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Title: The Recipe for Diamonds

Author: Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

Release Date: January 26, 2010 [EBook #31083]

Language: English

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The Recipe for Diamonds

NELSON'S LIBRARY


[Illustration: Weems stuck up his left arm, and sighted the pistol over
his elbow-joint.]





THE RECIPE FOR DIAMONDS



C. J. CUTCLIFFE HYNE



Thomas Nelson and
Sons, London, Edinburgh,
and New York




_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_


THE OCTOPUS.                    _Frank Norris._

WHITE FANG.                     _Jack London._

THE PRINCESS PASSES.            _C. N. & A. M. Williamson._

THE MAN FROM AMERICA.           _Mrs. H. de la Pasture._

SIR JOHN CONSTANTINE.           _"Q"_

A LAME DOG'S DIARY.             _S. Macnaughtan._

FORTUNE OF CHRISTINA M'NAB.     _S. Macnaughtan._

THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG.       _Sir G. Parker._

THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE.    _Sir G. Parker._

INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS.          _A. and E. Castle._

IF YOUTH BUT KNEW!              _A. and E. Castle._

JOHN CHARITY.                   _H. A. Vachell._

HIS GRACE.                      _W. E. Norris._

MATTHEW AUSTIN.                 _W. E. Norris._

CLEMENTINA.                     _A. E. W. Mason._

THE AMERICAN PRISONER.          _Eden Phillpotts._

THE HOSTS OF THE LORD.          _Mrs. F. A. Steel._

THE LADY OF THE BARGE.          _W. W. Jacobs._

THE INTRUSIONS OF PEGGY.        _Anthony Hope._

QUISANTÉ.                       _Anthony Hope._

THE KING'S MIRROR.              _Anthony Hope._

THE GOD IN THE CAR.             _Anthony Hope._

No. 5 JOHN STREET.              _Richard Whiteing._

THE ODD WOMEN.                  _George Gissing._

MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM ASHE.       _Mrs. Humphry Ward._

ROBERT ELSMERE.                 _Mrs. Humphry Ward._

HISTORY OF DAVID GRIEVE.        _Mrs. Humphry Ward._


_Shortly._

WOODSIDE FARM.                               _Mrs. W. K. Clifford._

MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE, AND THE BEAUTIFUL LADY.  _Booth Tarkington._

THE PIT.                                     _Frank Norris._

AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH.                  _Sir G. Parker._

THE WAGES OF SIN.                            _Lucas Malet._


_NELSON'S LIBRARY._




Transcriber's Note: In this e-text, characters with macrons are
preceded by an equal sign and enclosed in brackets, e.g., [=a].
Characters with breves are preceded by a right parenthesis and
enclosed in brackets, e.g., [)a]. Superscripted characters are
preceded by a carat, e.g., 2^a.




CONTENTS.


   I. BIG GAME                                            3

  II. HALCYONII DIES                                     15

 III. VAGABOND                                           27

  IV. MR. WEEMS AND HIS PURCHASE                         46

   V. WANTED, A PASSAGE                                  69

  VI. FORE AND AFT SEAMANSHIP                            81

 VII. A DIPLOMATIC REMOVAL                              102

VIII. TWO EVENINGS                                      115

  IX. TALAITI DE TALT                                   132

   X. WITH A THREE-ANGLED HOE                           146

  XI. THE RED DELF AMPHORA                              166

 XII. A PROFESSIONAL CONSPIRATOR                        182

XIII. AT A MALLORQUIN FONDA                             204

 XIV. HEREINGEFALLEN                                    217

  XV. CAMARADERIE                                       226

 XVI. CRUELLY INTERRUPTED                               240

XVII. VENTRE À TERRE                                    258




THE RECIPE FOR DIAMONDS.




[_Extracted from the home correspondence of George Slade Methuen,
Esq., which was written at his hired place on the Foldenfjord._]

CHAPTER I.

BIG GAME.


... The first shot was just a rib too far back, and though it staggered
him, he didn't stop to it. Out tinkled cartridge number one and in went
a second, and "_cluck_" said the breech-block. And then as he slewed
round, I got the next bullet home, bang behind the shoulder. That did
it. He tucked down his long Roman nose, and went heels over tip like a
shot rabbit; and when a big elk that stands seventeen hands at the
withers plays that trick, I tell you it shows a new hand something he
hadn't much idea of before.

We ran up eagerly enough. "_Meget stor bock_," shouted Ulus, and
whipped out his knife, and proceeded to do the offices, being filled
with strong glee, which he imparted to the driving rain, the swishing
trees, and my dripping self.

And, by Jove, his highness was a beauty too! Antlers in velvet, of
course, as is the fashion with all Norwegian deer at this time of year;
but there were eight points on each, and they've got the most approved
"impudent" downward curve. What with no _rype_ and few trout, I'd
been feeling rather down on my luck all these long weeks till now; but
this big elk turned the scale. Glad I came.

September nights drop down early here, and day was getting on, so we
hurried up with the work, and loitered not for tempting admiration. Off
came the coarse-haired pelt, pull by pull; and away dropped head and
neck, after a haggle through sinew and vertebræ; and then we got heavy
stones and built in the meat securely, lest the lynxes should thieve
the lot. It all took time, and meanwhile the weather worsened steadily.
The rain was snorting down in heavy squalls, and often there were
crashes from amongst the pines. But the _stor bock's_ trophies
repaid one for these things.

At last we got through the obsequies, shouldered the spoils between us,
and started.

It was slow passage. On this primæval ground one is so constantly being
baulked. There are so many knotted jungles of splintered rock, such
frequent swamps, so much fallen timber. And, moreover, the watercourses
and torrents were all new-bloated with the rain, so that we had to cast
about for fords, and then to grip one another at stiff arm's length, so
as not to get swept adrift whilst wading amongst the eddying boulders.
And when at last we did come to the lake, we saw there in the gray dusk
a thing which caused Ulus to offer up hot words in Norsk, which were
not words of prayer.

To remind you again of where we were:--

Some eight miles distant in crow-flight was the salt-water fjord. From
it two mountain walls sprout out towards the north. At first the valley
between these is filled with land which is mostly forest. Then comes a
lake, hemmed by two precipices. Then another two-mile-wide strip of
forest. Then another lake, with shiny granite walls running up sheer
two thousand feet, so that of the fosses which jump in cream over the
brinks above, only the stouter ones reach more than half-way down.

We were on the farther side of this last sheet of water, and across it
lay our only practicable way to the coast--to home, dinner, dry things,
and other matters longed for. And on this lake a lake-sea was running,
short, quick, and steep, which is the wettest of all seas for small
craft to tackle. The boat which had carried us up was one of those
_retroussé_-nosed punts peculiar to the country, the very worst
possible breed of craft for the weather. She would not face it for
thirty seconds. Her turn-up snout would fall off the moment we left the
shingle, she would fill and swamp, and we should be left a swim without
having in any degree furthered our cause. Wherefore I also bowed to the
inevitable, but like Ulus I said things. There was no chance of
reaching the abodes of men by any other route. We were booked till the
gale chose to ease--at any rate till morning; and for myself, I
contemplated a moist bivouac under streaming Jove, with one clammy
elk-skin for a joint coverlet.

But luckily Ulus was a man of the land besides being a vagrant hunter.
He led back into the forest. A score of yards from the margin, in an
overgrown clearing, was an abandoned _saeter_ hut. It was in none
of the best of repair, was seven feet square inside, and held five feet
of head-room under the roof-tree. It was about half filled with dried
birch-bark, piled up against the farther end. It also contained a rude
wooden trough and ball for pounding up coffee, three sections of
pine-stem for seats, and a rusted old stove which had not been worth
carrying away.

Four words made a division of labour. Ulus set off to revisit the
_stor bock_, Se going with him in case there should be any doubt
about the track. It was my task to create a blaze with the dry,
spluttering birch-bark, and collect a stack of solider fuel to feed it
with. Afterwards I went and stopped the more obvious gaps in the roof
with turf and logs, and by the time these things were done hunter and
hound had returned. Then we wrung the supersaturation of wet from our
clothes, and Se had a centrifugal shake; and so prepared, we went
inside. Thanks to wasteful use of an absent person's store of
birch-bark, the place was warm as an oven. Such an atmosphere was
grateful and comforting. Se indeed revelled in the heat too much at
first, and pressing over near its source, thrust out a moist black
nose, and got the full effect. There followed a hiss and a howl, and a
sulky retreat to the farther angle. Then we two bipeds hacked off
gobbets from the venison, and taking us sharpened sticks, roasted and
charred and toasted the meat in the doorway of the stove and over the
gap in its lid. And in time we made a satisfying meal, though the
courses straggled, and their texture was savage. And so on to pipes,
and water boiled in a pewter flask-cup with whisky added, whilst the
injured Se champed over juicy rib-bones in his corner.

The hum and crackle from the stove, the grinding of the gray dog's
teeth, the bumping and hissing of the gale outside, the boom of the
cascades at the precipices, made up most of the sounds for that
evening. Of chat there was a paucity. My knowledge of Norsk extends to
few parts of speech beyond the common noun; and Ulus, ignorant person
that he is, has no Sassenach: pantomime makes our usual phrase-book.
Talk under these circumstances is a strain, and we were too tired for
unnecessary athletics. So we smoked, and pondered over the slaying of
the great deer.

In a while we discarded the stump-stools and trundled them aside. A
bunk ran along the farther side of the hut where the bark had been
stowed, but I had my doubts about its vacancy, and surrendered it to
Ulus. His hide is tough; he had no qualms. I spread for myself a spring
mattress of birch-bark upon the floor. Se annexed the clammy skin. And
so we were all satisfied.

One does not wind up watches in these regions, and as time is
arbitrarily marked off by the cries of the gastric juices, I cannot
tell you how the hours were reckoned up that evening. I think we two
humans verged into a semi-torpid condition after that barbaric meal.
Repletion, heat, and fatigue were too strong a combination for complete
wakefulness; and though perhaps not exactly asleep, we were, like
hibernating animals, very dully conscious of passing events. Se's
condition was inscrutable. His eyes were closed, but that is no
criterion. He may have been asleep. But yet he possessed certain senses
more keenly active than ours. As evidence of this, when the night had
worn on to a tolerable age, we heard him give a growl in
_crescendo_, and then a short yap.

Se in general is undemonstrative to a degree. Hence the short
culminating bark, which might have been overlooked if emanating from
another dog, in his case commanded attention.

I rose on an elbow, but could hear no new sound except the soft rustle
of Ulus's wet clothes. He was moving too. There was a pause. Presently
he whispered "_Bjorn_," and I saw in the stove's faint glow the butt of
the Martini steal across to me.

You can lay your life to it I was awake enough then. What sportsman in
Norway would not tingle with delight at the chance of getting a bear?
Ulus had slipped a thong round Se's throat, and that wily hound was
mute. He was as keen on _bjorn_ as either of us, and being gray,
and vastly experienced, he knew better than to bay or otherwise create
a disturbance.

"_Patron?_" whispered Ulus.

I loaded cautiously, not sending the lever quite home, so as to avoid a
click, and nodded. Then we slipped our knife-sheaths round to the
hip--for a shot in the dark is apt to wound only and cause a
red-mouthed charge--and then the door was opened.

We stooped and went outside. The rain was tumbling in sheets; the night
was dark as the pit, and very noisy; we could make out nothing. Se
strained forward in the leash, neck thrust out, nose on high, up wind
towards the lake shore. As we neared the edge of the clearing a falling
branch struck me across the face. The pine-needles stung, and I
stopped, blinded for the moment. Then Ulus gripped my shoulder and I
wiped the tears away, and saw dimly a dark shape coming out of the
trees. The Martini swung up, and I squinted along the barrel. A
mountain-ash was in the line of fire, swishing, swaying, so that it was
impossible to aim; but the animal was coming along bravely--had not
seen us probably--and so I determined to hold the shot till I could
make sure.

The beast came nearer, dodging amongst the stems.

Suddenly, as it got into an opener space, I noted that it was erect.
This surprised me, for I had heard that bears never reared on to their
hind feet till wounded. Still you can bet that I intended to shoot
first and inquire afterwards.

But just at that moment Ulus screamed "_Nei bjorn_," and hitting
up the rifle barrel, brought my finger sufficiently hard on the hair
trigger to cause explosion. The shot went Lord knows where. I swore,
and when the echoes had finished bellowing, I heard the bear swearing
too. Then I began to sweat, for it dawned upon me that I had been
within an ace of deliberately potting a man.

Ulus also used powerful language, and by letting drop the word
"_Finne_," gave me to understand that he supposed the intruder to
be a Laplander; but it seemed to me that the shape that loomed through
the trees was too big for one of those dwarfish aborigines. And,
moreover, although I only caught the import of the stranger's words by
tone and not by literal meaning, I could have taken affidavit that none
of them were Norsk.

However, we did not stay in ignorance long. Before the powder smoke had
been all driven away by the rain the intruder was out of the trees, and
had pulled up in front of us, chuckling. Then--"Hallo! an Englishman?
How we islanders do get to out-of-the-way chinks of the globe!"

He paused, and I began to apologize--to say how sorry I was, and work
up a neat speech generally--when he cut me short.

"Nearly sent me to the happy hunting grounds, sir? Well, perhaps so,
p'raps not. I've seen men missed at shorter rise."

I was a bit piqued at this, and said something about being pretty
useful with a rifle.

He laughed again. "We won't quarrel over it, sir, anyway. I expect
we're both of us satisfied as it is. My hide would have been no use to
you; and for myself, I'm quite content to wear it a bit longer. It fits
tolerably enough. But you've a camp somewhere hereaway, haven't you? I
thought I caught the gleam of a flying spark from down by the shingle
yonder. That's what brought me up."

I explained how we had got pinned in by the gale, and the quartette of
us went back to the _saeter_ hut. The newcomer feasted there off
elk-venison (contriving to cook it, I noticed, much more cannily than
we had done, though with exactly the same appliances), and between
whiles he was told of the chase of the _meget stor bock_--the
tracking, the view, and the place of the bullet wounds. Afterwards,
when we got to pipes and the last drainings of the grog, he explained
his presence.

"I expect the wandering Englishman is about as scarce up here as the
hoopoo, even when he's got a rifle or a rod in his fist; and as I've
neither the one nor the other, I must be very much of a _rara avis_,
and quite the sort of animal to shoot on sight. Fact is, I was round on
the fjord there with my boat, and from what my eyes showed me, and from
what a local _topografisk_ chart told, the country on the norrard side
was much as God stuck it together. I wanted to see a strip of that sort
up here, so I fixed a rendezvous and slipped ashore. As it turned out,
the map is a pretty bad one, and I lost time in _culs-de-sac_. Finally
came this lake with the steep flanks. I couldn't see to prick out
another course, and I was just casting about for a rock that held a dry
lee when I saw your light. And now, as I hear you chaps yawning and as
I'm about spun out, 'twouldn't be a bad notion to turn in."




CHAPTER II.

HALCYONII DIES.


It is a tolerably insane amusement for a foreigner to go tramping over
wild fields and valleys in Northern Norway with no other guide than the
thing they call an ordnance map and a bit of a pocket-compass. And to
do the same without intent to slay the beasts, the birds, or the fish
of the country seems, to my way of thinking, even more mad still.
Perhaps I am peculiarly constituted, but that's the way it strikes me
personally. So I was rather curious to know what make of man it was
that did these things.

Overnight I had seen little of him that was not heavily shadowed. The
stranger preferred to do his own cooking, saying that he was used to
it, and had elected to heat his meat at the doorway of the stove.
Through this gap little radiance escaped. The only matters illuminated
were the slices of venison, the toasting-splinter, and the hands that
held it alternately. These last, being the solitary things one's eyes
could make out, naturally were glanced over more than once. They were
slightly above the medium size for hands, and long in proportion to
their breadth. The fingers were tapered like a woman's. The nails were
filbert-shaped, and grimy with recent climbing. The palms were hard.
The knuckle-side was very brown, and showed the tendons prominently.
They were those lean, nervous sort of hands which you find out at times
can grip like thumbscrews.

My couch was an uneasy one, and I awoke early. The visitor was snoring
away on the log-floor, looking comfortable and contented.

He was a man of about two-and-thirty, dark, tall, and well-built. His
clothes were those of the merchant seamen--that is, they smacked in no
degree whatever of the sea. Indeed, the only outward things which
connected him with the water were certain weather stains. He wore a
moustache cropped somewhat over close, and the teeth then showing
beneath it, though white, were chaotic; and, moreover, there was the
purple ridge of a scar running from the corner of his mouth which might
advantageously have been hidden. A beard also would have become him,
for his chin verged slightly to the cut-away type, and a three-days'
stubble looks merely unkempt. He would never have been a beauty, but
groomed up he would have made a very passable appearance amongst other
men, although the scar near his mouth, and another similar emblem of
roughness over the opposite eye, would have made him a trifle
remarkable.

After staring there dully for pretty nearly an hour, it began to dawn
upon me that I had seen this man before somewhere, though under what
circumstances I could not for the life of me remember. That his outward
person was that of the ordinary deck-hand ashore went for nothing.
Besides, he had spoken overnight of "my boat." That evidently meant
yacht, and might stand for anything from an eight-hundred ton steamer
downwards.

The more I puzzled over his identity the less hope I seemed to have of
guessing it.

At last he woke, yawned, stretched, and sat up. Then he looked at me
and whistled. Then, "Slidey Methuen, by all that's odd! Fancy stumbling
across you here!"

Still I couldn't put a name to the man, and after a bit of hesitation
told him so bluntly.

He laughed, and said he didn't wonder at it. It was only eight years
since last we had met, but in that time he had been about the world a
good deal, and, as he himself expressed it, "got most of the old
landmarks ground off his face, and new ones rubbed in." He was Michael
Cospatric.

