“Oh yes, I can do lots of odds and ends; I’m what you may call Jack-of-all-trades, and master of none!”
“Nonsense, I consider you most capable; especially with your hands. Now let us go over the map, and discuss your future field. America—well, they are so very clever over there themselves, no use trying that! India—no—mother’s uncle was there forty years, and only brought home some elephant tusks! Australia—too far from me. South Africa—the gold and diamond mines, there you are!”
And South Africa it was! For more than two years Jack Truman strove hard to accomplish his task. He saw many different phases of life, and if he had not gained a fortune, he had acquired experience, self-confidence, and a splendid physique. He had, of course, visited the Kimberley mines, been a barman in Johannesburg, and, in the intervals of dire poverty, tutor on a Dutch farm, and driver of an electric tram; but he resolutely set his face against work on the railway, or in the police, “steady regular employment open to respectable young men.” No, he wanted no permanent billet, he was looking for a big coup—and the big coup invariably eluded him. For instance, he purchased with all his savings a fine stone from a simple-looking Kaffir boy, and the splendid diamond proved to be pure glass. His next accumulation he gambled and lost; he caught enteric, and was laid up at Durban for three months. From Durban, he somehow drifted to Zanzibar, from Zanzibar to Suakim, and now despair began to lay hold of him, for but four months longer remained, and although he had toiled, and striven his utmost, he was no nearer that great prize than when he started. In Suakim he happened to encounter a naval officer—an old schoolfellow—to whom he imparted his story, and who listened with open-mouthed interest.
“Sounds like an Arabian Night’s tale!” he exclaimed, “but I say, old chap, I believe I could put you on to a good thing. If it comes off—I’ll be your best man.”
“You will be the best man I’ve ever met, if you put me on to that good job. I don’t care what it is.”
“Then listen. I know you don’t mind roughing it, and have got a level head, are a fair shot with a revolver, and don’t drink.”
“No; get along, Bobby.”
“You may have heard of the wreck of the Mangalore passenger steamer in the Red Sea?”
“Not I.”
“It only happened a month ago. She was bound from Marseilles to Singapore, and ran on something about seventy miles below here—and lies a total wreck.”