cable before the directors, and then things can be put
in train; the report can follow by the first mail."

"I shall take the report back with me," said Ogilvie.

"Better not," answered his companion, "best trust Her Majesty's mails.
It might so happen that you would lose it." As Rycroft spoke a crafty
look came into his eyes.

"Let us pack our traps," said Ogilvie, rising.

"The sooner we get out of this the better."

The next morning early they left the solitude, the neighborhood of the
lofty peaks and the desecrated earth beneath. They reached Brisbane in
about four days, and put up once more at the Waharoo Hotel. There the
real business for which all this preparation had been made commenced.
Rycroft was a past master in drawing up reports of mines, and Ogilvie
now helped him with a will. He found a strange pleasure in doing his
work as carefully as possible. He no longer suffered from qualms of
conscience. The mine would work really well for six months. During
that time the promoters would make their fortunes. Afterward--the
deluge. But that mattered very little to Ogilvie in his present state
of mind.

"If I suffer as I have done lately from this troublesome heart of mine
I shall have gone to my account before six months," thought the man;
"the child will be provided for, and no one will ever know."

The report was a plausible and highly colored one.

It was lengthy in detail, and prophesied a brilliant future for
Lombard Deeps. Ogilvie and Rycroft, both assayers of knowledge and
experience, declared that they had carefully examined the lodes, that
they had struck four veins of rich ore yielding, after crushing, an
average of six ounces to the ton, and that the extent and richness of
the ore was practically unlimited.

They spent several days over this document, and at last it was
finished.

"I shall take the next mail home," said Ogilvie, standing up after he
had read his own words for the twentieth time.

"Sign first," replied Rycroft. He pushed the paper across to Ogilvie.

"Yes, I shall go to-morrow morning," continued Ogilvie. "The _Sahara_
sails to-morrow at noon?"

"I believe so; but sign, won't you?"

Ogilvie took up his pen; he held it suspended as he looked again at
his companion.

"I shall take a berth on board at once," he said.

"All right, old chap, but sign first."

Ogilvie was about to put his signature to the bottom of the document,
when suddenly, without the least warning, a