I had to take his word for it. There didn't seem to be a trace left of
the man I had known at Cambridge, either of manner or outward form.
However, Cospatric of C---- he was, fast enough; and after the manner
of 'Varsity men, we started on to "shop" there and then, and had the
old days over again in review.

We had both been of the same year, and although in a small college that
argues some knowledge of one another, we were by no means in the same
set. In fact, up there Cospatric had been rather an anomaly: a man in
no clique, a man without a nickname, a man distinguished only by the
halo of his exit. He came up, one of a bunch of fifty-two
undergraduates, joined all the clubs, was tubbed, rowed four at the end
of his first October term in a losing junior trial eight, and was
promptly shelved. He was never in evidence anywhere, but was reported
to be a subscriber of Rolandi's, and to spend his time reading novels
in foreign tongues. As he seldom kept either lectures or chapels, a
chronic gating fostered this occupation. His second October he again
navigated the Cam in a junior trial. He lugged with the arms incurably
and swung like a corkscrew, but we had five trials on that term, and
men were wanted to fill them. So he rowed and raced, and again helped
his crew to lose, and then was shelved as hopeless. He was a man of no
account. Not three men, out of his own year, knew him by name.

At the beginning of his second Easter term he began to distinguish
himself. Of all places, he started to do this at the Union--an
institution few of us C---- men belonged to. There was a debate upon
something connected with Education. An unknown person got up and
savagely attacked existing methods as being useless, impracticable, and
in the interests of the teacher and not of the taught. "Of what use to
society is a College fellow?" he asked, and answering, "Of none, except
to reproduce his species," backed up his case with such cleverness that
a majority grew out of nothing. Johnians howled; Trinity men and Hall
men cheered with delight; Non-Colls hissed and made interruptions; and
as the ragged-gowned crowd trooped out, a universal cry went up of,
"Who the devil is he?"

We undergraduates at C---- were not much moved by this exploit,
because, as I have hinted, the Union was not in our line. We rowed and
danced and drove tandem; never preached, except to election mobs. We
quite agreed with Cospatric that Classics and Mathematics, and Natural
Science as she is taught at Cambridge, are one and all of them useless
burdens, not worth the gathering; but we were not prepared to say with
him that we hungered after the acquisition of French, German, Spanish,
Norsk, and Italian, or eke Lingua Franca or Japanese.

The higher authorities saw the matter in a different light. Master and
fellows looked upon Mr. Cospatric as a dangerous heretic--much, in
fact, as Urban VIII. and his cardinals regarded Galileo--and resolved
to make him recant. The senior tutor was chosen as their instrument. He
was an official with what were described as "little ways of his own."
He hauled Cospatric. Union speech and revolutionary sentiments were not
referred to. The delinquent was (amid a cacophony of "Hems") accused,
on the strength of coming up Chapel with surplice unbuttoned, of being
inebriated within the walls of a sacred edifice. He was not allowed to
speak a word in his own defence. He was gated for a week at eight, and
coughed out of the room.

An eminently steady man, and conscious of being at the moment in
question sober as an archangel, the iron of the accusation and
punishment entered into his soul. For gatings as a general thing he
cared not one jot. He had lived his year and a half in an atmosphere of
them. Whether free or chained, he had always stayed in his rooms after
hall, preferring the green-labelled books to any other evening
companionship.

But to this present confinement, a piece of obviously rank injustice,
he determined not to submit; and in consequence spent a dreary evening
parading the streets, not arriving back till close upon twelve.

He kept in College. The porter sent up his name. He was again hauled,
and again, without being allowed to say a word in his own defence,
gated for the remainder of the term, and given to understand that he
would be sent down for good if he cut a single gate.

The sentence was barbarous. A call at the Lodge and a patient
explanation to the Master would probably have set matters right. But
Cospatric was not the man such a course would occur to. Some
long-slumbering demon rose within him, and he indulged heavily in
College Audit in hall. Afterwards he came to my rooms, where there was
a conclave of some sort going on, and made a statement. It was his
first recorded appearance in any one's quarters but his own, and his
first recorded look of excitement, and consequently his words were
listened to. He did not stay long. He told us in forcible language that
as the College authorities had seen fit to take it out of him, he
intended to do the like by them, and we might form ourselves into
umpires of the proceedings. Then he departed, and next morning joined a
knot of us who were gazing with admiration at the stone angels beside
the clock, who, during the hours of darkness, had been helmeted with
obscene earthenware. No ladder in the College could reach that
decorated statuary, and as the porter did not see fit to risk
_his_ neck over such a ghastly climb, decorated they stayed till
mid-day, and our court teemed with ribald undergraduates.

The succeeding morning there was another raree-show. The College
skeleton--framework of a long-passed don, so tradition stated--had
been, by help of a screwdriver and patience, untombed from its dusty
resting-place at the top of the Hall staircase. It had been dressed in
some flashy Scotch tweeds well known as belonging to the junior tutor,
and perched astride of the weather-cock. Again the position was
impregnable, and again the trophy drew delighted crowds till long past
mid-day.

And so one puerile outrage succeeded another, scarcely a day passing
without some new triumph of the kind to report. Cospatric leaped at one
bound into a public character. Of course every soul in the place knew
that he was at the bottom of it all--the dons getting the news through
the gyps--but no one in authority was smart enough to bring anything
home to him. He even took to keeping lectures and chapels, which piece
of pharisaism put, to our mind then, the finishing touch of this comedy
of revenge.

It all seems a great piece of foolery when one looks back, but at the
time we thought it high-minded and justifiable rebellion. We assembled
in the court, and cheered after the senior tutor had been three parts
smothered in his bed by a red-pepper squib dropped down the chimney;
and on the morning after the Master's laundry was raided, and the linen
(belonging to both sexes) distributed amongst the crows' nests in the
avenue, I think special trains must have been running into Cambridge,
so thick was the throng of sight-seers.

There is no doubt about it that Cospatric came to be a young man of
much renown in those days.

Had he been a popular person beforehand, far-seeing friends would have
advised him to retire on his laurels after, say, the first half-dozen
exploits. But as it was, there was no one amongst the newly-formed
acquaintances sufficiently interested in the hero of the moment to
forgo his own personal anticipations of enjoyment. The man was egged on
unthinkingly, although a moment's thought must have pointed to a
certain deluge ahead.

And that deluge came, as usual, from an unlooked-for quarter.

Cospatric, in all his sober senses, was helping an overcome roisterer
across the court late at night. The junior tutor arrived, and ordered
Cospatric to his rooms. Cospatric went obediently, waited in the shadow
of an archway, and returned to the overcome one. Enter once more the
junior tutor; nothing said to the roisterer; Cospatric to pay an
official call at twelve-thirty on the morrow. There is no use giving
detail. They had a College meeting next day, and sent him down for an
offence that was absolutely trivial; and every soul in the College, the
culprit included, saw the justice of the injustice.

He came down the steps from the Combination room in triumph, and we
chaired him round the court in a bath, some hundred and twenty men
forming in procession behind, and singing an idiotic march-song from a
current burlesque. Then we went to his rooms, and he sat on two tables,
one above the other, with a tea-cosy on his head, and held an auction
of his effects, which those of us who happened to possess any ready
cash bought up at long figures. He had no plans for the future, so we
stuck a false moustache on him, corked his eyebrows, and thus disguised
kept him smuggled in our rooms for ten days, during which time Bacchus
created Babel. And then we had him photographed in various
attitudes--singly, and surrounded by groups of admirers--and then we
went out with him to the station, saw him in a train for Liverpool
Street, and--that's all. He was never viewed or heard of again. His
period of brilliance up there was very comet-like.




CHAPTER III.

VAGABOND.


"Hysterical madness" was the definition Cospatric clapped on to that
culminating episode of his Cambridge life; "but," he added, with a
chuckle, "I did enjoy myself whilst the fun lasted. That's just typical
of the particular fool I am. Nature intended me for clown in a
third-rate travelling circus. The father made up his mind I was to be a
big thing in the lawyering way. The two clashed, and the present state
of affairs is the result. If some far-seeing guardian could only have
averaged matters, I might have turned out very differently. I'd have
made a good courier, for instance, if such an animal had been in demand
nowadays; or a continental drummer, if the commercial part of the work
could have been left out; or even a passable navy officer. As it is,
I'm nothing; I'm no mortal good to anybody: and I have a very tolerable
time of it. Look, that's my boat."

We had worked our way down past the intervening barriers of water and
wood, and were walking on the fjord shore. Rounding a bluff, we had
suddenly opened out a small cutter of some six-and-twenty or thirty
tons, riding to her anchor in the mouth of the river. One concluded
that she was a yacht, as she was flush-decked, and had a skylight
instead of a cargo-hatch amidships; but her lines were a good deal of
the dray-horse type, and as for smartness, she did not know the meaning
of the word. I expect traces of this opinion showed in my face, for
Cospatric saw fit to explain.

"I learnt my sailoring in an untidy school," he said--"tramp steamers,
coasting schooners, collier brigs, and timber barques; and those aren't
the sort of craft that rub neatness into a man. Our motto in the little
drogher yonder is to keep her afloat with the least possible bother to
ourselves. We never lie in swagger harbours to be looked at. There
isn't a burgee or a brass button on board. Strict Spartan utility is
very much the motto of the ship's company. Hence, for example, you find
the decks brown and not white, and yet I can assure you that they are
absolutely staunch. She scarcely leaks a tear anywhere; and although
she's beamy and heavy-bowed and deep, she isn't such a sluggard either,
especially when it's blowing. In fact, dirty weather's our strong point
with that ugly duckling of a cutter. She'd sail most of your dandy
craft slick under water if it came on really bad. And we got it a week
ago by the Dogger here, and last year just to s'uthard of the Bay, as
foul as I've ever seen it anywhere."

"Here's our boat," I cut in. "My headquarters are in that house at the
other side of the river. I'll drop you at your craft as we cross."

"Not a bit of it, man. You must come and see me now we are here; and,
besides"--here he chuckled--"perhaps the belly of the old cutter isn't
quite so uncouth as her hide. You can send Ulus on with the impedimenta
if he wants to report himself."

So we did that--dropped down with the ebb, stepped over the rail,
bidding Ulus go his ways with boat and news and trophies. As our shoes
clattered on the grimy deck-planks, a close-cropped head bobbed up
through the forehatch, bowed, and retired.

"That's Celestin," said Cospatric, "my professional crew. He's
principally cook; and at times he's a very good cook, as you may learn.
There's another man below; my mate, part-owner with me. We're a
queerly-assorted couple, but we've rubbed on very well together this
past eighteen months."

He led the way down the ladder, and I followed. The inside of the
cutter was certainly "not so uncouth as her hide." Indeed, seldom have
I seen a cosier cabin, and I have been into a good many of one sort and
another. The items of furniture and fitting had evidently been picked
up from over a very wide area, but they had been selected with taste,
and harmonized thoroughly. The effect aimed at was comely comfort, and
that effect had been thoroughly gained.

One thing only seemed out of balance with the whole. The forecastle
door was a narrow sliding panel well over to port. All the starboard
side of the bulk-head was filled by a piano, which was bevelled off at
its lower right-hand corner so as to fit against the sheathing.

Cospatric followed my glance. "Yes, it's an upright 'grand,' and
German, specially made. It is rather bulky for the size of the ship,
but you see we're a bit musical here. Haigh plays. By the way, you
haven't seen Haigh yet."

He called out, and his mate came down the narrow alleyway from the
after-cabin. He was a tall, lean, smooth-faced man, with moist black
hair that was partly sleek and shining, partly bristling out in
straggling wisps. His face was dewy, and his eyes perpetually blinking.
Cospatric asked him to play something. He peered at me for a moment or
two as though taking my measure, and then went to the piano and gave
vent to a particularly low comic song.

"Forecastle tastes," thought I; "that upright grand's a wasted
instrument."

Aloud I expressed conventional thanks. Haigh had another blink or two
in my direction, and then broke into Gounod's "Chantez toujours,"
singing it very passably. He hadn't much voice, but he knew how to
sing.

"Like that?" inquired Cospatric.

"Remarkably," said I.

"Better than the other?"

"A hundred per cent."

"Then keep the same stop out, Haigh, and go ahead."

And Haigh turned to the piano and rattled off half a dozen other
goodish ballads. Then he said he was tired, and straggled out on a sofa
and blinked at the ceiling, whilst Cospatric and I wallowed in
Cambridge shop again. It's extraordinary how men do like to talk over
the follies of those old times. And afterwards Celestin indulged us in
dinner, a regular epicurean feast, washed down with decent wine, a
thing worth much fine gold after a month and a half in Norway.

"You do know how to take care of yourself on this craft," I observed to
Cospatric that evening.

"We don't live like this at sea, you know. It's regular ship's fare
with us then. And so, you see, we appreciate little bouts of
_gourmandisé_ when we get into port. Personally, I've got that
principle somewhat ingrained. In fact, I've rubbed along that way ever
since I got adrift from England and respectability. The system has its
drawbacks, but from my point of view it makes life worth living. I've
had roughish spells between whiles, but I'm so peculiarly constituted
that a short bright spot of comfort makes me forget the disagreeables
that have gone before, and wipes the slate clean for a fresh start."

During the days that followed, when not shooting or fishing, I was
generally on that ugly little cutter. Two things drew me: firstly (I'm
sorry to own), the fare, which was so vastly superior to my own; and
secondly, yarns. There was another attraction later, but I did not know
of it then.

Those yarns of Cospatric's were tales one would not forget. He told of
things which are not written down in books. He had travelled because he
couldn't help it, and consequently had seen and done things that more
well-to-do travellers are debarred from. He had housed amongst the most
iniquitous places on God's earth, from Callao to Port Saïd; he had
wandered from Yokohama to Mandalay; he had been trimmer on a
Shaw-Savile boat; he had served as mate on a Genovese timber barque.

He told of all these matters with an open contempt, in which Haigh
(when he did not happen to be dozing) readily joined him. The pair of
them had both knocked about the world largely. But it was not because
they liked it. It was the Fates that had ordained their first cycle of
vagabondage. This new mode of living in a shifting house--to wit, the
ugly cutter--was taken up because sea-roaming had been so thoroughly
ingrained into their natures that as yet neither of them had found a
spot he cared to settle down in permanently.

The rolling stone aphorism had been pretty accurately fulfilled in
Cospatric's case. He had gathered during the greater part of his
nomadic life little moss which he could convert into a bank-note
equivalent. Another man might have utilized some of the material; he
lacked the skill to set it in vendible form. With one solitary
exception, his gains during those vagrant years may be summed up under
two heads. He had gathered a knowledge of certain orders of his species
that was both extensive and peculiar; and he had amassed a collection
of tattooings that was unique for a European. The former he cared not
one jot about, displaying his intimate acquaintance with the shadier
side of the world's peoples with apologies; but in the latter he took
an almost childish pride. They were not, he pointed out, the rude
frescoings of the British mariner, who outlines a diagrammatic female
with a sail needle, tints her with gunpowder, and labels her with the
name of his current lady-love to prevent mistakes. Such crude efforts
have their good points; for instance, they promote constancy. But they
are hideously inartistic, and, moreover, to a man of ordinarily fickle
nature, are apt to bring in very damning evidence at the most
inopportune moments. Whereas (still according to Cospatric) the higher
types of these human frescoes spell Art, with a very big A, and form a
portable picture gallery which no spasmodic poverty can ever induce one
to pawn or otherwise part with.

The adaptability of the medium for artistic design is a matter open to
argument. However, Cospatric bore upon his person better specimens than
I have ever seen before. He had sat to none but the most noted artists
of Burmah and Japan, and the outcome of their brushes--or, rather,
needles, as I suppose it should be termed--was in places more than
remarkable. Buddhas, nautch-girls, sacred white elephants, serial fairy
stories, and the rest were all worth studying; but I think the
_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of the two artistic centres were a peacock and
a multi-coloured dragon. The bird stood before a temple (on the mid
forearm), serenely conscious of its own perfection. Every feather on
its body was true to life, every spot on its tail a microscopic wonder.
The beast (or the creeping thing, if you so prefer to name it) twined
round one of his lower limbs, leaving the dent of its claws in the
flesh, and resting its squat, outstretched head on the centre of the
knee-cap. And so cunningly was the creature perched (as its owner
gleefully pointed out) that the least movement of his crural muscles
set the jagged backbone a-quivering, and the slobbering lips to mumble
and mow. Cospatric said that dragon was a most finished piece of
workmanship, and worth all he had cost.

"That's the worst of really good tattooing," he explained, _à propos_
of this beast; "it's so infernally expensive to get the best men.
You've no idea how they are run after. But luckily they've a soft place
for a real connoisseur, even though he comes from the West. And,
besides, I've got such a grand skin...."

Music and dinners absorbed his spare cash when such were available; but
out in Burmah and Japan neither were to his taste, and consequently all
ready funds were wont to be sunk in corporeal decoration.

Whether the outlay seems judicious I will not say. It was not my hide
that these uncanny limners operated upon.

Another of Cospatric's tastes was one I could chime in with more
readily. He did not flaunt it, by any means. On the contrary, he kept
the thing hidden, and I stumbled across it only by accident. Moreover,
it was a stroke of luck for me that I did so, as my want of knowledge
had been a bar to any intimacy; whereas, once in his confidence upon
this point, we got on together swimmingly, and I had a good time.

