two women,’ said Ah Quee, sceptically.
‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook. He hesitated, and then admitted what he had discovered that morning: that in fact Crosbie’s widow was the very same woman who had operated the White Horse Saloon in Darling Harbour, who had testified against Ah Sook at his own trial, and who had once been the lover of his enemy, Francis Carver. Formerly Lydia Greenway, her name was now Lydia Wells.
Ah Quee took a moment to digest this information. ‘This is a trap,’ he said at last.
‘No,’ said Ah Sook. ‘I came here of my own accord, not under instruction.’
‘This is a trap to capture you,’ said Ah Quee. ‘I am sure of it. Why else would your presence be so specifically requested at the celebration tonight? You have no connexion to Mr. Staines. What purpose can you serve, in a party to welcome his return?’
‘I am to play a part in a staged drama. I am to sit on a cushion, and pretend to be a statue.’ This sounded foolish even to Ah Sook. He rushed on: ‘It is a kind of theatre. I shall be paid a fee for my participation.’
‘You shall be paid?’
‘Yes; as a performer.’
Ah Quee studied him. ‘What if the woman Greenway is still in league with Francis Carver? They were lovers once. Perhaps she has already sent word to him, that you will be present at the party tonight.’
‘Carver is at sea.’
‘Even so, she will notify him as soon as she can.’
‘When that happens, I will be ready.’
‘How will you be ready?’
‘I will be ready,’ Ah Sook said, stubbornly. ‘It does not matter yet. Carver is at sea.’
‘The woman’s allegiance is with him—and you have sworn to avenge yourself upon him, as she must remember. She cannot wish you well.’
‘I will be on my guard.’
Ah Quee sighed. He stood, brushing himself down, and then he paused, inhaling sharply through his nose. He advanced several steps upon Ah Sook, and gripped his shoulders in both hands.
‘You reek with it,’ he said. ‘You are reeling on your feet, Sook Yongsheng. I can smell the stink of it from twenty paces!’
Ah Sook had indeed detoured past his den at Kaniere, to smoke his late-afternoon pipe, of which the effects were very plainly visible; but he did not like to be chastised. He wrestled himself from Ah Quee’s grasp, saying sourly, ‘I have a weakness.’
‘A weakness!’ Ah Quee cried. He spat into the dirt. ‘It is not weakness: it is hypocrisy. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’