February 3, 1916. 
LAND AND WATER 
George, tfiat's the spirit I like, ready to sign on, maybe for 
Hades without a question ! " 
Mr. Tillman did not say Hades. I doubt if his classical 
knowledge included the meaning of the word. He clung to 
the Anglo-Saxon, and Houghton laughed. 
" I'd just as soon sign on for there as stay in Sydney 
without a cent in my pocket," said he, " and it couldn't be 
hotter." 
" Well, it's not far from here we are going," said Tillman 
" It's up north." 
" New Guinea," put in Macquart. 
" Up a river in New Guinea to find something that's 
there," said Tillman. " You'll hear it all when Macquart 
spins his yarn to Curlewis. Well, shall we be .going? It's 
some way "from here, and it's no harm to be a bit ijefore time." 
He led the way out of the bar and they passed down the 
street, Tillman saluting nearly every second person tliey met. 
He seemed to be a well-known character and the greetings he 
received — so Houghton fancied — spoke of amiability and 
good-fellowship rather than high respect. Houghton's interest 
in this strange budding venture was concentrated now less on 
the main than the immediate objective. How would Curlewis 
receive his irresponsible visitor ? How would he receive the 
seedy Macquart ? He felt himself to be a fifth wheel in this 
ramshackle chariot so boldly setting out on the road to riches, 
and outside the wool broker's office he frankly said so, sug- 
gesting that he should wait in the street till the interview 
was over. 
But Tillman would have none of that. He declared 
Houghton's presence to be an indispensable factor in the pro- 
ceedings. He was one of the " crew," why should he skulk 
in the street whilst the others were putting in hard work ? 
" Hard work — by Gad, all the rest will be nothing to this 
— raising money, why, it will be more like lifting it. I tell 
you, we have to carry this chap by assault ; he's as good as 
they make them, but y'see they made him a business man 
and that's the worst sort. However, we'll do it, if only 
Screed isn't there. Screed's his partner, hard as nails, no 
ideas about anything but wool. Well, come on." 
They entered the building, found Curlewis' office, and 
were ushered right into the great man's private room. 
Curlewis was standing with his back to the empty stove. 
He was a joyous and opulent-looking young man of some 
thirty years, immaculately dressed, easy-going, an optimist 
and enthusiast by birth, judging from all appearances. 
Houghton, at sight of this gentleman, felt his spirits rising. 
Here was surely a man to further adventure, or, at least, not 
to cast cold water on the adventurous. 
He scarcely noticed a mean-looking man like a cierK 
seated at the desk near the window, till he heard Curlewis 
say in answer to Tillman, " Oh, Screed won't be disturbed 
by you ; he's busy with his letters and he has no ears or eyes 
for anything else. Chatter away as much as you like." 
He saw in Screed the rock on which their venture might 
split, and he hated Screed accordingly. 
But Tillman was talking now : 
" Well," said he, " we'll get to business then, at once, 
and if this is a fool's holiday, maybe we'll prove we're not 
such fools as we look." 
" Tillman," put in Macquart, now speaKmg tor tne hist 
time, " there's no manner of use in blowing a man's own 
trumpet in the first lines of a prospectus. Whether we're 
fools or whether we're not doesn't matter a row of pins if the 
proposition is a good one. I'd a durned sight rather be led 
to a fortune by a fool than stick round making a living under 
the guide of a wise man." Then turning to Curlewis : " I'm 
the head and front of this business, and looking at me you 
might say, ' Here's a nice sort of chap to come talking of 
fortune — why, he's broke.' " Well, maybe I am ; but if I 
am, it's because I have been going about with knowledge in 
my head that's worth more than the fools who won't listen to 
me will ever make in business. Did you ever see a pros- 
pector who wasn't broke till he managed to make good and hit 
the stuff he was after ? Well, the long and the short of it is, 
I'm alter John Lant's treasure and I mean to lift it." 
" John Lant ? " said Curlewis, tentatively. 
" The same," rephed Macquart. " You don't know who 
lie IS— or who he was, to speak more properly. Well, he was 
one of the chaps who used to trade from Sydney in the old 
days. It's not so very long ago either, but long enough to 
have covered his traces." 
Curlewis had takeja a box of cigars from a side table, 
and was offering tlie narrator a smoke. The box was passed 
round and Houghton fit up cheerfully. Curlewis was evidently 
interested ; only the infernal Screed, who evidently was a 
nun-smuker, remained outside the charmed circle, and the 
occasional scratching of his pen could be heard like a comment 
on the words of Macquart. 