It was an unpremeditated return to the yacht late at night with news of
bear that helped the discovery. Ulus had brought the tidings just as I
was going to bed that his _bjorn_-ship was expected to call at a
neighbouring farm to polish off the remains of a sheep; and as bear was
the only sort of local game which Cospatric considered worth powder and
ball, I thought I'd knock him up for the chance of a shot. So I went
out, and tramped down to the shore opposite to where the ugly cutter
was riding. But I did not hail. I stood there and listened--listened
with some wonder and some delight--I believe I gaped. The strings of
the "upright grand" were in motion, but they were giving vent to
neither ballad tune nor comic jig. And chiming in with them were the
notes of a violin, played tunefully, accurately, boldly. That last, I
knew, must be Cospatric's. I had not seen the instrument here as yet,
but I remembered he was supposed to be rather good on it up at
Cambridge.

After a bit I pulled myself together and hailed. The music ceased
abruptly. Cospatric's head appeared through the hatch, and Cospatric's
voice inquired with a good deal of impatience what I wanted.

I told him about the bear, and then added a few words in praise of the
music. "Why ever didn't you let me hear your concert before?" I asked.
"Did you think it was a case of pearls and pigs?"

"That's exactly the reason! I didn't know you cared for anything more
advanced than those ballad affairs. However, if that's a wrong idea,
I'm very glad. We'll have some tunes together after this, and perhaps
Haigh and I may knock out an item or two that's fresh to you. But for
the present, as you suggest--_bjorn_. I'll be with you on the sand
there in nine seconds."

As for the bear, of course he didn't turn up, and we three and Se spent
a particularly cold night in the open, with absolutely nothing to show
far it. In this there was nothing surprising. It was quite in the
ordinary way of business. Only Cospatric, who is at heart no sportsman,
murmured, "Small potatoes."

It was not till a couple of days afterwards that we got on the subject
of music again. We came at it this way: the cutter was going to work
south and west again, and it was proposed that I should join her.
"Don't go down in one of those beastly coasting steamers," said
Cospatric. "They'll give you five sorts of cheese for breakfast, and
poison you at all other meals. You'll live in an atmosphere of dried
fish and engine-room oil, and you'll be driven half-mad by children who
squall, and other children who rattle the saloon domino-box all through
the watches. You'd much better come with me. I'll drop you at a
steamer's port in the Channel somewhere some time. You aren't in a
hurry. Come, and hear Haigh play again."

I said I preferred duets.

"All right, you shall hear the humble combined effort," said he; and
then, after a good deal of pumping, I got more out of him as to whence
sprang his powers.

"The thing's simple enough," he said. "I was fond of fiddling, and I
stuck to it. I used to scrape at Cambridge, if you remember, as
probably you don't, and had some goodish lessons there. Afterwards,
when I got on the wander and took to pawning things, my spare shirt
went frequently, but I always managed to stick to that little black box
somehow. And I played on forecastle heads and on beaches and in
sailors' lodgings ashore, and occasionally I got a week or so's lessons
from a good man ashore; and then I heard concerts and good orchestras
all up and down. And so, you see, I picked it up that way.... No, I
don't play from paper much, but Haigh's a bit of a kindred spirit, and
between us we evolve things. And now let's talk of something else--say,
the ptarmigan prospects for next year; you'll be good on that."

                      *     *     *     *     *

Now I am fond of music--ordinary music, that is--and I can appreciate a
good song or well-performed operas such as _Carmen_ and the
_Yeomen of the Guard_, or even a classical concert if it is not
too long. In fact, I had always plumed myself on being what one calls
"very tolerably musical." But these two were streets in advance of such
mediocrity. To begin with, they had a strong contempt for most vocal
efforts, considering them as merely a sop for the outside public.
Orchestral music was their formula for the highest form of the art, and
orchestral music they accordingly played, that queer creature Haigh
blinking over the upright grand, and Cospatric behind him bringing
sounds out of his violin such as I never heard amateur produce before,
with a combined result that was always marvellous, and sometimes verged
upon that abstract goal, perfection.

They seldom had a screed of notes before them. Either they knew the
stuff by heart, or, what seemed more likely, there was some sympathetic
link between them which kept both instruments unerringly to the theme.
I could not find how it was done; I could only acknowledge the results.

It was by no means always within my powers to appreciate their work.
Sometimes the charm of what they played was too esoteric for my
understanding. The sounds were unmeaning to me; not infrequently they
were absolutely discordant. But I had confidence enough in the
superiority of their intellects over mine not to condemn, still less to
scoff. At these times I held my tongue. Genius is not improved by
irreverent criticism.

I spoke with Cospatric one day about keeping all these creative gifts
to himself. Why did he not share them with the outside world?

He gave a bit of a shudder. "Don't suggest such an idea," he said.
"It's my one sensitive place. All the rest have been hammered dull in
my roamings. I must keep that as it is."

And then at another time: "You know I can't conceive of a sensitive
man, be he musician or painter, or even writer of romance, who would
put out his very best for an indiscriminate public to browse upon or
trample over. He knows and feels the thing he has created to be a
beautiful thing and an original thing, and he has been at much pains to
arrive at it, although there were special items in his own constitution
which helped him. And he can be sure that there are a large percentage
of pigs in the public by whom his pearl will not be appreciated. Its
shape and its colour are new to them; and not having come within the
range of their limited vision before, therefore its building must be
altogether wrong. But that is not the worst. Spoken babblings one might
be deaf to; written stuff is sure to be cut out by a friend and posted
for you to enjoy with your morning's coffee. Those infernal newspapers
get hold of the thing you have made, and their verdict depends upon the
individual taste of some anonymous 'we.' He may not like your sardines,
and accordingly, though it does not therefore follow that sardines are
unfit for human food, he proceeds to slate sardines with all his tricks
of satire and argument, and to cover the maker and even the eater of
sardines with ridicule."

He stopped then, and I asked if he had been catching it somewhere.

He laughed, "No, I've never had my name once in a paper that I know of;
not even under the heading of Police Intelligence. I'm singularly
uneager for fame. I'm only talking from what I've seen occasionally.
That's been warning enough for me. It must sour a man to be jeered at
in that sort of way, and, thanks, I prefer not to be soured. I've no
superfluous sweetness."

                      *     *     *     *     *

All this may seem rather absurd, but I give it just to show what manner
of a man Cospatric is when you come to know him intimately. No one from
meeting him casually would guess that he had failings of this sort. In
fact, you would take him for a very tough subject indeed, inured to
hardship in the past, and liking hardship in the present for its own
sake. As an instance: instead of taking his ugly cutter down coast by
the inner passages, he must needs get out into the open water, which is
at this time of year exceptionally unquiet, from sheer delight at
getting kicked about. Indeed, when we picked up an equinoctial gale
half-way across, and had our hands exceedingly full to keep the boat
afloat, the man fairly revelled in the scene and the work; and what's
more, that sleepy, straggling person Haigh did too. It wasn't in my
line at all. I've not the smallest objection to getting cold and wet
when there is a big elk or a good bag of grouse in question; that's
different. But when one is perpetually half-drowned and frozen in a
little tub of a sailing craft, I fail to see where the fun comes in.
Still, in spite of the hard, rough time, I should have been sorry to
have missed that hammering across the North Sea and the trip down
Channel to queer old St. Malo. There was one strong redeeming
feature--Cospatric's accounts of his hunting after the Raymond Lully
inscription. He and I took one watch between us, and to the
accompaniment of northern gale and northern spindrift, he yarned about
a chase under southern skies for an object which I believe to be an
absolutely unique one. He was one of the men who were scouring after
that Recipe for making Diamonds lost to this world since the death of
its original finder in 1315.




[_Follows, an account of the contention for the blessed Raymond
Lully's Recipe, as given from Michael Cospatric's own lips._]

CHAPTER IV.

MR. WEEMS AND HIS PURCHASE.


... Genoa no doubt has its drawbacks. Incessant rain, perennial stink,
and big prices can go to make up a heaven for few people. But for
taking the taste of really bitter hard times out of one's mouth, the
place has its good points.

I'd been catching it bad just before. I'd got on my beam-ends in
Oporto, and couldn't afford to be fastidious about a berth.
Consequently, I'd found myself in a rotten old Genovese tramp barque
that most of the crew had run from because they thought she'd founder
next time she put to sea. Of course the owners didn't want to see her
again, and the skipper had been doing his best to play into their hands
all the way down from the Baltic. His mate had contrived to baulk his
losing her during the previous half of the trip, but got sick of the
job and cleared when he found the chance. It was into the mate's shoes
that I stepped; and having no interest in the insurance policy, and
placing a certain value on my own hide, I continued at the same game.
We'd a beautiful chance four days out. We picked up a sou'easter off
St. Vincent, and the putty began to tumble out, and she got more of a
basket than ever. We'd only ten of a crew all told, and there wasn't a
man of them that had had a whole watch below since we got our
clearance. Fore t'gallant mast had gone like a carrot at the cap, and
mizzen-mast head was so sprung that she wouldn't bear the spanker. She
was squattering along under the two lower topsails only, and we amused
ourselves by betting when they'd split.

She was so infernally full of water that she steered like a haystack;
and as any one in the waist got half-drowned every minute, long spells
at the pumps weren't popular.

We couldn't make our easting a bit, and the old man kept saying that we
should never get through the Straits. That was by way of preparation,
but I understood what he was up to and said nothing.

At last he put it to me squarely. 'Twasn't good enough going on like
this. The barque would have to be "Lost at Sea"--luckily the boat down
yonder amidships was a thumping big one.

I said open-boat cruising in a December Atlantic wasn't an amusement I
hankered after, and then asked him bluntly how much he was going to
clear out of the job.

He said, "Nothing;" called a large squad of saints to witness that the
loss of his vessel would ruin him; and then, changing tack, promised
that I should make a good thing out of it.

But when I tried to pin him, it was no go. He wouldn't make me out a
cheque; he wouldn't put pen to paper in any way; he wouldn't even
pledge his owners for a figure; and I damned him for a slippery
Maccaroni, and swore I'd drive his old tramp in between Genoa pierheads
just to square up his meanness. He daren't knife me, because the crew
would have understood why, and raised a wasp's nest; and he had to play
the sailor, because I promised him if he piled her up anywhere I'd go
to the nearest Italian consul and report him; but I'll give the man
credit for keeping me in blacker Hades during the rest of that crawl
across than I ever knew existed before. However, he got settled with
when once we were snugly into harbour, and was a long fortnight in
hospital repairing damages. That's where an Englishman scores. Whip
away the _coltello_ from the back of his belt, get him to put up
his hands, steer clear of his feet, and you have a southerner on toast.

After living like a brute--and acting, of course, so as not to spoil
the completeness of the part--for all that time, I naturally set to
doing what the sailor man always does under the circumstances. I got
ashore, and started washing the taste out of my mouth. Every man does
this according to his own lights, and perhaps mine were a trifle out of
the general groove. Lodging I was not fastidious about, neither did I
long for drink, nor clothes, nor women. So I put up at a bit of an
upstairs _albergo_ in the Via S. Siro, where one who knows the
ropes can get a decent room for a _lira_, and spent my time and
money in having daily a real good dinner and hearing some tip-top
music. And, by Jove, I did enjoy myself. It seemed almost worth going
through the bad spell, just for the sake of the contrast.

But, more's the pity, my pay had been small, and it fractionized
rapidly. The spree could only be a short one.

However, I wasn't going to run matters too fine this time and get
cornered again, as had been my fate at Oporto, so I loafed amongst the
shipping offices during my mornings, and had the good luck to stumble
into a berth on one of the American liners. It was only as third mate,
to be sure; but then she was a big ship, and I, professionally
speaking, was a small man. I hadn't exactly been schooled for the sea,
you know, so you can guess I was feeling pretty comfortable over it.

It's just spells like those which prove to a man how thoroughly life is
worth living.

The end of my tether was not long in coming. A man, when his shore
riotings are thoroughly systematic, as mine were, can calculate his
days of revelry to a nicety. I had arrived at my last two twenty-lire
notes. I was going to finish up with a ten-lire dinner, then spend four
lire for entrance and a seat at the Carlo Felice to hear "Cavalleria
Rusticana," leaving part of six lire for bed, morning coffee, and other
sundries, besides twenty odd to carry on the war with before I got my
advance on the steamer. Being stone-broke when you go on board doesn't
matter if you ship forward; but aft, to start with bare pockets may get
you a bad name.

I had maundered out to the Campo Santo that last day, and on the road
back, just after passing through the walls, an Englishman who had lost
himself asked the way to the market-place. He was a little bit of a
self-important chap, with a gruff, coarse voice, and schoolmaster
written in large letters all over him. He knew no word of Italian, and
was evidently feeling lonely to a degree; and so, as I had no objection
to chatting with a countryman, we paced off together and dropped into
conversation. He was "doing" North Italy with a circular ticket, and as
he had read it all up with much thoroughness beforehand, he was very
naturally much disappointed with the reality. "S. Mark's was too small,
and Venice was most unhealthy. The sanitation of that part over the
Rialto Bridge, where the butchers' shops were, was a disgrace to the
country. The Duomo at Milan was squat, ugly, overrated, and the hotel
charges in that city were most exorbitant. Turin might be a good place
for shopping, but he had not gone there for that purpose. And Genoa,
again, was unsanitary." In fact, he was the stereotyped travelling
Briton, so full of melancholy discontent and disappointment that one
wondered why he did not commit suicide or go home. And as, add to this,
he laid down the law with the true schoolmaster's dogmaticalness on
every conceivable subject that cropped up, from music to tattooing, you
can guess that he had in him the makings of a very objectionable beast
indeed. However, he was so appallingly ignorant of all the matters he
plunged amongst as to be correspondingly amusing, and for that reason
alone I didn't give him the go-by at once.

We were passing a bookseller's shop, where he caught sight of a mangy,
leather-bound MS. in the window, and said he'd ask the price. He didn't
know in the least what it was about, and didn't seem to care; but
saying that he would make a good profit out of it at Quaritch's, went
into the shop. I didn't offer an opinion about his last statement, but
just followed. He was demanding "How much?"

"Vous parlez français, m'sieu'?" asked the bookseller.

"Nong, mais this gentleman here parlez Italiano.--I say, will you
translate for me? Ask the fellow what he'll sell this for."

I did, and the bookseller started a long yarn about the MS. having come
out of the Marchese di Somebody-or-other's library, where it had lain
undisturbed for several thousand years. "Signor," said he, "the book is
of inestimable value, and I cannot part with it for less than thirty
lire."

I repeated the gist of this to my man--Weems was his name, by the way,
of New, Oxford, so he said--and told him he could get the thing for
about twelve lire, if he cared about it. And, to cut the yarn short, he
did buy it for twelve-fifty, and left the shop feeling that he had been
swindled out of at least half a crown.

"What's your purchase about?" I asked when we were in the street again.

He hadn't looked; didn't see that it mattered much; the stuff was old,
and that was the main thing. All these old MSS. were valuable, and
Quaritch was sure to buy it at a good price.

I still had my doubts about that last, but didn't argue. It was his
affair, not mine.

Finally, he suggested dining together, and (as he had been in Genoa
exactly twelve hours) laid down the law without the smallest hesitation
as to which was the best place to go to, and what was best to have. By
that time I had got about sick of his society, and said bluntly that,
as I knew Genoa thoroughly, I was not going anywhere in the Galleria
Mazzini, as he suggested, but to somewhere in another direction; and,
further, that as his idea of his menu and mine didn't appear to
coincide in any one item, we had better bid one another good afternoon.
But the horror of loneliness loomed near him again, and for one of the
few times in his life he changed front without argument. He would
grant, upon second thoughts, that I must know best about such a matter,
and would take it as a great favour if he might place himself under my
guidance. After which, of course, I could not say anything except that
I should be proud to act as his _cicerone_.

We had our meal--which was to be my last good one for many a long day
to come--and a beauty it was. Even my North of England grammar-school
master could not but admit the excellence, although he grumbled at the
price. Afterwards we went through into the _caffè_, and I offered
him a good cigar, saying that if he had been undergoing a course of the
local vegetable he would appreciate it. However, the creature didn't
smoke; and as he also didn't drink black coffee, and as I did both, he
took occasion to point out to me at some length that I was deliberately
crumpling up my constitution. To turn the conversation, I suggested
over-hauling his recent purchase. He seemed sorry to cut short his
sermon, but finding that I was paying no attention, asked what the book
was.

"It's a diary," said I, "written in Spanish, or to be more accurate,
Catalan; and," I added rather maliciously, "I'm afraid you won't get
much of a fortune out of Quaritch for it, as there seems to be nothing
here except the merest tittle-tattle."

His face lengthened for a moment at the idea, but the old cocksure
manner came back again, and he pooh-poohed my valuation with lofty
superiority.

"I presume you are not an expert in such matters as these--er--Mr.
Cospatric? No, of course not; it couldn't be expected. But let me
assure you that I did not make this outlay with my eyes shut. Trust me
for knowing what I was about." He turned over some dozen of the yellow
pages, looking at them curiously. "That _y_ there standing by
itself means 'and.' H'm, yes. The thing's clear enough when one looks
into it. I don't profess to translate this old MS. at sight. You see
the--ar--the writing's crabbed; and my time is too much occupied to
study it carefully. No, I shall just sell the thing to the man I
mentioned as it stands. To return to what I was telling you about the
use of tobacco, though. Whether you consider the matter from a
scientific or merely from a rational point of view----" And away he
steamed again, whilst I conned over the tangled quill-work.

My inattention was purposely obvious. I had got thoroughly sick of the
man, and wanted to drive him away. But he had only his own society to
fall back upon, and he had evidently the good taste to object strongly
to that. And so he preached on.

There was only one other person at our end of the _caffè_, a dark,
good-looking man with blue spectacles, who sat at an adjoining table
with an _Eco d'Italia_ before him, sipping cognac and sugar. But
when Weems tried to drag him into conversation, the curse of the Tower
of Babel applied the _clôture_, and, "Ignorant lot, these
Italians," said the schoolmaster, going on to show with many statistics
and arguments that English, being founded on dead languages, was
irrevocably destined by the Fates to become the universal tongue of all
terrestrial peoples.

