"You've been to Mr. Dent's tent already?" The prefix was a mark which it would have been against Ralph's instincts to overstep with an inferior. It was incongruous enough to curve the corners of the steward's mouth. "It ain't a tent," said he, chuckling. "It's one of the best huts I've seen on the diggings." "It is, is it?" "Once I'd found Rotten Gully, which isn't so very far from this, it was easy enough to find the only claim it could be." "So it's as good as all that!" "To look at," said Jewson, "on a moonlight night. But they'd their own light burning inside; you hadn't to get very near to hear their voices. They were sitting up yarning, same as you and the lieutenant. Only on tea," added the steward, in the absence of further encouragement. "Poor devils!" remarked Devenish, raising his pannikin. "You can't call 'em poor now, sir," declared the steward. "All's fair in love and war, and I had a look in on 'em like a mouse: they've proper crockery left 'em by the outgoing tenant, and a proper table to set it on." "Anything else?" inquired Ralph, sarcastically. Jewson leaned forward and lowered his voice as though they were being spied upon in their turn. "Half a saucerful of gold-dust out of the hole!" "Already!" exclaimed Devenish, dropping reserve in his astonishment. "In the very first day's washing! They never began until to-day. That's what's keeping them up all night," added Jewson. "They've started looking ahead, you see. Let me fill up your pannikin, Captain Devenish. You don't get half a chance with Mr. Rackham, sir!" Ralph Devenish was one who carried his liquor in a manner worthy of his blood. His worst friend had seldom seen him fuddled. He was so much the less proof against the deeper and more damning effects. His tongue did not slur a syllable that followed, but it ran away with him all the faster for that. It muttered degrading confidences; it snarled unscrupulous revenge; it revealed a man so different from the Ralph Devenish known of other men that it was as though the drink had gone to his heart instead of to his head. "I will marry her! I swear I will! We were all but engaged before, and I'll marry her yet. He never shall. I'll see him in hell first--I'll send him there myself! An infernal snob out of the merchant service, and his infernal father's son all over! What's the matter with you, Jewson? What are you grinning at?" "Only at the idea of you committing a crime, sir. A captain in the Grenadier Guards! Ho, ho, ho!" And the steward showed his horrible teeth again; but there was no mirth in the little black penetrating eyes that were fast to Ralph's. "But I would!" he swore. "I mean to marry her, by hook or crook." "You really do?" said Jewson, turning grave. "Fair or foul!" cried Ralph, recklessly. "It's all one in love and war," repeated the steward, with a shrug. "But if you mean what you say I'll tell you what to do." "You will, will you? Well, let's have it."