LAND AND WATER 
February 17, 19 16 
as if to imply that there was more in all this than he could 
explain at the moment, then, turning, he walked off with the 
Captain, leaving Tillman and Houghton to go their way won- 
dering at this new development and somewhat disturbed in 
mind. 
Hull said nothing for twenty yards or so. He was chuck- 
Ung to himself as if over some joke he had just heard. Then 
he said : — 
" Who were them guys ? " 
" O, two men I picked up," said Macquart. " Sydney 
chaps — What are you doing here ? " 
"Sydney chaps were they," said Hull, seeming deaf to 
the question. " Mugs for sure, un-fort'nate mugs." 
He slapped his thigh as he walked, seeming to commune 
with himself still over some joke ; his last words were scarcely 
compUmentary to Macquart, but that gentleman did not show 
umbrage. Macquart was not indeed in the position to take 
umbrage at anything Captain Hull might choose to say to 
him. He looked now, as he walked along with his com- 
panion, Uke a predatory bird subdued and led by its captor. 
Captain Hull, after a few moments more of internal com- 
munion, suddenly broke silence. All at once he began 
speaking as though he and Macquart had only just met. Up 
to this, he had been gloating over his prey, now, of a sudden, 
he struck. , 
" Well," said he, " this is a surprise. It is so ; and to 
think it's lower year and more since we parted. Fower year 
and more since you left me blind with tlie drink in that pub 
at San Lorenzo and bolted with me money." 
" That I did not," said Macquart. " It was an accident. 
I was as drunk as you. I was nailed by a crimp." 
" O, you was nailed by a crimp, was you," said Hull, as 
though quite open to be convinced ; " pore chap, and was you 
shanghaied, maybe ? " 
" I was." 
" And yet four days later you was cutting the cards at 
Black Sam's on the Barbary Coast and gaoled for assault 
an' drink same night, paying' your fine next morning with the 
money you choused me of. How do you make that out ? " 
" It's not true," said Macquart. " I don't know who 
stuffed you up with those hes. It's not true — that's all I 
can say, and I leave it there." 
" And are you still on the old treasure liftin' job," asked 
Captain Hull tenderly, and quite ignoring the denials of the 
other, " or was that a lie as well £is the others you spun 
me? " 
" That was no He," cried Macquart, flushing under the 
torture of the last five minutes ; without a rag of his new-found 
self-respect and self-satisfaction left he caught at the one bit of 
truth, as a naked man might catch at a cloth to cover himself 
with. " That was no lie ; the treasure was there, it's there 
now and only waits lifting." 
" I believe you ain't wrong," said Captain Hull. " I've 
always took notice that the biggest liars haven't no mem'ries, 
but gives different change every time they spins the same yarn ; 
but you always stuck consistent to that yarn of yours, and 
so it was, maybe, I put up my two hundred dollars on a half- 
share lay — Come in here." He stopped at the door of a 
restaurant. 
" What do you want going in there for ? " asked Mac- 
quart. 
" I'll soon show you — you follow me, for you've got to 
pay." 
He entered and took a seat at a table near the door, 
Macquart sitting down also. 
" Have you any money ? " asked Macquart. 
" Money ? " rephed Captain Hull, taking up the menu. 
" What's that — is it a herb ? Money — let's see ; 0, ay, money, 
I remember now, round stuff it was, made o' metal, if I remem- 
ber right. No, I ain't got no money, and ain't had none since 
I can remember. Power years ago I saw the last of my money 
— you boned it. Waiter, kim here." 
The waiter approached, and with a huge forefinger, Hull 
indicated his desires upon the menu. 
" A porterhouse steak, two kidneys and bacon to toiler, 
scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, and look sharp — for two, 
yes, make it for two and this gentleman pays." 
Macquart seemed resigned. He said nothing whilst 
the food was being brought, then, when it was on the table, 
he fell to on it as readily as the other. During the meal, the 
two men were entirely amicable, Uke two jackals that had dis- 
covered a carcase they fell to, and all disputes were put aside 
till the meal was done with. 
Nearlj' a sovereign's worth of food having been destroyed, 
Macquart paid, and the pair left the cafe and took their way 
towards Market Street. Captain Hull, well fed now, was 
slightly more amicable in his manner towards Macquart. 
Captain Hull had pretty keen instincts. He had met 
Macquart when the latter was walking with two " Sydney 
chaps," Micquart had exhibited ready money in the cafe, 
Macquart was evidently on some job here in Sydney, and Hull 
determined in his own mind to stick to Macquart like a 
leech. 