I looked at the clock. Half an hour yet before the doors of the Carlo
Felice opened. The steep street outside was wet and miserable. I went
back to turning over the old book. The pages were a queer medley,
superbly uninteresting most of them, and tedious to spell out. There
were the usual Spanish flourishes of lettering and expression, and when
one had winnowed away all this chaff, it needed a great deal of hunger
to make one appreciate the grain. In fact, I was on the point of
closing the old scribble book through sheer weariness, when my eye lit
on something which, as I read it further, made me fairly sweat.

Weems droned on with his sermon, and I chucked in question and retort
from time to time, just to keep him at it. I was wanting to gain time
for a little argument of my own. It was a case of should I keep what I
had found to myself, or should I share it with Weems? Common sense
said, "Don't be a fool. If Providence has chucked a good thing in your
way, stick it in your own pocket. That self-sufficient idiot will be
none the wiser." But the plague one calls Honour kept shoving in all
manner of objections. By Jove, how a rational-minded cad would have
scored there!

In the long run Honour, confound it, got a bit of a balancer which
helped it to win. I'd a light purse; Weems seemed better off; he must
supply the trifle of shot necessary for the pair of us; and together we
should split the proceeds. Yes, that would be the idea. And besides, on
second thoughts, there'd be lashings and lavings of plunder for both.
No need for a bit of sharp practice on my part after all. So up I
spoke:--

"See here, signor, you've had the carpet for long enough, so give me a
turn. This twaddling old screed which you were going to sell without
ever skimming it through holds what means nothing more or less than a
thumping great fortune for each of us. You've heard of Raymond Lully?
No? Well, he was an old swell who flourished in the twelve hundreds,
and who was by trade rake, philosopher, quack, fanatic, organizer, and
martyr. He hailed from Mallorca--or Majorca, as you English persist in
calling it--and he wrote books on Apologetic Theology, Dogmatic
Divinity, and Practical Alchemy. Also he penned this diary, which has
evidently been kept pretty snug so far, and thanks to its general
dreary tone, no one has read the memorandum on page the last but one."

"Let me see," interrupted Weems, stretching out his hand for the
volume.

"It's of no use to you, as you can't read Spanish. However, I'll tell
you what's here; only let me gently remind you first that if it hadn't
been for my knowing the language and conning some of this stuff
through, the book would have passed out of your hands without your ever
having learnt a word about it. Shall I go on now? It's a bit
important."

"Yes, we are practically alone here. That person with the blue
spectacles speaks no English, and there is no one else within earshot.
But you are slightly in error about my ignorance of Spanish, Mr.
Cospatric!"

"Yes, yes; you know _y_ means 'and,' don't you, and that _si_
stands for 'yes,' and all the rest? But don't let's bother about that
now. Just marvel at this wonderful find. If the old gentleman had only
written 'R. Lully, His Book,' on the title-page or at the conclusion,
some bibliophile would have picked the thing up for a certainty, and
read it with the view of finding what I have found; and part of the
world's history would be different. But as it is, Lully happily omitted
his signature, and in consequence the memorandum of where the Recipe
could be found has never been read since the day it was written."

"But," broke in Weems, "what is this all about? I can't understand what
you are driving at, except that the book is a diary of Raymond Lully's,
whose name, of course, I recollect clearly enough now."

"My dear sir, whilst this old quack was trafficking with alchemy, and
trying to discover the elixir vital, or the philosopher's stone, or
some other myth like that, he accidentally found out a method whereby
common wood charcoal may be crystallized."

"What!" gasped the schoolmaster, "made into diamonds! Great heavens,
how was it done? Tell me quick."

"He doesn't give it here. This diary was evidently a private one which
he carried about with him, and it was liable to be destroyed. So he
wrote up the Recipe in a quiet place where no one would stumble on it,
and where, as he remarks, he could send his heir to if he thought fit
to do such a thing. But still, I don't think that there is much fear of
the secret having been given away. In the first place, we should
undoubtedly hear of it if any one was manufacturing real diamonds for
the market, as the diamond mines of the world are all known, and their
output most strictly regulated. And, in the second place, he had a
strong reason of his own for not divulging the formula. Listen, and
I'll read. 'If,' he says, 'diamonds were made common and cheap so that
the lower orders of people might obtain them, I can conceive that much
dissension would arise. For the nobles, finding their stored gems to
have become in a sudden of no richness, would be deeply embittered
thereby--they and their woman-kind. And the common folk, being able to
flaunt jewels equal to those of their betters, would wax arrogant and
dissatisfied; and though being in reality no whit better off than
before, would deem themselves the inferiors of none and the superiors
to most; in support of which vain dreams they would strive to their own
sore detriment. For as in the beginning the sons of Adam were equal,
and as of their descendants some rose to be of ruling classes through
mental and physical fitness, so if all men were to be levelled again
to-day, to-morrow they would be uneven once more, and the next day more
uneven, the weak getting trampled under foot, and the strong fighting a
red path upward with their ruthless sword.'"

"I need hardly inform you," interrupted Weems, "that those crude ideas
of political economy are not what we modern thinkers accept. Even John
Stuart--but I will tell you about that afterwards. Please let me hear
how the diamonds are made. Never mind about the other twaddle. It pains
one to listen to it."

"As I told you, the actual Recipe is not in the diary here. Lully wrote
it out, so he says, in imperishable form, in a place where he conceived
it would pass down through the centuries absolutely undisturbed. I am
not quite so confident about that as he is, as I know the
inquisitiveness of the present generation better than he could imagine
it. But to cut the story short, he found a way into one of the Talayots
of Minorca, carved his secret upon the plaster of the interior, hid the
entrance again, and came away. He says that the Talayot was believed by
the Minorcans to be solid throughout, and adds that his only confidant,
the priest who helped him to gain the internal chamber, died of a fever
two days afterwards. Then he mentions the name of the spot--Talaiti de
Talt, near Mercadal--and says if you dig a man's length down in the
middle of the side facing seaward, you'll come across the entrance
passage. Oddly enough, I've been at Mercadal myself, when a brig I was
on was weather-bound in Port Mahon; and though I don't recollect this
Talaiti de Talt, it's very probable I saw it, as we overhauled all the
Talayots in the neighbourhood."

"By the way, what is a Talayot? I'm--ar--sorry to confess
ignorance----"

That last made me grin, which he saw, and didn't like a bit. However, I
pulled my face together again, and explained. "'Talayot' is a generic
term for the groups of prehistoric remains which lie all over the
island. There are monoliths, short underground passages, duolithic
altars, and rude pyramids. Talaiti de Talt is evidently one of these
last."

"Old?"

"Tolerably. The race of men who put them up were extinct before the
Egyptian pyramid-builders came upon the scene."

"I don't quite see how that can be. You must understand, Mr.
Cospatric----"

"Oh, what does it matter, man? If it pleases you, I'll grant that
Cheops and Co. took to architecture first. But, anyway, these Minorcan
pyramids were up long before Lully's time, and that's enough for us.
The Recipe's there, just waiting to be fetched. We must drink success
to this."

A waitress brought us filled glasses, and we toasted one another. Then
I told Weems openly enough about my financial position, and asked him
to advance me enough for passage money. I said I knew the language and
the route and all the rest of it, and the outlay for the pair of us
would be very little more than what it would cost him to go alone. In
fact, I was going on to sketch out the trip, and tot up the items of
cost, when he cut me short, and coldly intimated that he did not intend
to part with a cent. He did not even plead poverty. He gave no reason
whatever.

I stared at him for a minute or so blankly. That he would refuse what I
asked had never occurred to me. At last I blurted out, "Why, good God,
man, I needn't have told you about the thing at all. If I'd held my
tongue, you know very well you'd have parted with the book in absolute
ignorance of what it contained."

"I might or might not have looked into it, Mr. Cospatric. That is as
may be. But the most ordinary honesty would have compelled you to speak
when I did. Perhaps I refused your request too abruptly just now.
Believe me, I am not ungrateful for the service you have rendered. In
fact, I should like to prove my obligation. But I could not have you
labour under the error that you are entitled to a half share of
whatever profits may accrue. This Recipe is mine, entirely mine, Mr.
Cospatric, and it is not likely that I am going to put you in the way
of annexing a share of it. Of course, legally, you have no claim on me;
but as you say you are in indigent circumstances, I am willing to
stretch a point, and do more than I otherwise should. I will give you
the remainder of my circular ticket. That will take you back to
England, let me see--via----"

"You scurvy little blackguard," said I, beginning to lose my temper,
"aren't you afraid of being killed?"

He got very red, and exclaimed pompously, "Don't you attempt bombast
with me, Mr. Cospatric. I am as safe from your personal violence here
as I should be at home."

"Then," said I, "you must live at a tolerably lively place, for here
there are at least four men knifed every week, and more when things are
brisk."

"I shall put myself under the protection of the police if you threaten
me," said he, evidently beginning to feel a bit uneasy.

"And I should like to know how the devil you would set about doing that
same? Why, my blessed rustic, supposing you knew the lingo, which you
don't, and you went up to the local substitute for a bobby, and said
you wanted to get under his cloak, d'ye know what he'd do? Why, run you
in straight away. And in quod you'd stop; there isn't a soul in the
city here who'd say a word for you." Of course all this was a bluff,
but I knew the average Briton has an intense belief in official
lawlessness on the Continent, and I thought I'd reckoned up this
specimen pretty accurately. It looked as if I was right. He changed
tack promptly, dropped the dictatorial schoolmaster, and started
fawning. I seemed to have mistaken his motives. As a man of science, he
naturally took an intense interest in this Recipe, and wished to have
the administration of it entirely in his own hands. But, of course, I
must have known that as a gentleman he would feel bound to divide any
fortune that might proceed from it equally with me.

As a point of fact, I hadn't understood this. I had also overlooked the
item that he was a gentleman, and even then did not recognize it. But I
kept these trifles to myself; and as he was evidently trying to bury
the hatchet, I got out my spade as well. And for the rest of that
evening we were as civil to one another as a couple of smugglers with
one load of bales.

We were to work the thing together on his coin and my experience, both
of which were equally necessary; and as for the plunder, there'd be a
belly-full for the pair of us, and a lot to spare. Thank goodness women
existed; and as long as they didn't die out, the inhabitants of this
globe would always buy diamonds, if the market was not over-glutted.

And we'd start by the train which set off westward along the coast at
7.10 the next morning.

When we get comfortably to Mahon, thought I, I'll tell Mr. Schoolmaster
that the proof of the pudding can be found near the Recipe, for,
according to the illustrious doctor's account, he has buried in the
floor of the Talayot a fist-full of diamonds from his own manufactory.
But as the little chap seems keen enough already, I'll let that stand
over for the present. If at any time he wants an extra spur, it will
come in handy.




CHAPTER V.

WANTED, A PASSAGE.


It had been agreed that we were to start off next morning by the 7.10
train, and half an hour before that time saw me standing before the
Columbus statue in the Piazza Acquaverdi. Weems was such a mighty
squeamish little creature about the proprieties that I thought an old
dunnage-sack would scandalize him, and so had purchased a drab
portmanteau for my kit at the cost of half my remaining capital. I
intended to have no more breezes with him if it could be avoided.

The minute-hand of the clock above the central entrance of the station
crept up to the vertical, and began to droop. Cab after cab rolled up
over the flagstones and teemed out people and properties. Still my man
came not. He had distinctly said he would be in good time, as he had
baggage to be registered, and disliked being hurried. It began to look,
in spite of his bragging about never having overslept himself in his
life, as if he had been late in turning out.

The clock showed three minutes past the hour, and the big hand, being
on the down grade, began to race. I walked through the rank of waiting
cabs, and stood by the pillars of the central doorway. If we missed
this train we should lose a day. The 9.35 didn't go through, as we had
seen from the time-table overnight. It only landed one at Marseille.

The crowd of incoming people began to lessen, and finally ceased
altogether. The last passenger passed through on to the platform, and
the officials locked the waiting-room doors. We had missed that blessed
train.

I cursed Weems vigorously, and set off to Isotta's, where he was
staying, to beat him up, swinging the drab portmanteau in my fist, as I
didn't want to pay for leaving it, as somehow or other economy seemed
to me at that moment to be a strong line.

The Swiss day-porter was just coming down. He was a gorgeous personage
who could have saved the architect of Babel his great disappointment,
and at first he knew nothing of Mistaire Weem. Evidently the
schoolmaster had not been generous. So I inquired in the bureau for my
man's number, intending to beat up his room then and there, but was met
by the staggering announcement that the signor had cleared by the
Marseille train which left Genoa at 3.30 in the morning. But there was
a letter for me.

I tore the limp envelope, and read:--

    "GRAND HOTEL ISOTTA, _Genova, Tuesday_.

    "DEAR SIR,--Upon consideration I must return to my original
    decision. I fear I shall have left Genoa before you receive this,
    but do not trouble to give me any thanks. The balance of the
    circular ticket is very much at your service.--Yours faithfully,

    "R. E. WEEMS.

    "--COSPATRIC, ESQ."

The little beast had done me brown.

It was getting on for eight o'clock then. I glanced at a time-table. He
was due to leave Marseille at 8.4. By Jove, if I could have trumped up
any charge that would have held water a minute I'd have had him
arrested by wire. Anything to delay him! I was just savage mad. And I
was as helpless as a figure-head.

I swung out into the Via Roma wondering what to do next. Common sense
said go and take up my berth on the American steamer, and quit crying
for the moon now that it had bounced out of reach again. But I was far
too wild to listen to any sane sober plan like that. I couldn't swim
out to Minorca, and I could not fly; but I told myself grimly that I
was going somehow, and if Weems had got there first and collared the
Recipe, he'd just have to hand over--or--well, it would be the worse
for Weems. I shouldn't buy lavender kid gloves to handle him with.

All that day I hunted about, trying to get a passage across to the
islands; needless to remark, without success. The mail steamers run
there from Valencia and Barcelona only, and though there are occasional
orange boats passing between Soller in North Mallorca and Marseille,
they aren't to be depended on. By a singular irony of fate, I did come
across an old white--painted barque which had just come out of Palma in
ballast; but her skipper only told what I knew full well in my own
heart, that I might very likely wait three years before I found a craft
going the other way.

There seemed nothing for it but to go like a sensible Christian by
train round the coast, and then across from one of the two Spanish
ports by the regular ramshackle mail steamer. And so I bowed to fate,
and converted the drab portmanteau and all its contents into the
compactest form. The lot didn't fetch much. By dint of tedious
haggling, I scraped together twenty-three lire thirty; and without
selling the clothes on my back, and one other item, which I had rather
sell the teeth out of my head than part with, I didn't see a
possibility of getting more by that sort of trade. However, I had only
collected this slender store in the hopes of increasing it, and as soon
as night came down and such places are open, I marched off to a
gambling hell which I knew of in the low part of the town near the
harbour side. The way lay through many passages and up many steps, and
it was by no means a place to which the general public were admitted.
In fact, in its style it was far more exclusive than the _salle de
jeu_ run by Monsieur Blanc's successors at Monte. But I had been
there before, and knew how to get the _entrée_.

The whitewashed walls were grimy, the two naked gas-jets jumped and
hooted spasmodically, and those who knew said that the atmosphere was
reminiscent of a slaver's hold. The officials wore their shirt-sleeves
rolled up for greater ease in movement, and no gentleman was allowed to
enter the room till he had deposited his knife outside the door.

With the fluctuating population of a seaport, one might reasonably
expect to find most nationalities represented at such a seductive spot;
but, as a point of fact, the operators on that night were almost
exclusively Italians. The sailor, take him in the bulk, is a tolerable
fool all the world over; but the northerner has some grains of sense
though he is a sportsman, and roulette with twenty-six numbers and a
zero is a trifle too strong an order even for him.

I had fixed my desires at a hundred and twenty lire. Less would not see
me through; more I was not going to try for.

In that assembly a man who plunges half-lire pieces on every spin of
the ball is a man who means business; and the _dilettanti_ soon
let me press through to a stool at the table. Going on _pair_ and
_impair_ or the colour was not to my taste. Either luck was going
to stand by me that evening, or I was going to be broke; so I planked
my money haphazard on four numbers every time, and didn't handicap
myself with a system. I'd a distinct suspicion that the bank had even a
greater pull than was apparent on the surface; but there was no chance
of investigation, and I submitted to the fact that chances all-told
stood about two to one against me.

The play was slow, and for ordinary people unexciting, though you can
guess it did not send me to sleep. I won a little, and lost a little;
but on the whole was able to shove a ten-lire note every now and again
into my pocket. It doesn't do to leave such trifles about in some
places.

A clock outside chimed ten, and I could count up sixty-four lire fifty.
What with Italian tobacco and Italian garlic and Italian humanity, the
air had got something too awful for words. The arteries inside my skull
were playing some devil's tune of _Thumpetty Bump_ that caused me
to see mistily, and to wish for an earthquake which would rearrange
terrestrial economy. In short, I couldn't stand it any longer, and so
went out for a few minutes' spell in the open.

But I didn't luxuriate over-long. The thought occurred to me that Weems
was already at Cerbere, and in another hour and forty minutes would be
having his baggage examined by an individual in green cotton gloves at
Port Bou, previous to pursuing his career of conquest down into Spain.
And by this time my grudge against that schoolmaster person had grown
to be a very big one indeed. So I gave up parading the muddy
paving-stones, and turned back into the _biscazza_.

