Austin made a little sign of comprehension. "I don't remember what I promised them. I had trouble to get them, but I certainly told them the place wasn't a healthy one. That, however, doesn't convey a very sufficient impression to anybody who hasn't been here."
"No," and Jefferson smiled grimly, "I don't quite think it does. The point is that you feel yourself responsible to them, though I don't see why you should. A man has to take his chances when he makes a bargain of the kind they did."
Austin stretched himself on the settee wearily, and lighted a cigarette. He had been feeling unpleasantly limp of late, and his head and back ached that night.
"It's a little difficult to define what a bargain really is," he said. "Still, it seems to me that to make it a just one the contracting parties should clearly understand, one what he is selling, and the other what he is buying. In the case in question I knew what I was getting, but I'm far from sure the Canarios quite realised what they might have to part with."
"That is not the business view."
"I am willing to admit it. I, however, can't help fancying that there is a certain responsibility attached to buying up men's lives for a few dollars when they're under the impression that it's their labour they're selling. In fact, it's one that is a little too big for me."
Jefferson sat silent for almost a minute, looking at Austin, who met his gaze steadily, with his eyes half closed.
"Well," he said, "it isn't the usual view, but there's something to be said for it. What d'you mean to do?"
"Put the sick men on board the launch and run them out to sea on the chance of picking up a West-coast liner, or—and it might suit just as well—one of the new opposition boats. From what I gathered at Las Palmas, the men who run them are, for the most part, rather a hard-up crowd, and you're usually more likely to get a kindness done you by that kind of people. We have nothing to pay their passage with, you see."
"You might get one oil puncheon into the launch. Still, you have to remember that men who go down with fever along shore often die, instead of coming round, when they get out to sea."