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He said he reckoned that Penhill had deserved what he got and Harman concurred.

They sat in judgment on Penhill and brought him in guilty. Harman almost felt virtuous.

“I reckon he’ll learn it don’t pay to run crooked,” said he. “I’ve took notice that them sort of chaps always gets scragged in the end. What’s this you said he did you out of?”

“Seventy dollars, and left me on the beach,” replied Davis.

“Same as we’ve done him,” said Harman. “No, it don’t pay. It don’t pay no-how.”

South at first, then due west they made past St. Felix and heading for Caldera on the Chili coast. But Caldera was not Davis’ objective. Buenodiaz, with its land-locked harbour, its lazy ways, its pretty women and negligent Port authorities, was his idea, and smoking Penhill’s cigars under a blazing sun whilst the Araya snored along through a Reckitts’-blue sea, he expounded matters to Billy Harman.

“Sell her on the hoof,” said Davis, “innards, outwards, hump, tail and all, that’s my idea. There are ten cent mail boats that’ll take us anywhere up or down the coast, Valparaiso for choice, once we’ve got the dollars in our pockets; there’s big things to be done in Chili with a few dollars by fellows that know the ropes.”