When food was set before him, Maxwell ate ravenously; then leaning forward in his chair, he looked at his hosts.
"I must thank you for your kindness, and ask another favor," he said. "It is of vital consequence that I should catch the Kabunda to-night. I will pay up to twenty pounds for a passage off to her."
The pair stared at him, and there was a sceptical smile on Gilby's lips. It was clear that he doubted the ragged adventurer's ability to redeem his promise.
"It can't be done," declared Redmond. "Our surf-boat has a plank badly split; and if she hadn't there's not a man on all this coast could run you off to-night."
"Nevertheless, if you will listen a few minutes, and treat what I tell you in strict confidence, I think one of you will," said Maxwell, determining to trust them in part.
As he told the story, the incredulous smile faded from the faces of his listeners.
"You can understand the necessity for my desperate hurry now," he concluded. "My partner is left alone, save for a handful of sickly niggers, with the bushmen coming down, and his life may depend upon my catching that steamer. I will leave this packet of gold dust, which I had intended to use for traveling expenses, as the price of my passage."
Redmond opened the leather bag tendered him, and Gilby dropped acid upon part of its contents. Then there was silence, until Redmond spoke with a naive directness which called up the faintest flicker of amusement into Maxwell's eyes.
"It is quite genuine, and we believe you. Rideau's a hard case, and we'd stake a good deal to get even with him after a certain game he played us; but our folks at home are so confoundedly particular, and you wouldn't find an agent on the coast willing to speculate in mines beyond Shaillu's country. You see, if you let us in, the auditors would set off the sum against our salary. Steady; I haven't quite finished yet. We're not fastidious, either of us, but we haven't come down to screwing money out of a countryman's necessity; so we're open to do the best we can for you. Now take back your gold, and be hanged to you!"
"My sentiments, too!" nodded Gilby. "Redmond can talk sensibly when he likes. It looks uncommonly like suicide, but as my place down under can't be much worse than this one, I'm open to chance drowning with you. I'll go out, and fill my boat boys up with trade gin now. They're tolerably daring beggars, but they'd never face it sober."