best company we could possibly have," said the taller man.
"Cockroaches and blackbeetles don't talk and they don't listen at
keyholes. What's more, if they trouble you, you can put your heel on
them. Now let's see the landlord and see what he's got to offer us in
the way of rooms. We don't want any dinner, because we had it on board
the steamer."

Hayle accompanied them into the bar, and was a witness of the
satisfaction the landlord endeavoured, from business motives, to
conceal. In due course he followed them to the small, stifling rooms in
the yard at the back, and observed that they were placed on either side
of himself. He had already taken the precaution of rapping upon the
walls in order to discover their thickness, and to find out whether the
sound of chinking money was to be heard through them.

"I must remember that thirty-seven and sixpence and two Mexican dollars
are all I have in the world," he said to himself. "It would be bad
business to allow them to suppose that I had more, until I find out what
they want."

"The last time I was here was with Stellman," said the taller of the
men, when they met again in the courtyard. "He had got a concession from
the Dutch, so he said, to work a portion of the West Coast for shell. He
wanted me to go in with him."

"And you couldn't see your way to it?"

"I've seen two Dutch gaols," said the other; "and I have no use for
them."

"And what happened to Stellman?" asked Hayle, but without any apparent
interest. He was thinking of something else at the time.

"They got his money, his boat, and his shell, with three pearls that
would have made your mouth water," replied the other.

"And Stellman?"

"Oh, they buried him at Sourabaya. He took the cholera, so they said,
but I have heard since that he died of starvation. They don't feed you
too well in Dutch gaols, especially when you've got a concession and
a consul."

The speaker looked up at his companion as he said this, and the other,
who, as I have already said, was not interested in the unfortunate
Stellman, or had probably heard the tale before, nodded his head in the
direction of the room where the smaller man was engaged on his toilet,
to the accompaniment of splashing water. The movement of the head was as
significant as the nod of the famous Lord of Burleigh.

"Just the same, as ever," the other replied. "Always pushing his nose
into old papers and documents, until you'd think he'd make himself ill.