"They are hard men to kill," said Emanuel. "McGregor says, when ashore one day at D'Umber, there was a chicken-shooting match. The chickens were buried in the ground all but their heads, and the people were shooting at ten paces when these men passed. They asked about it, and asked if they might shoot with their own pistols; and when permission was given, they drew their weapons and killed six chickens each in a minute, and were laughing all the time as though it were nothing. They are devils, shure enough."
"Do you think Browning knew all about this from the first?" asked Hamlin.
"Not at all," said Emanuel. "No one in London knew where the Americans had gone, except his wife. Browning thought he had gone back to America. His wife knew. She got a dispatch from Australia, and letters from Port Natal ze same day, saying he was going to San Francisco to order machinery, and would return this way and be with her in four months, and then she left at once and beat him a week into San Francisco.
"And I am ruined. My little stock is all gone. A mine worth £2,000,000 I sold for £2,000." And he went out.
"What can we do?" asked Jenvie. "I expect a notice every moment to call at the broker's and settle."
"Can we not assign our property?" asked Hamlin.
"We could," said Jenvie, "but to-morrow we should all be looking through the bars of a prison."
"And even Grace was in the conspiracy to rob us," said Hamlin, in an injured tone.
"She is a brave, true woman, I think," said Jenvie, "and as it looks to me, she is the only one to whom we can now appeal."
"May be so," said Hamlin. "Her husband worships her, I am told."