A few days later Max was walking along the Rua d'Ouvidor, when he heard
his name called. Turning round, he found himself, much to his surprise,
confronted by Moreas, the man who had accompanied him from England.
"This is well met, indeed," cried the latter, holding out his hand with
great cordiality. "You are just the man, of all others, I wanted to see.
I was only wondering this morning whether you were still in Brazil, and,
if so, where I could find you. Your residence south of the Equator does
not seem to have done much harm to your appearance."
Max replied that he thought, on the contrary, it had done him a large
amount of good, and, having offered the country this justice, he was
prepared to utter a few commonplaces, and then to pass on his way along
the street. This, however, was not at all what Moreas desired or
intended should happen. He explained at some length that he had only
arrived in Rio that morning, and that he was going on to Buenos Ayres in
the afternoon.
"In the interval you and I must have a chat," he said. "There is
something I want to talk to you about. But that I have had a proper look
at you, I had perhaps better not mention it. You seem to be prosperous.
Had you been hard up, I was going to propose that you should join me in
a little piece of business, which may prove to be worth nothing at all,
or, on the other hand, may mean a gigantic fortune for both of us."
"You allow a good margin," said Max. "If I were allowed a preference, I
should declare for the million. And pray what is this business?"
"Diamonds," answered Moreas quietly, as leaning across the table and
clasping his hands together. "Diamonds such as you have never dreamed
of. With the information I have received I tell you I am able to put my
hand on the biggest diamond mine on the face of the habitable globe. How
I obtained the information doesn't matter just now. I'll tell you about
it another day. It is sufficient for the present that I am fully posted.
Unfortunately, however, there are others, besides myself, who are
acquainted with it. It is of those others that I am afraid. If the truth
must be told, and you don't mind a simple pun, I might say it is a case
of diamond cut diamond with us. I don't trust them, and I am not at all
certain that they trust me. Now, situated as I am, what I want to do is
to import another man into the concern, a man whose interests, though
they must not be aware of it, will be identical with my own. Two of us
would be a match for the whole pack of them. Particularly if I can get
hold of a man who can use a pistol as you can. Taken all round,
Mortimer, you're just the sort of fellow I want. You'd enjoy a piece of
adventure of this kind. We should be away about four months, and I don't
think you would be able to complain, when you returned, of having had a
dull time of it. Now what have you to say?"
"It is impossible," said Max, though in his own mind he felt that he
would have given anything to have been able to take a hand in it. "There
was a time when I should have liked nothing better, but I have settled
down to a staid business life now, and an affair such as you propose is
quite out of the question."
"I am sorry for that," answered Moreas, his spirits visibly sinking as
he heard the other's decision. "I had quite made up my mind that, when I
told you about it, you would throw everything else to the dogs and go in
for it with me. However, there is one good point about it. I have to go
south to-day. I shall be back in Rio in about six weeks' time. Nobody
knows how you may be situated then. If anything has happened, and it is
possible for you to change your mind, all you have to do will be to send
a letter to the old address, the same that I gave you eighteen months
ago, and it will find me. We shall start as soon after I return as
possible. Will you promise to bear this in mind?"
"I will remember it with pleasure," Max replied; "but you may rest
assured it will be of no use. I am clinging to respectability like a
limpet to his rock, and, so far as I can see now, nothing will shake me
from it."
"You don't know how I had set my heart upon having you with me,"
answered Moreas. "It is at times like this that one wants a good man at
one's elbow. I am not going alone with those other fellows; of that you
may be very sure. If I did, I'd never come back alive. With you at my
side, however, I wouldn't mind if there were a hundred of them."
"You pay me a very high compliment," said Max; "but I am afraid that,
unless you can find somebody else to take my place, you will have to do
as you fear, that is to say, go on alone."
"Well, I will put my trust in faith," said the other. "Stranger things
than that have turned up trumps before now. I've got a very solid belief
in my luck, and somehow I've got a fancy that it won't desert me."
"We shall see," replied Max, "and now, if you have no more to say to me,
I think I must be going on."
"You're quite sure I can't tempt you?" said Moreas.
"Quite," Max answered. "If I had nothing else to do, I'd go with you
to-morrow; but, situated as I am, wild horses would not shift me."
"Well, bear the fact in mind that I shall be back in a month," said
Moreas. "And also that the address I have already given you will find
me. Farewell, Senor."
"Farewell, and _bon voyage_ to you," replied Max.
Then, with a wave of their hands, they parted, and Max continued his way
towards the office for which he had been making when he had met Moreas.
He had been spending the greater portion of the day superintending the
removal of some cargo on board a ship in the harbour, and, towards
evening, made his way ashore again to meet Brockford. Leaving the
landing-stage, he proceeded up the street till he reached the Rua
Direita. As he crossed the road he came within an ace of being knocked
down by a cab, which was coming at a swift pace towards him. He looked
up, as if to expostulate with the driver, and then, as suddenly, turned
and fled. Had anyone been near enough to see, he would have told you
that his face was deathly pale, and that, when he reached the pavement,
he trembled like a man with the palsy. _For the person in the cab was
myself, his brother Paul!_
And yet, by some unhappy chance, I did not see him.
"Good heavens!" he muttered, when he had partially recovered. "Paul is
searching for me. What am I to do now?"