A new arrival had turned up during my absence, a long, lean Englishman
named Haigh, whom I had met casually once before. His nerves seemed in
a delicate condition, for when the water-logged gas jumped, he jumped
too, and, moreover, tried to do it as unobtrusively as possible, as if
conscious and not over-proud of the failing. But he was gambling keenly
and coolly enough, picking his notes one by one from a leather
pocket-book, blinking over them to make sure of their value, and
watching them unfailingly gathered up by the grimy paw of the croupier
without an outward sign of regret.

I looked on a minute, thinking what a queer fish he was, and then
elbowing in to the table started afresh on my own trading.

Fortune seemed to have improved by the rest. Three rattles of the pea
brought my total up to a hundred and fifteen francs in Greek, French,
and Italian money.

A hundred and twenty was certainly the original goal, but I had a
precious great mind then to let the other five slide. In fact, I drew
away from the table intending to stop. But instead of quitting the
place there and then, I was fool enough to argue the position out
solemnly to myself, with the result that I eventually decided the whole
affair from beginning to end to be entirely of the nature of a gamble,
and naturally felt bound to test whether the luck was going to hold any
longer.

Indecision's my strong point, and many's the time I've had to pay for
it. If I'd cleared out on the first impulse, I should have been
comparatively affluent. As it was, ten more minutes beside that greasy
baize cleared me down to the lining.

However, if I had made a donkey of myself, it wasn't an altogether
novel experience, and I was philosopher enough not to weep over it. So
I crammed my fists into my pockets by way of ballast, and sauntered to
the door for a trifle of property which the regulations had made me
leave there.

Whilst I was picking my own particular weapon from amongst the armoury
Haigh joined me, announcing that he also was cleaned out; and adding
that he was not altogether sorry, as those flickering gas-jets bothered
him.

The observation, if slightly illogical, was very explanatory; and so
thinking that he'd be none the worse for being looked after, I said I'd
stroll back up into the town with him. As we went up through the narrow
streets he imparted a long detail of woe; but he maundered over it
considerably, and whether the lady who was mostly in question was his
own wife, or some one else's wife, or no wife at all, was a point still
hidden from me when we sheered up in front of his hotel. Here he got
more mournful still, and quitted the tale of his past ill-treatment for
a more pressing question of the present.

"Yes, here we are, old chap, and I'm awfully sorry I can't ask you in
to have something. But the fact is, I'm not in very good odour there
just at present. My bill d'ye see's been galloping for the last three
weeks, and at lunch to-day the proprietor fellow said he couldn't wait
any longer for my remittances. He said that if they didn't come by
evening he'd rather I went, leaving my baggage behind by way of
souvenir. I'm afraid the two portmanteaus aren't worth very much, as
I've--er--disposed of most of the contents, and supplied the weight by
pieces of iron kentledge done up in one or other of the daily papers. I
had a notion that I should have raised funds this evening, but
circumstances intervened which--er--you understand, made me somewhat
worse off than before. Of course if I went in there they might put me
up again for to-night; but that proprietor fellow might be about, and I
shouldn't care to meet him. He's such a nasty way of looking at a chap.
So I think, on the whole, I shall just go down and sleep on my boat."

"Your boat?" I repeated in a dazed sort of way.

"Yes," said Haigh, blinking at me anxiously; "just a little cutter I've
got down there in the harbour. But I say, dear chappie, you aren't
taking it unkindly that I don't ask you in here, are you? 'Pon my
honour, if I weren't dead stony broke I'd give you a drink either in
this place or----"

"Damn your drinks, you lucky man. If your boat and my knowledge doesn't
transmogrify us from a pair of stone-brokes into a couple of bloated
millionaires, I'm a Dutchman. Come along, man. Come along now."




CHAPTER VI.

FORE AND AFT SEAMANSHIP.


It has been my fate to put to sea in some of the worst-found craft that
ever scrambled into port again, but of the lot, that ugly little cutter
of Haigh's stands pre-eminent.

She possessed no single good point in her favour. She had swung in
harbour so long that everywhere above the water-line she was as staunch
as a herring-net. Her standing rigging, being of wire, was merely
rusted, but her running gear was something too appalling to think
about. As for her bottom, if she had been turned up and dried for a day
(so Haigh cheerfully averred), there would have been enough bushy cover
on it to put down pheasants in. Fittings, even the barest necessaries,
were painfully lacking, as the man had been living riotously on them
for over a month and a half. A Chinese pirate could not have picked her
much cleaner. What he was pleased to term the "superfluities of the
main and after cabins" had gone first, fetching fair prices. Afterwards
he had peddled his gear little by little, dining one day off a
riding-light, going to a theatre the next on two marline spikes and a
sister-block, and so on. His ground tackle, long saved up for a
_bonne bouche_, had provided funds for that last night in the
gambling hell, where we both got cleared out together; and the balance
that was left didn't represent a mosquito's ransom.

Haigh told me all this as we walked back again down the narrow streets
to the quay, and I suggested that although Mediterranean air was good,
we couldn't exactly live on it during the passage across. But he
pointed out that as his dinghy was very old and rotten, it would be
quite a useless encumbrance on the cruise; and so, dropping me on board
the cutter, he sculled off again to swap this old wreck for provisions.

I roused out a weather-thinned mainsail, black with mildew, and bent
it; and by the time that was on the spars, he had completed his barter,
and had been put on board again by a friend.

We had a dozen words of conversation, and then got small canvas hoisted
and quietly slipped moorings. The night was very black, and thick with
driving rain; and we slid out through the pier-heads unquestioned save
by a passing launch which hailed, and was politely answered in
gibberish.

There was a singular lack of formality about our departure which was
much to be regretted. But there was some small trouble about big
accumulations of harbour dues and such minor items, which would have
had to be settled in return for a clearance _en règle_; and,
remembering how history was galloping, we could not afford the time to
deal with them. And so, after a narrow squeak of being cut down by a
big steamer just outside, we found ourselves close-hauled under all
plain sail, making a long leg with a short one to follow.

"Funds wouldn't run to the luxury of a chart," observed Haigh when I
inquired about this trifle, "but I had a look at a big Mediterranean
track chart at the place where I bartered the dinghy, and the course to
Port Mahon is due south-west, as near as no matter."

"As near as no matter," groaned I in response.

"Why, my dear chap, we really can't indulge in the extreme niceties of
navigation. We've got a compass, which is fairly accurate if you joggle
it with your finger occasionally, and we can fix up a lead line when we
get in soundings, and I dare say we can make a log. D'you mind having a
spell at the pump now? I'm a bit out of condition."

The leaking decreased as the planking swelled to the wet, but other
unpleasantnesses began to show themselves. One of the greatest, to my
way of thinking, was the way we were victualled. To begin with, there
were twenty-three bottles of vermouth, straw-jacketed, and carefully
stowed. Then there was a bag of condemned sea-biscuits, which Haigh
pleasantly alluded to as "perambulators." And the list of solids was
completed by half a dozen four-pound tins of corned beef, and a hundred
and fifty excellent cigars which had not paid duty. There was an iron
tank full of rusty water which "had to do," as refilling it might have
entailed awkward questions. And, lastly, there had been brought on
board a very small and much-corroded kedge anchor, which, as it was the
only implement of its kind that we possessed, gave much force to
Haigh's comment that "it might come in handy."

To tell the truth, when the cold sea air blew away the glamour of
plotting and planning, and I was able to tot up all these accessories
with a practical mind, I was beginning very much to wish myself well
off what seemed a certain road to Jones.

Haigh, on the other hand, seemed supremely contented and happy.
Yachting as a general thing, he said, he found slow; but this cruise
had an element of novelty which made it vastly entertaining. He had
never heard of any one deliberately getting to sea quite under such
circumstances before. He didn't uphold the wisdom of the proceeding in
the least, for when I grunted something about the world not containing
such another pair of thorough-paced fools, he agreed with me promptly.
In fact, he was in far too jovial a humour to argue about anything, and
by degrees I began to fall in with his vein. "Let's split a bottle of
vermouth," said he, "and drink confusion to every one except our two
selves." And we did it.

The breeze lulled at daybreak, and northed till we had it nearly fair.

"This is great business," said Haigh. "I'll bet you five hundred pounds
that we make the islands in the next twenty-four hours. I.O.U.'s
accepted." He slipped off the after-hatch, and dragged up from the
counter a venerable relic of a spinnaker, which was one vivid mottle of
mildew. The sail was duly mocked and set. The wind was freshening, and
our pace increased. The cutter and her parasitical escort kicked up
enough wake for a Cardiff ore-steamer.

"Who says a foul bottom matters now?" said Haigh. "Who will suggest
that she isn't kicking past this scenery at nine knots? Bless the ugly
lines of her, we mustn't forget her builder's health. Hand up another
bottle of that vermouth and the dipper."

We lifted her through it all that morning at a splendid pace, the wake
boiling up astern like a mill-tail. The two booms did certainly make
occasional plunges which might have jarred timid nerves, but such a
trifle did not disturb us.

"It's the best bit of racing I've ever done," said Haigh. "There's a
pig of a following sea, and the wind's squally. Just her weather. If
we'd only got another craft trying to beat us, the thing would be
perfect. We should have some inducement to carry on then."

Whilst we were eating our mid-day meal (on deck, of course) that
variegated spinnaker went "pop," splitting neatly from head-cringle to
foot-rope. It was my trick at the tiller, and so I was tied aft. Haigh
peered round at the ruin, and returned to his occupation of knocking
weevils out of his biscuit. He didn't think it worth while to budge,
and so we let the canvas blow into whatever shaped ribands it chose. If
we couldn't carry the sail, we didn't want it.

The wind hardened down as the day went on, and every knot we went the
sea got worse. The ugly cutter slid down one wet incline, drove up the
next, and squattered through the hissing crest with a good deal of
grumbling and plunging and rolling and complaining. But she had a good
grip of the water, and with decently careful steering she showed but
small inclination to broach-to or do anything else she wasn't wanted
to. She might not be a beauty; she might be sluggish as a haystack in a
light breeze; but, as Haigh said, this was just her day, and we were
not too nervous to take advantage of it. Still, considering her small
tonnage, and the fact that all her tackle was so infernally rotten, she
took a tidy bit of looking after. You see, we might be reckless about
our skins, but at the same time we were very keenly anxious to make the
Balearic Islands.

The thing that I mostly feared was that our old ruin of a mainsail
would take leave of us. If once it started to split, the whole lot
would go like a sheet of tissue-paper. However, whether we liked it or
not, we had to run on now. The wind and sea were both far too heavy to
dream of an attempt at rounding-to. And, indeed, even if we had
succeeded in slewing her head to the wind without getting swamped in
the process (the odds on which were about nine hundred to one against),
it was distinctly doubtful as to whether she would deign to stay there.
Small cutters are not great at staying hove-to in really dirty weather.

And so we topped the boom well up, hoisted the tack to prevent
overrunning the seas, and let her drive; and whilst Haigh clung on to
the tiller and its weather rope, I busied myself with a bent
sail-needle at stitching up any places within reach on the mainsail
where the seams seemed to be working loose.

Soon after dark that night--and I never saw much more inky blackness in
my life--we came across a deep-laden brig which very nearly gave us a
quietus. She was running sluggishly under lower fore-topsail, wallowing
like a log-raft in a rapid, and doing less than a third of our
knottage. We possessed neither side-lamps nor oil, and showed no light;
and as she had not a lantern astern, we got no glimmer of warning till
we were within a dozen fathoms of her taffrail. Haigh couldn't give the
cutter much helm for fear of gibing her and carrying away everything,
and consequently we did not clear that brig's low quarter by more than
a short fathom. Had we passed her to starboard instead of to port, we
should have fouled our main boom, and--well, we shouldn't have got any
farther.

As we tore past, the white water squirming and hissing between the
vessels' sides, a man leaned over the bulwark, with his face looking
like a red devil's in the glare of the port light, and shook a fist and
screamed a frightened venomous curse. Our only reply was a wild roar of
laughter. As we drove off into the mist of scud ahead, I looked back
and saw the man staring after us with dropped jaw and eyes fairly
goggling. He must have thought us mad. Indeed, I believe we had taken
leave of some of our senses then.

"Vermouth's cheapening," said Haigh. "Pass up another bottle. If we do
happen to go to Jones, it 'ud be a thousand pities to take the liquor
down with us undecanted."

Don't get the idea that we were drunk all through that wild cruise,
because we were not. But one thing and another combined to make the
excitement so vivid, that with the liquor handy it did not take much
inducement to make us tipple pretty heavily. We were vilely fed,
bitterly exposed, heavily overworked, unable even to smoke--and--the
vermouth was very, very good.

As the seas swept her the ugly cutter's planking swelled, but before
she became staunch a fearful amount of water had passed into her.
Haigh, who was in no sort of condition, got utterly spun out by a
five-minutes' spell at the pump, and consequently it had been my task
to restore the incoming Mediterranean to its proper place again. It was
a job that wearied every nerve in my body. The constant and monotonous
heaving up and down of a pump-handle is probably the most exhausting
work existent; and soon after passing that deeply-laden brig I pumped
her dry for (what seemed) the ten thousandth time, and toppled on the
deck dead beat.

"Look here," said Haigh, "you get below and turn in. I'm quite equal to
keeping awake until further notice. I'm never much of a hand at
sleeping at the best of times; and just now I'm well wound up for a
week's watch on end. If you're wanted, I'll call you. Go."

I slipped down without argument, dropped into a bare and clammy bunk,
and slept.

                      *     *     *     *     *

Haigh never roused me. I woke of my own accord, and found daylight
struggling in through the dusty skylight in the after-cabin roof. After
yawning there a minute or so, I conquered laziness and returned to the
deck.

Those who think the Inland Sea is always calm ultramarine, under a sky
to match, should have seen it then. The colouring was all of grays and
whites, with here and there a slab of cold clear green, where a big
wave heaved up sheer. It was awfully wild. The sea was running higher
than ever, and the gale had not slackened one bit. The brine-smoke was
hissing through our cross-trees in dense white clouds.

Haigh greeted me with a nod and a grin. His hat had gone, and the dank
wisps of his hair were being fluttered about like black rags; his
narrow slits of eyes were heavily bloodshot; his face was grimy and
pale, his hands grimy and red; his clothing was a wreck. He looked very
unpleasant, but he was undoubtedly very broad awake. He resigned the
tiller and rope, and began gingerly to stretch his cramped limbs,
talking the while.

"D'ye see that steamer, broadish on the weather-bow?"

I looked, and saw on the gray horizon a thin streak of a different
gray.

"I rose her a quarter of an hour ago," he went on, "and bore away a
couple of points so as to cut her off. I'm thinking it wouldn't be a
bad idea to speak her if it could be managed, and find out where we
are. As we haven't been able to rig a log-ship and line, and as the
steering has been, to say the least of it, erratic, our dead reckoning
has been some of the roughest. Personally, I wouldn't bet upon our
whereabouts to quite a hundred miles. Ta-ta."

He went below to smoke, leaving me fully occupied with the steering. We
rose the steamer pretty fast, and in half an hour could see her
water-line when she lifted. She was a fine screw boat of three thousand
tons, racing along at eighteen knots, and rolling with the beam sea up
to her rails, in spite of the fore and aft canvas they had set to
steady her.

Haigh came back to deck, blinking like an owl at the growing day. "Look
at the gray-backs chivying her," said he. "Aren't the passengers just
sorry for themselves now? And won't they have some fine yarns to pitch
when they get ashore about the hardest gale the captain ever knew, and
their own heroic efforts (down below), and all the rest of it? I've
listened to those tales of desperate adventure by the hour together.
Passengers by Dover-Calais packets are great at 'em."

All this while we were closing up. The steamer's decks were tenantless
save for a couple of lookouts forward in oilskins, bright varnished by
the spin-drift, and a couple of officers crouched behind the canvas
dodgers of the bridge, and holding fast on to the stanchions. I was
clearing my throat to hail these last, when Haigh turned and told me I
might save my wind.

"Never mind," he said; "I know her well. She's the _Eugène
Perrier_, a Transatlantique Company's boat, one of the quick line
out of Algiers for Marseille. Look at your compass, and note the course
she's steering--N.N.E. and by E. That's from Cape Bajoli straight for
Marseille. They run both ways between Mallorca and Minorca without
touching. Hooray! who says our luck isn't stupendous? Here we are, not
having made enough southing, and heading so as to fetch Gibraltar
without sighting the islands at all; and then in the nick of time up
comes a _dea ex machinâ_ in the guise of the _Eugène Perrier_
to shove us on the course again. In main-sheet, and then, blow me if we
won't have a bottle of that vermouth by way of celebrating the event in
a way at once highly becoming and original."

We made a landfall that afternoon off some of the high ground in
North-east Mallorca, and Haigh gave over champing his cold cigar-butt,
and delivered himself of an idea.

"Isn't there another harbour in Minorca besides Port Mahon?"

I said I believed there were some half-dozen small ones.

"Any this west side?"

"Ciudadella, about in the middle."

"Know anything about it?"

"Nothing, except the fact of its existence; and as we have no vestige
of chart, I don't exactly see how we are to learn anything more."

"Precisely. Then, my dear chap, to finish this cruise consistently,
Ciudadella must now become our objective. It would take us another day
to run round under the lee of the island to Port Mahon, and days are
valuable. The cutter's only drawing five foot five, and with our luck
at its present premium you'll see we'll worry in somehow without piling
her up. Perhaps we may get some misguided person to come out and con
us. Of course we'll take him if any one does offer, and owe him the
pilotage; but I'd just as soon we navigated her on our own impudent
hook. It's no use having a big credit on the Universal Luck Bank if you
don't draw on it heavily. The concern may bust up any day."

