"You haven't told me yet how you're going to turn them into eighty thousand."
"I'm coming to it. You know we coaled the Cumbria before she went out to West Africa. A nearly new 1,500-ton tramp she was, light draught at that, or she'd never have gone where she did. You could put her down at £15,000 sterling. She went up into the half-charted creeks behind the shoals and islands south of Senegal, and was lost there. Among other things, it was a new gum she went for. It appears the niggers find gums worth up to £5 the hundredweight in the bush behind that country. A Frenchman chartered her, but he's dead now, as is almost everybody connected with the Cumbria. They've fevers that will wipe you out in a week or two yonder—more fever, in fact, than anywhere else in Africa. Well, as everybody knows, they got oil and sundries and a little gum, and went down with fever while they crawled about those creeks loading her. She got hard in the mud up one of them, and half of the boys were buried before they pulled her out at all, and then she hit something that started a plate or two in her. They couldn't keep the water down, and they rammed her into a mangrove forest to save her. More of them died there, and the salvage expedition lost three or four men before they turned up their contract."
"That," said Austin, "is what might be termed the official version."
Jefferson nodded. "What everybody doesn't know is that the skipper played the Frenchman a crooked game," he said. "There was more gum put into her than was ever shown in her papers; while they had got at the trade gin before she went ashore. In fact, I have a notion that it wasn't very unlike the Sachem affair. I can't quite figure how they came to start those plates in the soft mud of a mangrove creek. Any way, the carpenter, who died there, was a countryman of mine. You may remember I did a few things for him, and the man was grateful. Well, the result is I know there's a good deal more than £20,000 sterling in the Cumbria."
Austin surmised that this was possible. It was not, he knew, seafarers of unexceptional character who usually ventured into the still little known creeks of Western Africa, which the coast mailboats' skippers left alone. He was also aware that more or less responsible white men are apt to go a trifle off their balance and give their passions free rein when under the influence of cheap spirits in that land of pestilence.
"Well?" he said.
"I've bought her, as she lies, for £6,000."
Austin gasped. "You will probably die off in two or three weeks after you put your foot in her."
"I'm not quite sure. I was at Panama, and never had a touch of fever. Any way, I'm going, and if you'll stand in with me, I'll put you down a quarter-share for a dollar."
It was in one respect a generous offer, but Austin shook his head. "No," he said decisively. "Have you forgotten that Miss Gascoyne expects you to marry her?"