ly had bin havin' a
sort o' tussle wid his conscience on that very pint. You must know, he
had made up his mind to do this very thing an' offer you all his
savings--a thousand pound, more or less--to indooce you to help to save
his frind, but he found his goold had bin stolen, so, you see, sor, he
couldn't do it."

"Did he tell you who stole his gold?"

"No, sor, he didn't--he said that some feller had took it--on loan,
like, though I calls it stalin'--but he didn't say who."

"And have you had no tussle with _your_ conscience, Flinders, about this
business?"

The Irishman's face wrinkled up into an expression of intense amusement
at this question.

"It's jokin' ye are, Muster Gashford. Sure, now, me conscience--if I've
got wan--doesn't bother me oftin; an' if it did, on this occasion, I'd
send it to the right-about double quick, for it's not offerin' ye five
hundred pound I am to stop the coorse o' justice, but to save ye from
committin' murther! Give Muster Brixton what punishment the coort
likes--for stailin'--only don't hang him. That's all we ask."

"You'll have to pay more for it then," returned the bully. "That's not
enough."

"Sure we haven't got a rap more to kape our pots bilin', sor," returned
Flinders, in a tone of despair. "Lastewise I can spake for myself; for
I'm claned out--all _but_."

"Row much does the `all but' represent?"

"Well, sor, to tell you the raal truth, it's about tchwo hundred pound,
more or less, and I brought it wid me, for fear you might want it, an' I
haven't got a nugget more if it was to save me own life. It's the truth
I'm tellin' ye, sor."

There was a tone and look of such intense sincerity about the poor
fellow, as he slowly drew a second bag of gold from his pocket and
placed it beside the first, that Gashford could not help being
convinced.

"Two hundred and five hundred," he said, meditatively.

"That makes siven hundred, sor," said Flinders, suggestively.

The bully did not reply for a few seconds. Then, taking up the bags of
gold, he threw them into a corner. Thereafter he drew a large key from
his pocket and handed it to the Irishman, who grasped it eagerly.

"Go to the prison," said Gashford, "tell the sentry you've come to
relieve him, and send him to me. Mind, now, the rest of this business
must be managed entirely by yourself, and see to it that the camp knows
nothing about our little commercial transaction, for, _if it does_, your
own days