Luckily for us the gale had eased, or we should never have been able to
put the cutter on the wind. But as it was, with a four-reefed mainsail
and a bit of a pocket-handkerchief jib, she lay the course like a
Cowes-built racing forty; and if she did ship it green occasionally,
there was no rail to hold the water in board. We didn't spare her an
ounce. We kept her slap on her course, neither luffing up nor bearing
away for anything. That was the sort of weather when the ugliness of
the old cutter's lines was forgotten, and one saw only beauties in
them. She might send the spindrift squirting through her cross-trees,
but with the chap at the helm keeping her well a-going, she'd smoke
through bad dirt like a steamer.

We rose the low cliffs of Eastern Minorca about half-way across; but
rain came on directly afterwards, and in the thickness we lost them
again. In that odd way in which things one has glanced through in a
book recur to one when they are wanted, I had managed to recall
something I had once conned over in a Sailing Directions about
Ciudadella. The harbour entrance was narrow--scarcely a cable's length
across--and it was marked by a lighthouse on the northern side, and a
castle or tower or something of that kind on the other bank. The town
behind, with its heavy walls and white houses, was plainly visible from
seaward, and the spire of the principal church was somehow used as a
leading mark. But whether one had to keep it on the lighthouse or the
castle, I could not recollect. Neither could I call to mind whether
there was a bar. In fact, I could not remember a single thing else
about the place; and as Haigh remarked, what little I did recall
(without being in any way certain about its accuracy) was of singularly
little practical use. But this ignorance did not deter us from holding
on towards the coast in the very least. We might pile up the cutter on
some outlying reef, but we were both cocksure that our stupendous luck
was going to set us safe ashore somehow. _Et après_--the Recipe.

We held on sturdily, lifting slant-wise over the heavy green rollers
till we were within half a mile of the land, and could see the surf
creaming to the heads of the low cliffs, and could hear the moaning and
booming as it broke on rocky outliers; and then easing off sheets
again, we put up helm and ran down parallel with the coast. Being
blissfully ignorant of anything beyond a general idea of Minorca's
outlines, we had to keep a very wary lookout; for a heavy rain had
started to drive down with the gale, and looking to windward was like
peering through a dirty cambric pocket-handkerchief. Indeed, we made
two several attempts at knocking the island out of the water, each
sufficiently distinct to have made any ordinary sailorman in his sane
senses get snugly to sea without further humbugging. And the afternoon
wore on without our seeing either the lighthouse, the castle, or the
town we were looking for; and just upon dusk the coast turned sharply
off to the eastward.

"That looks like a bay," said Haigh, squinting at the land that was
rising and falling over our weather quarter. "If we hold on as we are
going, we ought to pick up the other horn of it." So we stuck to the
course for three hours, and then came to the conclusion that the point
we had seen must have been the extremity of the island, and that we
were at present heading for a continent named Africa, then distant some
two hundred nautical miles.

The discovery cast a gloom over the ship's company. Our nerves were in
a condition then for taking strong impressions. For myself, all
lightheartedness flitted away. The ugly cutter's good deeds were
forgotten, and she appeared nothing more nor less than an ill-formed
cockle-shell. The gale was terrific. I was bone-weary; also the most
particularly damned fool on the globe's surface.

What Haigh's personal conclusions were I do not know. He said nothing,
but stood propped against the weather runner, mumbling over an unlit
cigar and peering into the mist.

After a while he turned. "Here, give me the helm, Cospatric, and do you
get your strong fists on the main-sheet. We'll put her on the wind
again, as close-hauled as she'll look at it. It's no use ratching up to
windward again hunting for Ciudadella, as ten to one we'd miss it a
second time. We'll just run along the lee coast here for Port Mahon.
There, now she's heading up for it like a steamer."

There was silence for a while, and we listened to the swish of the seas
and the rattle of the wind through the rigging. Then Haigh delivered
himself of further wisdom.

"It's a queer gamble this, take it through and back, and it's
remarkably like roulette in being a game where a system doesn't pay. As
long as we worked haphazard we did wonders. As soon as we tried to do a
rational thing, and make that harbour at Ciudadella, we got euchred.
Well, I dare say we both know how to take a whipping without howling
over it. So for the present let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we may
drown. Knock me a biscuit out of the weevils, old chappie, and give me
likewise vermouth and corned horse."

Had the wind remained in its old quarter, we could have made one board
of it all up the southern flank of the island; but, as if to accentuate
the fact that we had already drawn more than our share of good fortune,
the gale veered round to the east, and settled down to blow again in
real hard earnest, bringing up with it a heavy sea. It was tack and
tack all through the night, and we were always hard put to it to keep
the ugly cutter afloat. Indeed, when some of the heavier squalls
snorted down on to us, we simply had to heave-to. It was just a choice
between that and being blown bodily under water.

The dawn was gray and wretched, but from the moment we sighted the last
point the weather began to improve. The air cleared up, the gale began
to ease, and when we ran in under Fort Isabelle just as the sunrise gun
was fired, we saw that the day was going to turn out a fine one.

The long snug harbour of Mahon, which was in the days of canvas wings
almost always filled with craft refuging, is now in this era of steam
usually tenantless. So it was a bit of a surprise to us to find the
English Channel Fleet lying there at anchor. The big war steamers were
getting their matutinal scrub, and were alive with blue-and-white-clothed
men. They looked very strong, very trim, very seaworthy, and the bitter
contrast between them and our tattered selves made me curse them with
sailor's point and fluency. Not so Haigh. He didn't mind a bit; rather
enjoyed the _rencontre_, in fact; and producing a frayed _Royal I_----
blue ensign, ran it up to the peak and dipped it in salute. If I
remember right it was the _Immortalité_ we met first, and down went the
_St. George's_ flag from her poop staff three times in answering
salutation, whilst every pair of eyes on her decks was glued on the
ugly cutter, their owners wondering where she had popped up from. And
so we passed her particularly Britannic Majesty's ships _Anson_,
_Rodney_, _Camperdown_, _Curlew_, and _Howe_, and dropped our kedge
overboard (at the end of the main halliards) close inside the
torpedo-catcher _Speedwell_.

The strain was over. We staggered below and dropped into a dead sleep.
Had there been a ton of diamonds waiting on the cliff road beside us,
with half Mahon rushing to loot them, we could not have been induced to
budge.




CHAPTER VII.

A DIPLOMATIC REMOVAL.


Individually the Minorcan is very amiably disposed towards the
inhabitants of those other islands, Great Britain and Ireland. It is a
matter of Spanish history that Minorca for many years groaned under
English rule; and as prosperity has steadily decayed since the native
article has been substituted for this reign of tyranny, it is not
wonderful that the average Minorcan has a hankering to groan again.
Indeed, he says as much with a candour that would be refreshing to
haters of Victoria R et I's expansive _raj_. But the Carabinero
who guards the public morals holds (in the bulk) different opinions. He
has no wish to be, like Othello, the possessor of a gone occupation;
and by way of marking this distaste, he is apt on occasion to be uppish
with the chance foreigner.

By force of circumstances, Haigh and I were in the way of finding
ourselves in no slight difficulties. The Briton in his own insular
ports is a very slipshod person with regard to the papers of small
craft--especially pleasure craft. He looks upon those last with a
favourable eye, and watches their going and coming with small concern.
The peoples of the Mediterranean are constructed in different fashion.
At the larger ports they are suspicious; but at the less frequented
spots, firmly disbelieving that men can ever yacht for mere pleasure,
they always take it for granted that any small craft is laden with
explosives and conspiracy, until it has been most clearly and
exhaustively demonstrated that such is not the case. Of course the
orthodox papers and clearances from one's port of departure form the
initial proof of innocence and harmlessness; and equally, of course,
the lack of formality which had signalized our departure from Genoa
prevented the display of these. And in addition, other matters combined
to make our characters look still more shady.

We must have been boarded by the authorities soon after bringing up to
our anchor, and I was dimly conscious of a stooping person in uniform
staring in at us through the cabin door. But I was far too weary to
wake or take any notice. However, the sight must have worked a dream
into my sleep, for I remember imagining that official's feelings when
he gazed at the mildewed desolation of the ugly cutter's interior, when
he contrasted her size with the infernal gale she must have been
sailing through to make the harbour, and when he noted that her entire
crew consisted of two persons very much out of ordinary yachtsmen's
uniform. And then I had visions of further inquiries; the official glee
with which more unsatisfactory items were arrived at; the head-shakes
of the British Vice-Consul; and--and then after that a deluge of lurid
complexion.

These maundering cogitations must have spread themselves over a
considerable time, for when Haigh roused me up, he said that I had
slept very nearly round the clock. I pulled myself together and stared
at him. He was looking distinctly excited; and this, seeing that he was
usually a very calm sort of fish, was remarkable.

"Never say our luck has broken," said he. "I've just performed a
regular four-cornered miracle. That port-authority person called again
about two hours back, and it began to dawn upon me that we were done
for. He fairly bristled with suspicion. I could see it even in the set
of his clothes. If I'd told him that as soon as our fleet was gone you
and I were going to take possession of the island in the name of the
king of Ireland, he'd have believed it. But I temporized, having no
yarn ready, and luck came down in a tornado. Not one Spaniard in a
thousand has a soul above a single miserable liqueur--glass; but this
one was the exception. He supped down that vermouth, pannikin after
pannikin; and as he got more drunk, so did I get more eloquent. I
believe at my strongest then I could have blarneyed Old Nick into
giving me a draughty corner."

"But what in the plague did you say to the man? How could you get over
the fact of having no clearance papers, and all the rest of it?"

"Simplest thing in the world, my dear chap, when once I'd grasped the
idea. The cutter put out of Savona some two months ago--this being a
fact, as I put documentary evidence under his nose to prove. Then she
sailed to Corsica, and lay in a tiny coaster's harbour where there was
no Captain of the Port or any one else who could scribble on stamped
paper. There we stayed all the time till the crew deserted, and we
ourselves were evilly entreated, the yacht being gutted by unprincipled
natives. _Après_, you and I brought her across here alone, knowing
this to be the abode of bliss. Of course, in his sober senses he'd
never have believed a word of it; but, thanks to that lovely vermouth,
he swallowed the whole yarn, lock, stock, and barrel, and wrote me out
the wherewithal, and then tumbled off to sleep, swearing by three local
saints that he wanted to go to the same heaven I landed at."

"But," said I, "when he's sober, he'll be down on us like a thousand of
bricks."

"Not a bit of it, my dear boy. Don't you know that all Spaniards can
look upon a murder without emotion, but no Spaniard can see a drunken
man without being filled with loathing? Our beauty on the locker there
will be the last to give himself away. But never mind raging about this
now. I woke you up for something else. Come on deck. There, do you see
that steamer just opening out from the Hospital island? That's the
_Antiguo Mahones_, the mail-boat from Barcelona. Unless he's
broken down somewhere, your man Weems should be on board."

"I'm afraid not. According to the book of Steamer Sailings I looked at
in Genoa, he ought to have left Barcelona three days ago."

"Precisely; but, old chappie, you don't know the _Antiguo
Mahones_. Now I do. She was built on the Clyde in the early
'sixties, and has seen much service under the Red Duster. When she grew
old and outclassed, she followed the way of all steamers, and was
bought by a Mediterranean firm who quite understand her infirmities and
nurse her accordingly. Her skipper is far too sensible a person to put
to sea in anything approaching blowy weather, even though he does carry
his most Catholic Majesty's mails; and the passengers are quite the
class of people to appreciate his caution. _Mañana_, if you will
remember, is the motto of the nation."

"Well, if that's the case," I broke in, "it seems to me our best plan
will be to get ashore now, and go for our pickings in Talaiti de Talt
without further delay. Weems is always seasick, so he told me, from the
moment he leaves shore. He said it was a sign of a highly-organized
mind, hinting that it was only coarse-fibred people who could keep
their victuals under hatches in a roll. And so, as the _Antiguo
Mahones_ has been getting kicked about in big swell ever since she
left Barcelona inner harbour, it's pretty safe to bet that Master Weems
has had the business part of his little soul churned completely out of
him, and that he'll go and lie up at Bustamente's Hotel for a day or
two to recruit. He'll never guess we're here, and consequently will see
no cause for hurry. And besides, these Fleet sailormen will make an
additional argument towards lying low for a bit. He'll see how they
wander about in batches into all sorts of unexpected places, and he
will be very chary about rootling up the cache whilst they are in the
neighbourhood and likely to disturb him."

"There's a good deal in that," commented Haigh, blinking at the shabby
black steamer thoughtfully. "You'd better pop down below in case he has
ventured his little self on deck, and should happen to twig you. But
still it's best to be on the safe side." He chose a cigar, lighted it
and puffed for a minute, and then took it out of his mouth and grinned
at the glowing end. "Look here. The fellow doesn't know me from Adam.
I'll slip ashore, and see if I can't find snug quarters for him where
he'll be out of the way of doing mischief."

"What piece of devilry are you up to now?" I inquired a bit anxiously;
for Haigh's vagaries, from what I had seen and heard of them, ranged
between wild and mad, and having got so near the Recipe, I didn't want
to get in any mess that would baulk us at the finish. "You aren't going
to shoot the man, are you?"

"Haven't got anything to shoot him with. No, I'm not going to lay hands
on him at all. But I think I can get some one else to do it for me.
It's no use asking my scheme, because I haven't got one. It's only a
vague idea that has occurred to me, but there's no harm in giving it a
trial. Only I must be off now, or the passengers will be landed before
I get to the quay."

He took my hat and went on deck. I heard him hail some one in a passing
boat, and presently he was taken off the cutter. I stood up and looked
cautiously through the main skylight, so as not to be viewed by any
chance from without. The steamer was being brought up alongside the
quay with true Spanish caution and slowness, warps being sent in all
directions, boats flying about, a couple of anchors down, windlass and
steam-winches thundering. An English launch was lying-to close by, her
crew highly amused at the display. And the quay was black with people
enjoying their bi-weekly sensation.

Slowly the _Antiguo Mahones_ swung parallel to the quay wall, and
then a derrick chain was hauled out and I heard the scrape of the big
gangway as it drew along the gravel, and the thud of its iron-shod heel
as it fell on deck and bridged the intervening two fathoms of water.
But the black hull of the steamer blotted out all view of the people
beyond it, and on the cutter I could learn nothing more of what was
going on till Haigh came back.

The last glow of sunset had died away. The white walls and red roofs of
the town up there on the cliff were already beginning to be hazed out
by darkness, and the soft yellow splashes of lamplight were growing in
number.

I sat down, and cut up a cigar for my pipe.

The situation did not please me at all. The more I thought it over, the
more I remembered how uncertain Haigh was, and how likely he was to
bring about some fiasco out of sheer devilry. If I'd had a boat I
should have cut ashore there and then, and made off to Talaiti de Talt
without delaying a single moment. And as it was, with no boat, I more
than once got to my legs with the intention of swimming, but could
never quite screw up my mind as to whether it was really advisable to
do so.

I kept cursing myself for this womanish indecision; but even that
didn't improve matters. I could not figure out what to do for the best.
And consequently I stayed where I was, and mumbled and mowed in black
fury.

Haigh was in all about an hour and a half gone, and returned very much
cock-a-hoop with himself. He was brought on board by a smart boat rowed
by four men; and telling them to wait, he came down below.

"Hullo, Cospatric! you're looking as black as a Soudanese stoker with
the stomach-ache. Did ye think I'd been tampering with the interests of
the firm? Not a bit of it, man. Thanks to his own natural cussedness,
I've just fixed your schoolmaster beautifully. The stars in their
courses are backing up our stupendous luck. Some gentlemen of the
anarchist persuasion have been blowing up men and women and marble
seats in the Plaza Real at Barcelona. Indiscriminate shooting on the
part of the troops followed, and cables were sent to all parts to watch
for escaping assassins. The affair happened after the _Antiguo
Mahones_ sailed, so far as I can make out; but, of course, to the
Spanish official mind that is a mere matter of detail. In these cases
Spain expects that every man this day will exceed his duty. Weems being
the only foreigner on board, and having the looks of a man who would
not steal a potato, was naturally spotted at once, and a sub-officer of
Carabineros demanded his passport. Weems, not knowing a word of
Catalan, looked helpless. An interested mob collected, and stared and
made suggestions. None of them could speak a word of English. Weems got
pale, and offered the Carabinero half a peseta. Had the bribe been a
big one and tendered privately, it might have carried weight; but as it
was, the offer was an insult.

"At this point I pushed through the crowd, and offered my services as
an interpreter. I can imagine the little worm was never so humbly
grateful in his life; but when I told him that his passport was wanted,
he was the cocksure schoolmaster ape in a moment. Such a thing was not
requisite for travelling in Spain; it was utterly superfluous; I might
be ignorant of the fact, as so many people were, but he could assure me
it was so. A clerk at a tourist agency (in some provincial town at
home) had told him all about the matter. And so he had got no passport.
Would I explain these matters to the person in uniform, and inform him
that he would be pilloried in the _Times_ if he did not take great
care of what he was about.

"As this couldn't well be improved upon, I put it into Spanish,
verbatim, and the Carabinero's suspicion grew to certainty. 'Did I know
the señor?' 'No, never clapped eyes on him before.' 'But he was a
countryman of mine?' With a suggestive shrug of the shoulders, 'I
devoutly hoped not.' 'Then it was his duty to make the señor his
prisoner.'

"I imparted this information to Weems, who sweated. 'Can't you do
anything for me, sir?' he implored. I was afraid I could not, and
though I felt pretty sure that he'd be let out of durance vile in about
half an hour, I didn't tell him so. However, as he and his escort were
going off, another thought dawned upon me. 'Are you a Mason?' I asked.
'Yes,' said he. 'Then take the tip and make yourself known. I'm not one
myself, but I know the fraternity is pretty thick here. Ta-ta.' Now the
Freemasons of Mahon are the Halt, the Shoemaker, and the Discontented,
and they are banded together solely because they are 'agin the
Government;' and so, with our luck at its present premium, if they
don't assist to keep Weems laid by the heels longer than otherwise
would be the case, I'm a Deutcheman."