He scented money. 
Hull, to describe him more fully, was a big, blonde, blue- 
eyed man, much battered by the sea and the world and 
himself. Children Uked him. There were terrible things in 
his life, he had fought and drank and rogued and ranged 
through all the parallels of latitude and all the years of his 
discretion ; not a shipowner from 'Frisco to London Docks 
would have employed him, unless on a sinking job, and those 
sort of things aren't done now, much. He had been kicked 
out of New Ireland, he had smelt Norfolk Island, he had a bad 
name in Callao — yet, somehow, children liked him. But he 
was a hard case all tiie same, with one redeeming virtue, 
however, only to be expressed in his own language — he had 
never gone back on a pal. 
Ttie streets were crowded, and as they walked along, 
Captain Hull looked into the shop windows, examining the 
goods displayed therein and making remarks upon them to 
his companion. The two men might have been the best com- 
panions taking a morning stroll through the city, but it might 
have been noticed that the conversation was mostly on the part 
of Captain Hull. That gentleman having inspected ladies' 
petticoats, jewellery, and the contents of a hardware shop, 
paused before a tobacconist's and, seized with the desire to 
smoke, entered, bought two ci|ars, keeping his eye on Mac- 
quart all the time through the fascia, paid for them, lit one, 
and came out again— to find Macquart gone. 
The thing seemed impossible. He had never lost sight 
of the elusive one, or only for the momentary time required 
to pick up his change and hght his cigar ; all the same, Macquart 
had vanished. Not a sign of him was to be seen in the crowded 
and bustling street. 
" Fitchered," said the Captain. He stood looking to 
right and left. He could see quite a long way, and the crowd 
was not dense enough to prevent him from picking out Mac- 
quart's figure had it been visible, but Macquart had vanished 
just as the rabbit vanishes when the conjuror places it under 
the tall silk hat, and just as surprisingly. Captain Hull 
might b"^e asked himself whether the whole business was 
not an illusion, only for the fact that he was a man ungiven 
to self-questioning. 
" Well, of all the swine," said he, recovering his 
breath and his swearing capacity at the same time. " Give 
me the slip, has he ? Turned hisself inside out whiles I was 
lightin' a see-gar? Blest if it ain't "San Lorenzo over again, 
and if he ain't sold me the same old dog, b him. Well, 
"we'll see." He walked along in the direction of the Paris 
House, passed it, and entered a bar. 
Here he stood with his elbow on the counter, and a whiskey 
before him, thinking things over. 
Losing Macquart was like losing his purse. The Captain 
was very hard up indeed, broke to the world — to use his own 
expression, and Macquart seemed flush ; but the money part 
of the question bulked small in his eyes beside the fact that 
he had been done. And now, as he stood thinking things over 
and feehng his defeat and weighing it, a new idea came to 
him. Macquart was on some paying job ; the fact that he had 
money, and the fact that he was so anxious to get rid of him 
— Hull — pointed in the same direction. 
He had lost not only the few pounds he might have 
squeezed out of Macquart, but the chance of standing in over 
some shady business. i 
This thought so infuriated him that he finished off his 
whiskey at a gulp and started off for pastures new. He wan- 
dered into Lamperts, and the first person he saw there was 
Tillman, who was standing at the bar with Houghton and talk- 
ing to several jovial- looking strangers. 
Tillman was in high feather. Somehow or another, news 
that he was leaving .Sydney on a venture had leaked out, 
probably from his own hps. Before taking Houghton and 
Macquart to Curlewis, he had talked of something mysterious 
that he had up his sleeve, something in which the profits 
would be enormous — if it panned out. You can fancy him 
with his straw hat on the back of his head and a cigarette 
between his fingers telling one of the boys of what he was going 
to do. " Never you mind where — a new place and a new thing 
and fids of money in it, bags of coin " 
Curlewis had also been talking. 
" Well, I must be off," Tillman was saying. " Can't 
waste any more time on you, Billy. I've business to attend 
to." He took Houghton's arm and led him off. Neither of 
them noticed Hull, whom they would certainly have recognised 
as the man who had taken Macquart off that morning, and the 
swing door had scarcely closed on them when criticism broke 
out at the counter. 
" God help the business that B )')by is attending to," 
said Billy, a bibulous-looking youth i.i check-tweed and with 
a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. " I reckon I know it, 
too. They've got a new barmaid at the Paris House." 
" No, it aren't that," said a gentleman, with a face like 
