"I want to ask a particular favour of you," I said. "I want you to tell me all you know about the Reverend Colway-Brown."
"The man we were speaking of just now?" Birch asked, with an expression of surprise; "the only survivor from the wreck?"
"Exactly," I answered. "My friend here is very much interested in him, and is most anxious to find him."
"In that case I am afraid you have come too late," Birch replied. "He left for Brisbane last week in the Oodnadatta. He wanted to get back to Sydney, he said, as soon as possible. We took up a collection for him, and the steamship company granted him a free passage South. I reckon the poor chap wanted it, for he'd lost everything he possessed in the world, and came out of that wreck just as near stone broke as a man could well be."
"Feeling pretty miserable, too, I don't doubt," I said.
"Miserable is no word for it," he answered; "you never saw such a doleful chap, nor I'll be bound one half so frightened, in your life. All the time he was in this house he was just ready to jump away from his own shadow at a moment's notice. As nervous and timid as a baby. Couldn't bear to be left by himself, and yet as unsociable as could be when you were with him. Small wonder, say I, when you come to think of what he had been through. It's a mystery to me how he came out of it alive."
"Did he tell you much about it while he was here?" inquired Leversidge. "I suppose he gave you his experiences in detail?"
"That's just the funny part of it," Birch replied. "Do what you would you could not get that poor chap to talk about 'that terrible night,' as he called it. On any other subject he could be interesting enough when he liked, but directly you began to question him about the wreck or anything connected with the vessel, he would put his hands up to his eyes and shudder as if he saw the whole thing happening over again. For my own part I don't think he'll ever be able to forget it. It will be a nightmare to him as long as he lives."
"So I should imagine," said Leversidge, with such unusual emphasis that our host, who was in the act of pouring us out some refreshment, paused and looked at him in surprise.
I hastened to continue the conversation. "Poor chap!" I said; "from all accounts he must have stood pretty close to death that night. Now what we are trying to do is to find him. You say he went South last week in the Oodnadatta, intending to bring up in Sydney. You don't happen to know what his address is there, do you? It is of the utmost importance to us that we should find him with as little delay as possible."