d. Only he put
it a little differently. Would I go to the hulks for attempting to rob
him of five pounds, or would I stay and help him commit a robbery, of
which my share alone would be ten or fifteen thousand? You know which
I chose. You know who this man was. I said I would join him. He made me
swear it. And then he told me what his enterprise was: there is no need
for me to tell you; nor indeed had it taken definite shape at this time.
Suffice it that Santos had wind that big consignments of Austrailian
gold were shortly to be shipped home to England; that he, like myself,
had done nothing on the diggings, where he had looked to make his
fortune, and out of which he meant to make it still.

"It was an extraordinary life that we led in the bungalow, I the guest,
he the host, and Eva the unsuspecting hostess and innocent daughter
of the house. Santos had failed on the fields, but he had succeeded in
making valuable friends in Melbourne. Men of position and of influence
spent their evenings on our veranda, among others the Melbourne agent
for the Lady Jermyn, the likeliest vessel then lying in the harbor, and
the one to which the first consignment of gold-dust would be entrusted
if only a skipper could be found to replace the deserter who took
you out. Santos made up his mind to find one. It took him weeks, but
eventually he found Captain Harris on Bendigo, and Captain Harris was
his man. More than that he was the man for the agent; and the Lady
Jermyn was once more made ready for sea.

"Now began the complications. Quite openly, Santos had bought the
schooner Spindrift, freighted her with wool, given me the command, and
vowed that he would go home in her rather than wait any longer for the
Lady Jermyn. At the last moment he appeared to change his mind, and I
sailed alone as many days as possible in advance of the ship, as had
been intended from the first; but it went sorely against the grain when
the time came. I would have given anything to have backed out of the
enterprise. Honest I might be no longer; I was honestly in love with Eva
Denison. Yet to have backed out would have been one way of losing her
for ever. Besides, it was not the first time I had run counter to the
law, I who came of a lawless stock; but it would be the first time I had
deserted a comrade or broken faith with one. I would do neither. In for
a penny, in for a pound.

"But before my God I never meant it to turn out as it did; though I
admit an