"Poor devil," said I. "What a state of mind he'll be in!"

"'Twon't kill anybody, and it'll do him good. Besides, he thoroughly
deserved twice as much as he's got."

"That's a fact; and I must say you've paid the score cutely."

Haigh grinned. "I've Irish blood in me, old chappie," said he, "and
that means a natural taste for amateur conspiracy and general
devilment. But don't let's stay jawing here any longer. We're both due
for a good jaunt ashore, and there's a bran-new tick here to guarantee
us every mortal thing (bar one) which we want. And for that one, which
is almost always a ready-money commodity, it will do us good to wait
till we've tapped the late blessed Raymond's bank."




CHAPTER VIII.

TWO EVENINGS.


For a rapid, short-lived acquaintanceship, above all other animals upon
this terrestrial sphere, commend me to the Continental drummer. To
commence, he is always easy to chum with quickly, and always ready to
make the first advances. He is a salted traveller. He knows what is the
best of everything, how to get it, and, moreover, how to get it
cheaply. He never plagues you with "shop," or secondhand guide-book
extracts, or sentiment about scenery and sunsets. Cheeriness and
_bons mots_ are part of his stock-in-trade; brazen good-fellowship
is his strong specialty.

Haigh and I went up to our hotel, asked for a bedroom, and in Spanish
style got a suite of apartments. We were just in time for dinner, and,
having arrived _en prince_ in our own vessel, were going to be
billeted amongst the _habitués_ of the place--garrison soldiers,
petty "proprietors," and priests--who sat round the superior table in
the big room. There we should have been in company that was vastly
respectable and prodigiously slow. But nearer the street entrance was
another smaller room, occupied chiefly by the commercial fraternity,
and thither we went, the landlord fully comprehending our taste.
"Gentlemen do like to have a bit of a fling to rub away the salt, don't
they, señores?" said he.

There is no shyness about the drummer. Before we had eaten our
preliminary olive, the fat man at the end of the table had struck up
conversation with Haigh; and before the _sopa_ was out of the
room, my next-door neighbour, a dapper Marseillais in the ready-made
clothing line, was calling me _amigo_. Whilst he helped himself
from amongst the red sausages and beans and beef and pork and other
trifles on the dish which held the next course, the fat Cuban sketched
out a plan for the evening; and as he doused his salad with
full-flavoured oil, my little Frenchman endorsed the proposal of the
flaxen-haired timber agent opposite that they should stand treat. And
while we munched our burnt almonds for dessert, some one ordered in a
bottle of bad sherry (which, being imported, is naturally thought more
of than the good country wine), and we agreed that we were all dear
friends, and had known one another intimately for a matter of ten
years. And then we rerolled fresh cigarettes, got our hats, and went to
a _café_, six of us, where we crammed our _petits verres_
with sugar-knobs and lighted them, meanwhile drinking bitter black
coffee till the blue demon of the brandy should have flickered away.
You know the style; it's the usual way of beginning.

After some half-hour's stay in the _café_ we seperated--Haigh and
the Cuban going off to a dance, whilst the little Frenchman carried me
off elsewhere. He had not defined our destination very clearly, and I
had not made inquiries, caring little where I went; but I was a little
put out at finding myself, after passing a guard of soldiers who stared
curiously, and going down many flights of steps, in an anarchist's
club.

Perhaps the government of his most Catholic Majesty Alfonzo XIII. can
hardly be termed paternal; but that was nothing to me. Politics I
abhor, and anarchistic politics I particularly loathe. But as beating
an abrupt retreat would have been rude, and as unnecessary rudeness is
not one of my characteristics, I made the best of it, and stayed and
looked about me.

One room of the place had been fitted up as a kind of chapel, with
ecclesiastical candles and other properties on a table at the farther
end, with portraits of Mazzini, Gambetta, Prim, and other worthies of
the Red Kidney on the walls, and with orderly pews on either side of
the central aisle. In this cellar temple a preacher was just winding up
a fervid discourse on the comparative merits of melinite and blasting
gelatine as we came up, and a minute later I was being introduced to
him. I think he was the leanest man I ever came across. He stood good
six feet high, and couldn't have weighed more than seven stone. You
could almost see the bone of his face through the thin covering of
skin; and if one might judge from the fact that his smart black
frockcoat fitted like a stocking, it was fair to surmise that he was
actually proud of his leanness. One got the idea that all the
nourishment of his body had gone out into his long white beard.

We went out of the general hall into a smaller room, where we sat and
smoked.

Taltavull, my new acquaintance, was simply charming. Till that night I
had thought that an anarchist could only attain to his peculiar creed
through the most comprehensive ignorance; but this man had arrived at
the result through the diametrically opposite path. He spoke almost all
European languages with fluency, and knew Lingua Franca, Arabic, and
Sanscrit. I never met any one so widely read; nor was his reading
superficial; and he possessed a memory that refused nothing. He could
quote verbatim page after page of such writers as Schopenhauer,
Voltaire, Mazzini. And far better than this, he had studied men of
every grade in the living flesh. What his nationality was I couldn't
say, though I should guess him as either a Pole or an Italian; but it
is certain that he had had the constant _entrée_ to places where a
man of his opinions would presumably be looked upon with round-eyed
horror. And yet he owned to never concealing his views from any man.
"The sublime importance of our end, Monsieur Cospatric," said he,
"justifies any means taken to attain it. We are associated with
dynamite? Justly. Dynamite is a deplorable necessity."

If Taltavull had merely kept on in this strain, I should have put him
down as one of those human paradoxes a man is bound to meet if he
vagabondizes much, and should have forgotten him and his gruesome
schemes and ideals by the next day. But he touched upon a theme which,
in view of the purpose which had brought us to Minorca, made me cock my
ears with a new interest.

"It is this dynamite," he said, "that is at once our strongest weakness
and our greatest weapon. Were it not for terrorism, the official
upholders of old _régimes_ would crush us out of existence as
venomous reptiles. For instance, you noticed a guard of soldiers at the
door as you came in? At the least disturbance down here those men would
fire mum-chance amongst the throng, and be delighted at the chance of
doing so. You see our school of thought is recognized, and though hated
it is respected. They, thanks to their dread of certain reprisals,
recognize the truce so long as we are not engaged in active and open
war against society. This is a great advance, monsieur, is it not?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You are not in sympathy with us?"

"Not in the very least," I told him frankly. "Your principles are far
too explosive for my taste."

Taltavull waved a bony hand deprecatingly. "The universal complaint,
monsieur. It is the one great drawback to our Cause that we have as yet
discovered no means of propagating it save only by the theory of
devastation. It is only strong men and, I regret to say it, desperate
men who can accept the gospel of dynamite. There are teeming millions
of others ready enough to blow up society as it is at present
constituted, but who shrink from the only means we have to propose."

"Then in your heart of hearts," said I, "you must know that you can
never succeed."

The man smiled. "If even dynamite were taken away from us, I should not
despair of success, monsieur. With it I am confident; the end is only a
question of time. But I hope to hasten the consummation. There is
another method, which if attained and properly applied, could, I most
strongly believe, reduce society to one dead and happy level. And,
monsieur, I believe the Fates have chosen me to be the prime instrument
in this matter. I shall invent or refind the talisman, and then it will
be in my own hands to sweep out the grades from all the people of the
earth, and tear down all their laws. Think of it!"

"By Jove, señor," said I, "universal anarchy! That's a strong order."

"It is possible, though, and I believe probable. With my talisman it
can be done. I have thought over every tittle of the means through
patient years of waiting, and I am confident that I, and I alone, can
uproot all existing institutions when once I have this trivial lever."

Taltavull was stalking up and down the room like a long black spectre.
He had forgotten my presence. His fanatical schemes enwrapped his mind
completely. There was a minute's silence, and then I said half
jokingly,--

"They'd make you king of the anarchists."

I must have repeated his thoughts, for he replied instantly in a
half-whisper, "They must;" but perhaps remembering that the admission
was a damaging one, he stopped in his walk and addressed me with folded
arms and lowered brow.

"I beg of you to spare me such jest, Monsieur Cospatric. This is the
one subject I have at heart; it has occupied my life-work; to it I have
surrendered fortune, station, everything. Whether or no I look for a
recompense cannot interest you."

"Oh, all right," said I; "sorry I spoke. A comprehensive ignorance of
all brands of politics must be my excuse."

He stared at me thoughtfully for a minute, and then: "I fear you think
me a visionary, monsieur, or even worse, a trifler with men's lives. If
you are illiberal, you may deem me no better than a common murderer.
Our need is misunderstood, misrepresented. But I will not attempt to
defend it with you now--some other time perhaps. Let me tell you of my
great hope, and then you will understand how little it has to do with
the bloody holocausts we are so unfortunately associated with." And
then this strange creature began to unfold a scheme of policy which
seemed to me the maddest my ears had ever listened to, and yet with
cogent method in its madness. Briefly, he wanted to produce diamonds in
huge quantities, and sow them broadcast over the globe. As gems they
would then be no longer valuable. Castes would cease to exist. And then
governments could be stamped out.

Viewed in the light of after recollection, the whole thing seems
absurd, even paltry. But as I heard it then, declaimed with hot,
earnest fluency by an enthusiast who had spent long, clever years over
his case, it appeared to prove itself up to the hilt. Of course his
arguments must have been warped, and his premises utterly false; but so
cleverly were they compiled that I could not detect the flaws, and in
spite of the outcry of common sense, which shouted "Wrong, wrong, wrong
" at the close of each period, I felt myself agreeing implicitly to
every clause. And when at length he stopped, exhausted with his own
enthusiasm and vehemence, I nodded a tacit agreement, and questioned
nothing.

"You must wonder," he went on, after a little pause, "what brings me to
use this world-forgotten spot as a workplace; why I come to a town
where there are eight women to one man, to an island whose whole energy
is not equal to that of the smallest city on the Continent. Have you
heard of Raymond Lully? Yes? Then you may remember that he was born at
Miramar in Mallorca, and lived much of his life in these Balearic
Islands. It was an old journal of his which I found in Rome that first
gave me the embryo of my idea. I went round to Barcelona, and crossed
to Palma. In the Conde de M----'s library I found in other manuscripts
mention of the same thing. Beyond doubt that queer mixture of a
man--missionary, fanatic, quack, what you will--had made diamonds as
far back as the year 1280. He owned to having stumbled across the
Recipe accidentally. Like other alchemists of his time, the
transmutation of metals was his aim, and the crystallization of part of
his graphite crucible was quite a matter of chance; but it occurred
most surely; and he analyzed the why and wherefore, and wrote down the
method of working in a place where he says it would last for all time
unless he chose to divulge it."

"Great heavens!" said I, jumping up, "then you've got it?"

The anarchist smiled sadly. "I have searched and searched and searched,
and have had others on the quest for me. But so far our efforts have
been all unsuccessful. I can understand your excitement"--("Thank my
several stars you can't," thought I, settling back into my chair)--"You
think my great regeneration is already in commencement? You may even
have had trivial qualms about your own relatives' trinkets? No,
Monsieur Cospatric, the time has unfortunately not yet come."

"You cannot expect me to condole with you."

"You say you are a non-combatant, and that is better than I could have
expected. You English as a rule are singularly averse to our
propaganda. But wait and see how affairs order themselves."

"It will be a long time to wait. I'm afraid you'll never find the
Recipe."

I had risen to my legs to say good-bye. Taltavull gripped my hand in
his bony fingers. "You don't know me, Monsieur Cospatric. We
anarchists never give in. I shall not cease searching for this Recipe
till I find it, or until I learn for certain that it has been
destroyed. Buenas noches."

"Good-night," said I, and went out into the moonlight. My little
Frenchman had gone long ago, and so I strolled alone down the steep
cobbled street, conning over many things. Verily this life is full of
strange coincidences.

Haigh was at the hotel. I met him coming out of the room
_vis-à-vis_ to ours across the passage. We went in to our
quarters, and sat in wicker-lined rocking-chairs (relic of the time
when the Yankee had Port Mahon for a rendezvous), and he told me many
things. "But," he concluded, "it was the music that drove me out. Those
dark-eyed factory girls were just fine, and _la marguerita_ as a
dance perfection. But the orchestra was an addition I couldn't stand at
any price. It was something too ghastly for words. All the brass sharp
and the strings screechy. So I just skipped, came back here, and
forgathered with a lone, lorn Englishman on his first trans-Channel
trip. He was a splendid find. Needless to say, he's going to write a
book about his travels, and as he seemed eager for information, I gave
him a lot. Honestly, he's the most stupendous Juggins it's ever been my
fate to meet; and that's putting the matter strongly, for since I've
been--er--on the wander, I've come across most brands of fool."

"What manner of man is he to look at?"

"Oh, middle height, tweeds and cap all to match and new for the trip,
big brown eyes that look at you dreamily, and a rather Jewish face. Not
a bad-looking chap by any means, but oh, such a particularly verdant
sort of greenhorn. The only one point on which he showed a single grain
of sense was in refusing to play poker with me. He didn't want to
offend me; he hoped most sincerely that I should take no offence, but a
friend had extracted a promise from him before he left home to play no
card games with strangers. The fact was, he was really so unskilful
with cards. I wasn't offended, was I? His candour was so refreshing
that I could truthfully say I was not."

I tried to talk about my evening, but Haigh would not listen. Said he:
"I'm not interested in that particular kind of nonsense. If you haven't
embraced the glorious principles of anarchy, old chappie, that's enough
to tell. You've met a wise man who's a damned fool, and I've met a fool
who, in points, is a wise man; and I prefer my own find. If you'd heard
him talking about his book that is to be, you'd have stood good chance
of choking with suppressed emotion. It's going to turn out a great
success. He will spend quite three weeks here and in Mallorca, so as to
'do' both islands thoroughly. And then he would like to go to Iviça,
but didn't know whether it was advisable to risk it. Could I advise
him? Were the people there very savage? Oh, my Juggins, my Juggins, you
were something too delicious for words when you got on that tack,
evidently wanting authentic adventures to be enlarged upon for the
great work, and obviously fearing most tremendously to encounter the
same. You won't go to Iviça, I can see that; but I'd bet all I'm worth
that the chapter on 'My Adventure with the Brigands' will appear with
full detail. I've a bit of imagination myself, and I guess I gave you
enough subject-matter to fudge it from most thrillingly."

"Hard lines to stuff the poor wretch too much."

"Not a bit of it, dear boy. The great stay-at-home B.P. will swallow
the yarn chapter and verse, and know for certain that poor harmless
Iviça is a den of robbers; Juggins will believe it all, smoke, flash,
and report, after he has retailed it twice, and will pose as a hero;
and I, I've had my amusement. You should hear him talk about the
illustrations, too. He can't draw or paint; hasn't a notion of either.
And he's never taken a photograph. But a friend advised him to get a
hand camera of the 'Absolutely Simple' pattern, and he's been exposing
plates right and left. A pro.'s to develop them when he gets home if he
can succeed in passing them through the Customs, and if he doesn't get
the thing confiscated for getting pictures of fortresses, both of which
(he informs me) are mighty and great dangers. And, by the way, that
reminds me. He got spilt off a donkey this afternoon, and damaged his
nose and jolted up the camera. Being blissfully ignorant of the
picture-machine's mechanisms he doesn't like to meddle with it, but
'I'm afraid something's gone inside, Mr. Haigh, because it rattles when
I shake it.' So thinking I owed the chap something for the fun I'd had
out of him, I said I'd get you to fix it up for him. You've been
bottle-washer to a photographer for a bit, haven't you?"

"Something in that line, but I've no tackle here."

"Oh, that's all right. Here's his dark-room lamp, and the shutters to
this room are solid. They'll keep out the moonlight."

We swung-to the coverings over the windows, and put a lighted candle
behind the cherry-glass shade, and then I took the little camera out of
its leather case. It was a cheap quarter-plate, and the jar had started
up two of the angles.

"The rest of the illustrations for that book will have to wait till
this is coopered up," said I.

"Are the plate-things inside spoiled?" Haigh asked.

"No, they're all right so far as exposure to light goes. However, I'll
look. Phew! what a mess! Every blessed one smashed except the last
couple. Your man will have to go over his ground again to replace
these."

"What's that contrivance?" asked Haigh, who was peering over my
shoulder.

"A spare dark-slide to use instead of the big plate-holder. Empty.
Look, I'll put the two sound plates in there, and you can tell the
Juggins that he can put those in his pocket and take the camera to a
photographer man to get mended. Not that I expect that any one can do
it here. But he can try."

"All right, thanks. It'll be rather a blow to him, but I must break it
gently. Well, ta-ta, good-night. I think you'll own I've picked up most
amusement for this evening?"




CHAPTER IX.

TALAITI DE TALT.


I woke with daylight, and roused Haigh. "We should get away at once," I
said to him. "We've dawdled woefully. If we'd possessed a grain of
sense between us we should have started the moment we stepped ashore.
Weems may be cooped up still, but that's only guess-work on our parts.
It's quite possible he cleared himself directly after you left, and
went to the Talayot straight away."

Haigh blinked at me sleepily. "You're in the deuce of a flurry, old
man. Been having evil dreams? That's the rancid oil they cook with
here. It always has that effect at first. But you'll get used to it
soon and like it, and think ordinary oil insipid."

"Oh, confound you, dry up. Look here, we must start at once."

"How?"

"Tramp it. Funds won't run to a vehicle."

"My dear chappie, you don't know the extent of my feebleness. I
couldn't walk two miles to save my life. Nature may have intended me
for a pirate or a highwayman, because on shipboard or horse-back I can
do tolerable service. But the good dame never built me to be a footpad.
So if this old pyramid place is to be looted, you must go and do it
yourself."

