't know my own mind at this moment. I've a hazy sort
of an idea that I'd like to keep the Fray Bentos company for a bit
longer. I can outsail you in light winds--and I really don't care what I
do now. And if you can spare me a couple of hands, I could jog along in
company with you indefinitely. But, please understand me--I don't want
to thrust myself and the _Francesco_ into your company if _you_ don't
want_ me_. As a matter of fact, I don't care a straw where I go--but I
certainly would like to keep in company with you, if you don't object.
Perhaps you would not mind telling me where you are bound?"

Guest looked at me interrogatively.

"Well, Captain Yorke," I said, "one confidence begets another; your
confidence in us is worth a heap of money to Guest and myself, and, to
be perfectly frank and straightforward with you, the captain and myself
intended to lay a proposition before you whereby we three might possibly
go into this New Hanover venture on our own hook. But Guest and myself
are bound to our present employers for another seven months."

Yorke nodded. "That will be all right. I'm ready to go in with you,
either at the end of seven months or at any other time which may suit
you. You can count on me. I'm not a rich man, nor yet am I a poor
man; in fact, there's a thousand pounds' worth of stuff under the
_Francesco's_ hatches now."

"Well then, Captain Yorke," I said, "as Guest here leaves me to do all
the talking, I'll tell you _why_ we are so far up to the northward,
out of our usual beat. We heard in Samoa that a big ship, named the
_Sarawak_ had run ashore and been abandoned at Rook Island, in Dampier
Straits, between the west end of New Britain and the east coast of New
Guinea, and both Guest and myself know her to be one of the largest
ships out of Liverpool; she left Sydney for Hongkong about six months
ago with a general cargo. And 'there be pickings,' for she is almost a
new vessel, and her gear and fittings alone, independent of her cargo,
ought to be worth a thousand pounds. All we could learn at Samoa was
that she had run up on a ledge of reef on Rook Island, and that the
skipper, with three boats' crews, had started off for Thursday Island,
in Torres Straits. Now, it is quite likely that, if she has not broken
up, there may be a lot of money hanging to it."

"For your owners!" said Yorke, with his slow, amused smile.

"Just so, Captain Yorke. 'For our owners,' as you say. But even our
owners,