" Every one of them. ' continued Ihe Prospector, ' and 
tne tricks he didn't find to his hand he in\ented ; and the 
ones lie found he embroidered on. Well, he went like that 
laying up the chips, till one day he had a dust up with the 
Dutch Government ; and what he'd done I don't know, but 
the Dutch Government confiscated his property. He'd 
invested his plunder in land at Macassar, and land in other 
parts owned by the Dutch. They say there was a big 
gambling shop in Macassar owned by him ; anyhow, all his 
savings were under the thumb of the Dutch. You see, he'd 
been doing so many shad}' things, I expect he didn't like to 
have ownings where the British Government could touch them, 
which proves he was a fool, for the British Goveriunent is 
the best friend to a chap like that who has money enough to 
work the law. The Dutch Government didn't bother about 
the law ; they knew he was a rogue and they scooped his 
property. 
" It was wnen he called at Macassar with his ship that 
he got the news, and they impounded the ship. Tiiey im- 
pounded iiim and his crew, too, in an old calaboose place. He 
had stepped right off the blue sea into blue ruin, but that did 
not check Lant. He got wind in prison one day that a Dutch 
ship from Amsterdam had just come into the roads and that 
she was loaded up to her hatches with specie, to say nothing of 
general cargo. The TcrscheUing was her name. It was 
during the rains, and Lant and his men broke out of the; 
calaboose that night, rowed oft to the Terschelling and 
boarded her, shouting out " Customs " to the cliap that was 
on duty. He flung them a ladder to help them on board. 
" Well, sir, I can tell you it didn't take long for tliose 
fellows to do their work, the anchor watch being below 
sheltering from the rain and wind, all except tlie man who'd 
helped them aboard. They clapped the foc's'le hatch to, 
stunned the look-out man and shoved him in the lee scuppers, 
knocked the shackle off the anchor chain and loosed the 
topsails, all before you could say ' knife.' Lant and his crew 
were handy men, and they had that brig away like picking 
a purse from a pocket, and there was nothing to chase them ; 
the Dutch gunboat on the Macassar station was poking about 
after pirate praus on the Bomean coast, and the biggest bit of 
piracy ever done in those waters going on right before Macassar. 
It all fell in like a tune, besides, no one wanted to chase them, 
for no one knew, till tlie next morning when sun up showed 
the Terschelling gone. 
" All the same, Lant would have been had most certanuy 
and surely if he'd been an ordinary man ; for where couki hi- 
have taken the Tefschelling ? What port in God's earth coukl 
he have taken her to, she smelhng of Schiedam and Amsterdam 
a mile off, with all her papers made out in Dutch and the 
very timbers of her shouting her nationahty. No, sir, it 
couldn't be done. And then the specie. How could he have 
dealt witli that. What would the Customs have said ? 
You can fancy him getting those treasure chests ashore in 
any harbour, can't you, just 'bout as easy as you can fancy a 
dromedary playing a fiddle. Well, Lant knew better tlian 
that ; he knew of a river on a certain coast, a river that came 
down and disembogued itself among coral reefs and sea 
lagoons, places where the Chinese go for trepang and wlierc 
the pirate praus used to wash up and brush themselves after 
a fight, and he knew the chaps who were chief men there, for 
he had traded with them and fought with tliem till they were 
all as friendly as the members of a Baotist tea-party when the 
Sally Lunns are going round. 
" You see, gentlemen, the Malays ana the Sea Dyaks 
nave their vices no doubt, but they're not wild animals any 
more than you and me. They have lots of straight in theni, 
and once you have got their confidence by punching tiieir 
heads, you can depend on them so long as you act straight 
by them. 
" Now this river I'm speaking ot was not situateu m 
Borneo, as I've told Mr. Tillman. It was and is situated on 
the New Guinea coast. The people that live on its banks 
aren't New Guinea folk but Sea Dyaks from Borneo. What 
drove those Sea Dyaks to colonise a New Guinea river, [ don't 
know, but there they are, hke a plum graft planted on au 
apple tree, as you may say. 
" Lant brought the Terschelling in here, telUng the Dyaks 
tnat she was a new ship of his, and he got her up tliat river 
by warping and kedging till she was lying safe and sound 
in one of the upper reaches, with the mangroves brushing her 
yard arms and the monkeys playing the fool in lier rigging, 
brought her up to the steep bank sajne as if it had been a quay 
side. 
" The rams were on, as I said, and that gave nnn very 
deep water, thougli it didn't need the rains, for these rivers 
are scoured out deep and always have a big command of 
water. Some of the biggest liills in the world are in tiie middle 
of New Guinea and one of the finest lakes, too. 
" Lant told the Dyaks that he was tired of sea roving 
and had comt; to live among them for awhile. He had got 
such a. name for tigliting that they almost looked on him as 
an immortal, which he pretty near was, for he was riddled with 
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