Basil: "I am devoured by thirst. Can you manage to get a drink of water to me?"
Chaytor: "I can do that; but you must have patience. I shall have to go back to the township to get a bottle and some string. Shall I go?"
Basil: "Yes, yes. Be as quick as you can."
Chaytor: "I won't be a moment longer than I can help."
Then there was silence. Chaytor departed on his errand, and Basil was left to himself. His right arm was bruised and sore, but he contrived to feel in his pockets for matches. A box was there, but it was empty, and he remembered that he had struck the last one at the end of his long ride from Bidaud's plantation, just before he arrived in Gum Flat. He knew, from feeling the opening of the adit, that it was likely he was not at the bottom of the shaft, and he was fearful of moving, lest he should fall into a pit. He thought of Newman Chaytor. "What a good fellow he is! I should be dead but for him. It is truly noble of him to stick to me as he is doing. He has nothing to gain by it, and he is saving my life. Yes, I will accept his proposal to go mates with him, for I have no place now on Bidaud's plantation. Poor Annette--poor child! I hope she will be happy. I hope her uncle and Aunt will be kind to her. I must see her again before I go for good, and then we shall never meet again, never, never! I would give the best twenty years of my life--if I am fated to live--to be her brother, with authority to protect her and shield her from Gilbert Bidaud. He is a villain, a smooth-tongued villain, a thousand times worse than these scoundrels who have robbed me and brought me to this. What will Old Corrie say when he hears I have lost his mare? Will he think I am lying--will he think I have sold his horse and pocketed the money? If so, and it gets to Annette's ears, how she will despise me! I must see her, I must, to clear myself. Gilbert Bidaud will do all he can to prevent it, and he may succeed; but I will try, I will try. If I had a hundred pounds I would buy another horse for Old Corrie, a better one than that I have lost, but I haven't a shilling. A sorry plight. There is only one human being in the world I can call a friend, and that is Mr. Chaytor, who has taken such a strange fancy for me. Yesterday there was Old Corrie, there was Anthony Bidaud, there was Annette. One is dead, the others may cast me off, It is a cruel world. How long Mr. Chaytor is! It seems an age. Shame on you, Basil, for reviling! There is goodness, there is sweetness, there is faithfulness in the world. Don't whine, old man. All may yet be well, though for the life of me I can't see how it is to be brought about."
Then he fainted, but only for a few seconds; when he opened his eyes again he thought hours must have elapsed.
In truth Chaytor was absent no longer than was necessary, but he was also mentally busy with the adventures of the last few hours. The man whose phantom shadow had haunted him in London was now at his mercy. Basil's life was absolutely at his disposal. To leave him where he was in that desolate spot at the bottom of a deserted shaft would be to ensure for him a sure and certain death, and if he wished to make assurance doubly sure, all he had to do would be to roll a great stone upon him. But that would be a crime, and, hardened as he was, he shrank from committing it. Not from any impulse of mercy, but because he had nothing at present to gain from it. There was much to learn, much to do before he nerved himself to a desperate deed which, after all, might by some stroke of good fortune be unnecessary. And indeed it was only the accident which had befallen Basil that darkened his soul with cruel suggestion. The sleeping forces which lurk in the souls of such men as Newman Chaytor often leap into active life by some unfortuitous circumstance in which they have no direct hand.
He was back at the shaft, leaning over it, with a bottle of water not too tightly corked, to the neck of which was attached a long piece of cord.
"Are you there?" he called out.
"Heaven be thanked!" said Basil. "What a time you have been."