"Oh, so you think you could do all that?" "I know I could, Captain Devenish." "You know it, do you?" "Of course, you would make it worth my while." Ralph laughed harshly as he raised the pannikin once more. "I was waiting for that, you old villain! I was waiting for that!" But it did not disgust him. He did not even pretend to be disgusted. There were no scruples left in those reckless, heated eyes. "You give me your promissory note for a thousand pounds, payable on your wedding day, or on demand thereafter, and you'll be married the month after you get back." Ralph laughed more harshly than before. "Go on, Jewson! You aren't drunk, are you? Then how do you think you're going to manage it?" "Ah, that I sha'n't tell you; but manage it I can and will. You leave it to me. If you sail at the New Year--and there's two or three ships advertised--it'll be your own fault if you aren't married by midsummer. And if that isn't worth a thousand pounds I don't know what is." "It's worth two!" whispered Devenish, hoarsely; "and you shall have two if--if----" "If what?" "If he--if he lives to see the day." Jewson chuckled aloud. "Of course he will!" he cried. "Where would be the fun if he didn't? Where would be my fun--that's been due to me ever since he had me disrated?" "Then it's a bargain." "What? Are you going to give me your hand on it, Captain Devenish?" "My hand and word, and if I break the one may the other wither!" "But you'll put it on paper, sir, won't you?" "Whenever you like." "One thousand or two?" "Two if he lives to see it--nothing if he doesn't." "A bargain it is." CHAPTER XVIII ROTTEN GULLY Jewson had not exaggerated the manifest attraction of the claim in Rotten Gully. The hut was eighteen feet by ten, very solidly built, with a fireplace and a chimney at the inner end. Many neat contrivances in the shape of shelves and racks testified to the leisurely particularity of the late owner. He had settled down as on some desert island where a man might expect to end his days. There were refinements so superfluous in themselves as to suggest that the actual work had proved as alluring as the natural reward. In point of fact the Eureka Lead had been followed through the gully and lost on the flat beyond while this deliberate digger built him his hut and sank the hole which he was fated to abandon within a few feet of the gutter. But the hole was by far the best and soundest in the gully, which deserved its name insomuch as it provided insecure sinkings as a rule. Some of the abandoned shafts had already fallen in; but this one was beautifully slabbed with timber from top to bottom, now some sixty odd feet, the depth of the lead hereabouts being something under seventy. One of the first things Denis did when they were left in peaceable possession of the claim was to locate it in his last map; and a mark was duly made in the very middle of one of the red rivers.