“What!” ’Bias clutched both arms of his chair in the act of rising.  But Cai held up a hand.

“Steady!  She gave me the like. . . .  You handed the money over to Rogers, and close on fifteen per cent he was makin’ on it—­in the Saltypool.”

“Who—­who told you?”

“Wait!  I did the like. . . .  Seven pounds eight-and-four was my dividend, whatever yours may have been—­eh?  You may call it a—­a coincidence, ’Bias Hunken:  but some would say as our minds worked on the same lines even when—­even when—­” Cai seemed to swallow something in his throat.  “Anyhow, the money’s gone, and we’ll have to make it good.”

“Well, I should hope so!”

“I’ll see to that, ’Bias—­whatever happens.”

“So will I, o’ course.”  ’Bias turned to refill his pipe.

Cai was watching him narrowly.  “Happen that mightn’t be none too easy,” he suggested.

“Why so?”

“Heark’n to me now:  I got something more serious to tell.  The Lord send we may be mistaken, but—­supposin’ as Rogers has played the rogue?”

’Bias, not at all discomposed, went on filling his pipe.  “I see what you’re drivin’ at,” said he. “‘Tis the same tale Philp was chantin’ just now, over the wall; how that Rogers had lost his own money and ours as well, and ’twas in everybody’s mouth.  Which I say to you what I said to him:  ‘’Tis the old story,’ I says, ’let a man be down on his back, and every cur’ll fly at him.’”

“But suppose ’twas true? . . .  Did Rogers ever show the bonds and papers for your money?”

“’Course he did.  Showed me every one as they came in, and seemed to make a point of it.  ’Made me count ’em over, some time back.  ‘Wouldn’ let me off ’till I’d checked ’em, tied ’em up in a parcel, docketed ’em, sealed ’em, and the Lord knows what beside.  Very dry work.  I claimed a glass o’ grog after it.”

“And then you took ’em away?” asked Cai with a sudden hope.

“Not I. For one thing, they’re vallyble, and I don’t keep a safe.  I put ’em back in the old man’s—­top shelf—­alongside o’ yours.”

Cai groaned.  “They’re missin’ then!”

“Who told you?”

“The child—­Fancy Tabb.”

‘Bias looked serious.  “Why didn’ she come to me, I wonder?”

“I reckon—­knowing what friends we’d been—­she left it to me to break the news.”

“I won’t believe it,” declared ’Bias slowly.  But he sat staring straight at the horizon, and after each puff at the pipe Cai could hear him breathing hard.

“The child’s not given to lyin’.  And yet I don’t see—­Rogers bein’ helpless to open the safe on his own account.  At the worst ’tis a bad job for ye, ’Bias.”

“Eh? . . .  ‘Means sellin’ up an’ startin’ afresh:  that’s all—­always supposin’ there’s jobs to be found, at our age.  I don’t know as there wouldn’t be consolations.  This here life ashore isn’t all I fancied it.”