"But, my good fellow, think what there is at stake. Dash it all, man,
how do you know I shan't collar the thing and make a clean bolt with
it?"

Haigh grinned. "I'll take my chance of that."

"You'd better not. I've never set up for being obtrusively honest."

"Oh, go to Aden."

"But really, I'd take it as a favour if you would come."

"Well, if you make a point of it, I suppose I must, though I fail to
see the necessity for a pair of us making ourselves uncomfortable. Look
out of window. The sky's Prussian blue, and there isn't a breath of
wind. It's going to be a broiling day. However, dear boy, at your
behest I'll make a martyr of myself; and if transport is to be procured
on tick, I'll overhaul you. Only understand clearly that neither for
you nor any one else can I do a physical impossibility. It is
absolutely out of the question for me to walk."

That was all I could get out of him, and so I set off, very uncertain
as to whether or no he would follow.

I walked out through the clean uneven streets just as the townspeople
were beginning to stir, passed under the massive towered gateway in the
old walls, and got on to the level road which reaches half-way across
the island. The waking hour was earlier here. The hawks and eagles were
patrolling the morning air with diligent sweeps. The country-folk were
bringing in loads of farm-produce on big brown donkeys and little gray
donkeys. These last all gave a courteous "Bon di tenga,"[1] and I
noticed that most of them stared at me somewhat curiously. It was not
my dress that they looked at--it was my face that drew their stares;
and after a mile or so's pacing it was borne in upon me that anxious
thoughts had caused my forehead to knit and my mouth to pucker. I made
the discovery with some contempt. Haigh had told me more than once that
I should never make a gambler, and he was right. In principle I
accepted the theory that "what was written was written," but in
practice I couldn't help imagining that a ready-penned Fate might be
partly erased by much rubbing.

      [1] The common salutation throughout the Balearic Islands is
      _Bon di tenga_ from an inferior to a superior, to which the reply
      would be _Bon di_. Frequently, however, the first of these is
      clipped down to the last word, which is pronounced "T[=a][=i]n-g[)a]."
      After dark it becomes _Bon nit_, or _Bon nit tenga_, according
      to social standing.

I refilled my pipe and looked around me. Old Lully had shown some
_nous_ in choosing a country to carry his secret. There is small
fear of Minorca's population ever growing excessive. Not even Connemara
can show such stone heaps. The walls which divide up the tiny fields
are often ten feet thick; there are rubble cairns on all the many
outcrops of rock; there are boulder-girdles round the trees; and yet,
despite these collections, the corn and the beans and the grass grow
more in stone than soil. One almost wonders that the Minorcan does not
build up stone circles round the cows' legs whilst they are grazing.
Perhaps the _Doctor Illuminatus_ might have hesitated if his
prophetic eye had seen an invasion of British; for the Briton is a
destructive animal with pig-like instincts of rootling up everything.
But the foreigner's tenure of the soil (and stones) was not a long one,
and I fancy that the country's face, save for some of the better roads
that seam it, is much the same as it was in the year of our Lord
thirteen hundred and nothing.

Now, the Minorcan is not possessed of the slenderest reverence for the
prehistoric monuments that spot his island, and if he wanted them for
domestic purposes, he would not hesitate to take the top from a
duolithic stone altar, or the roofing flags from a subterranean
gallery. And he would quarry from the pyramids to find the wherewithal
for his pig-yard gateposts without the smallest flush of shame, for
vandalism is a word that has no Minorquin equivalent. But the abundance
of stone elsewhere has saved the fashioned stone that those dead races
piled up when this world was young, and the gray Talayots squat upon
their old sites in undiminished numbers. Indeed, in a way, one might
say that there are more of them now than there were in the venerable
alchemist's time, for spurious Talayots may be seen in every direction.
These latter-day edifices have one advantage over the hoary prototypes.
Their purpose is clearly defined. We know that they were not intended
for the burial-places of kings, or for temples to conceal sacerdotal
rights, or for observatories, or even for granaries. They were simply
run up by men who wanted to build shelters for cattle or pigs or sheep
on some plan which would expend a maximum of material on a minimum of
basement. They simply represent an incident in the perpetual war
against the stones, and show the way in which crude minds attain their
ends. If Minorca had been peopled by Americans (as once, indeed, nearly
happened), light tramways would be laid down in every direction, and
the stones carted to the edges of the island, and there tipped into the
sea; and then the ground would be free, the farmer rich and unhappy.
But as matters are ordered at present, these things are beyond the man
of the soil's grasp; and so he remains poor and hard-working and
contented.

The broad road led on past whitewashed farm-houses and pink-flowered
almond gardens, past peasants and mule-teams scratching up the rocky
soil with primitive one-handled ploughs, past patches of brown
vine-stumps and gnarled olive-trees squirming out from among the
boulders; and close on either hand ran the low wooded hills, with their
burden of ilexes still filmy with the morning mists. The road was a
road a London suburb might have felt pride in, so smart was the
engineering that made cuttings and embankments to reduce the gradients,
and culverts to carry off the side-water, and dressed freestone bridges
to cross the many streamlets. But at the eighth kilometre post (I think
it was the eighth) this road showed itself worthy of the sunny
government of Spain by ending abruptly in a fence of wheelbarrows and
gang-planks. The continuation was to be gone on with, _mañana_;
meanwhile young wheat had sprouted eight green inches in the track.

At this point the diligence course to Ciudadella branches off to the
northward, turning again after a while due west on to General
Stanhope's road. But that was nothing to me then. Turning my back upon
it, I took another path, in woeful disrepair, which led me down by many
windings between high stone walls and straggling clumps of prickly
pear. There were few houses to stop the view--only some two or three
farm buildings. Cottages can scarcely be said to exist. The labourer
either lives in the towns, or else he lodges under his master's roof.
But the high walls and the hummocks shut one in, and I was perpetually
having to climb one or the other to make sure of my whereabouts, for my
sailing directions to the Talayot had been rather vague ones.

The air was still and close, and already the sun had crept high and was
burning fiercely. It was blazing hot, but in spite of that, and the
ruggedness of the track, I was walking my fastest. Talaiti de Talt was
somewhere close ahead, and the knowledge made me tingle from ear to
toe. Forced stoicism wouldn't act.

At last, getting on a rise of the road where I could see over the
winding walls ahead, I made out a Talayot sprouting gray from amid its
green jacketing, barely half a kilometre away; and from the description
given at Mahon, that must be the very one I had worked so hard to
reach.

The limit of self-containment was passed. Excitement bubbled over. I
picked up my feet and ran for all I was worth.

Just past the bottom of the slope was a small farmhouse, lying a little
way back from the road. The Talayot was close beyond. A thought struck
me, and I pulled up, panting and, in spite of myself, laughing. A new
complication seemed to crop up. From the moment of reading old Lully's
journal in the Genovese _caffè_, it had never occurred to me till
then that the Talayot belonged less to me than to anybody else. Now,
seeing the whitewashed farm buildings close beside this old pyramid I
had come to loot, the idea that the modern owner might raise objections
came upon me in a flash; and although the matter was serious enough, as
Heaven knows, still its grimly humorous side cropped uppermost, and for
the life of me I could not help being tickled.

Of course any one will see that I might have waited till dark, and have
done my searching when all the world of provincial Minorca was snugly
slumbering. But that idea did not occur to me then, and if it had done,
I should not have listened to it. I was far too keen on going ahead
without further stoppages. The grasping fingers of Weems loomed always
in the near distance.

If I had only possessed a spare dollar or two, the thing would have
been simple; but not owning a peseta, I had tremors. Still there was no
help for it, and so following the _en avant_ principle, I swung
the gate, and walked up between the orange-bushes to the little
farmhouse. Two dogs sprang out from somewhere, barking furiously; but I
like dogs, and never feared one yet, and that pair were soon reduced to
oppressive civility. A small girl appeared, drawn by the uproar; but
the sight of a stranger made her bolt mutely within doors. And then a
woman came--a fat, tall, slatternly woman, whose husband was dead (she
said), and who owned the farm which circled Talaiti de Talt.

She was garrulous to a degree, and her voice--as is usual with the
voices of cats and women out there--was harsh and grating. But I did
not dam the flood of her eloquence (outwardly, at any rate), and so she
went on till she was tired. Then I thanked her, and blarneyed her as
well as I was able, although that wasn't much, as I never have been
much of a hand with women. But the outcome of it all was that I might
most certainly overhaul the old stone heap (which was her irreverent
name for the historical pyramid) as much as ever I chose. And when she
had given the permission, it struck me that I could have got it just as
easily without having spent an hour and a half in the baking sun-blaze
beating about the bush. But then, you see, I was so confoundedly
nervous, and didn't guess that beforehand.

However, as I was turning off down the orange grove again, the bulky
señora seemed to think that something might be made out of it after
all, for she called out to know whether I wouldn't like Isabelita to
accompany me--Isabelita being the small girl, then engaged at
unravelling a bamboo for a whitewash brush under the shade of the
family date-palm. Or was there nothing else she could do for me?
Everything of her poor stock was entirely at my disposition. My thanks
were profuse--most profuse--but I would not rob her of anything, not
even of the _hermosita's_ time. It would be my great pleasure to
make that little angel some trifling present as I came back that way
toward Mahon; at which time I might also wish to buy an orange or two.
So until then.

"_'Tenga_," said the woman, with a large fat smile.

"_Bon di, señora_," said I, with a sweep of the hat, and turned off
down the path and into the road again. Gad! wasn't I feeling jubilant
then?

I felt that the woman was following me with her eyes, and didn't dare
to hurry; for it seemed to me, so worked up was I, that if I had broken
into a run she would have seen at once what I had come for, and would
have contrived to get this great thing for herself. The mere fact of my
displaying any interest at all in such a useless cumbersome hulk as a
Talayot must have filled her with suspicion. But then I had thought of
this, and had corrected her when she guessed me for French, telling her
my true nationality, knowing that the Continental reputation of the
Englishman stands good for any unexplainable eccentricity. And so I
clogged my feet with an effort, and walked on, soberly looking ahead of
me.

So great was the maze of walls that it was difficult to tell where the
road ran for more than a score or so of yards ahead. But at last I
traced its sweep close by where a great single-slab altar stood on its
massive pillar, with a sacred stone-circle jutting out of the bushes
around it. On the other side was the pyramid, sorely broken by man and
the weather, but still showing dressed gray stone courses in patches
amongst the rank scrub which bristled over it. Even from there I could
make out that the general contour of its base was circular, and not
square as I had somehow or other expected, and I began to see trouble
in finding that side "nearest the sea" where Lully had dug into the
entrance-way.

As I drew nearer, the tumbled nature of the stone-work disclosed itself
further, and I began to have fears lest the central chamber should have
caved in and hidden the Recipe effectually and for always by crumbling
its lettering into dust. But then I called to mind other Talayots I had
seen before near Mahon and Alayor and Mercadal and Ciudadella, where
the entering passage led from aboveground by a rapid incline, and where
the cavity, when it existed, had doubtless been near the apex; and from
this I took heart, thinking that whether or no there had been a chamber
in the upper part of the building, and whether or no it existed still,
didn't particularly matter to me. The Diary had certainly pointed to a
room stowed away beneath the very keel of the edifice; and as long as
that stood firm, the rest might telescope to any extent for all I
cared.

By this time my leisurely pace had brought me up alongside the Talayot,
which loomed big and squat at the other side of the wall. I turned and
looked behind me. The fat woman at the farm was out of sight. Then I
climbed the wall, and from the top glanced down the road which led from
Alayor, and saw a sight which made me curse like a kicked
_arriero_. Walking briskly up the stony track was a little man in
unmistakably British tweeds. "An infernal prying tourist," thought I,
"by all the powers of evil. Bear-led by a native, and coming to see
Talaiti de Talt for a thousand. If he sees me he'll spot me at once and
want to chum, and then he'll get inquisitive and won't go away."

Down I dropped into cover.




CHAPTER X.

WITH A THREE-ANGLED HOE.


It is curious how no two people can speak the same words with identical
intonation. Perhaps this is noticeable to some men more than to others.
I know some folks never forget a face, others a walk; but for myself,
though these things may pass from memory, a voice once heard never
escapes me. I suppose it is because I have been at much pains to
distinguish between sounds. I'm rather musical, you know.

And so as I lay squatted there beneath a sloe-bush, and the tones of a
voice grating as those of the corncrake came to me through the chinks
in the wall, I knew that Weems was at large once more, and pressing on
with his errand.

I might have expected him, and yet his arrival was a bit of a surprise;
and on the spur of the moment I could not for the life of me think what
was best to do. One couldn't nobble the man, and still I didn't intend
that he should read that Recipe. So, being unable to make up my mind to
any other course of proceeding, I just cowered quietly where I was and
awaited developments. As it turned out, these were not very long in
coming. Weems had lifted up his voice to get rid of his guide, and the
guide, in eloquent Minorquin, was refusing to understand. At last the
schoolmaster, in desperation, translating his arguments into silver,
called to mind a word from some American novel, and commanded his
attendant to "vamose." Then the native poured out thanks, pocketed the
cash after a great show of refusing it, and went; and Weems, waiting
till he was out of sight, climbed the wall. He was a bit chary of
stepping down amongst the prickly scrub on the inner side, and so as he
was taking his time about it, I stood up and watched him. He did not
see me till he was firm on his feet again; but when he did slew round,
he stepped back with a gasp as though some one had rammed a sail-needle
into him.

However, he pulled himself together quickly enough--I give him credit
for that--and slipped a hand into his coat pocket, which I noted was
bulging with some heavy weight--presumably a pistol. Then he resorted
to what I suppose he considered diplomacy, and remarked that it was a
lovely country.

"Damn you," said I, "you didn't come here to talk to me about scenery,
did you? Because if that's the case, I'd rather you'd quit for a while.
I've got some business on hand here that I want to work out alone. So
git, you mean little brute."

"And I also have a trifling piece of research to make, for which I
desire complete privacy. And this, Mr. Cospatric, is a point upon which
I am prepared to insist."

Hereupon out came the revolver, a cheap pin-fire tool, brilliantly
nickel-plated. Weems fingered it with unholy awe, and his face began to
bleach. He wasn't used to the situation.

"Did you get that thing in Marseille?" I asked.

"No, sir. I procured it from an acquaintance in Mahon this morning. And
acting upon his advice, I shall not hesitate to use it if you press
me."

The little man's manner as he struggled between dignity, greediness,
and common funk was so irresistibly funny that I roared.

"You need not fear my failing to be as good as my word," he snapped
out. "They don't hang people in Spain."

"You fool, of course they don't. They garrote. And as the inhabitants
of these islands, take them as a whole, are as mild and peaceable a lot
as one could find on the face of the globe, a bit of murder would
strike them as being in such bad taste that you'd wear the iron collar
as sure as you'd earned it. But that's not the point. You're not going
to shoot me----"

"Then you will go away."

"I shall do nothing of the kind. You are not going to shoot me, simply
because you can't. Man alive, I've been racketing about the evil places
of this world ever since I left Cambridge, and this isn't the first
time I've looked down the small end of a pistol. If you'd seen as much
shooting as I have, you'd just jump with astonishment at the awful big
percentage of men who get missed even by good shots, and at short rise.
And you! You, you small swab, I can see by the way you're holding it
that you've never had a revolver in your fist before this day, much
less fired one at a 'live mark. Put the thing back in your pocket, and
behave like a rational being."

"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Weems, sticking up his left arm,
and sighting the pistol over the elbow-joint.

By this time he had got into such a pitiable funk that I was afraid
lest out of sheer nervousness his finger might press home the trigger
any minute. The chances were big against his hitting me, but I knew
that the report would bring spectators, and those I most particularly
didn't want. Still, I could not see any means of getting the weapon
into my own hands without its going off. It was impossible to "rush"
him. The dozen yards which separated us was one solid tangle of
scrub-bushes interwoven with brambles. It would have taken at least
forty seconds to tear through them, and in that time he could most
assuredly snap off all six chambers, however big a duffer he might be.
This would bring up some of the country people without fail; and
besides, out of the six, he might fluke one shot into me. About that
last possibility I didn't trouble my head much, as it was remote; but
the other was a fatal objection. A good satisfactory row with the
natives would effectually upset the apple-cart for both of us.

So I put it to him squarely that, come what might, I didn't intend to
go and leave the coast clear for him; and that if he fired a shot,
whether or not he jugged me and tasted _el garrote_ into the
bargain, he would most assuredly not get hold of the Recipe.

These points seemed to strike him as strong ones; and as, being unused
to such strong emotions, he was by this time in very nearly a fainting
condition, he saw fit to ease the strain from his nerves by beginning
to treat for terms. How much would I go for? He had bills in his
pockets for francs and pesetas, which amounted in all to eighteen
pounds four shillings and some odd pence English. That was the absolute
sum-total of all he possessed out of England. If he handed it over,
would I promise to depart forthwith?

I think it caused him no real surprise to learn that I would do nothing
of the kind.

"Look here," he went on, "I'll tell you what I'll do as well. I'll send
you a ten-pound note from England when I get back there, if you'll give
me your address."

"Oh, go to the devil!" said I, beginning to get in a fury with him. "If
you're on for bargaining, I'll give you my bill for five hundred at two
months to clear out."

"You can't expect it, Mr. Cospatric----"

"Of course I can't expect you to sell your chances for a mess of
pottage; still less need you have thought me idiot enough to do such a
thing. Now look here, you are new at the scrapping game, whereas I am
not by any means. So in case of a tussle the odds are big that you'll
finish underside. And, besides, if you have a bit of a whip-hand over
me, I'd have you remember that until I've got my terms, you are
standing under a Damocles arrangement which may tumble on your hat at
any moment. And it doesn't take much of a wizard to tell that your
nerves aren't good to stand that strain for over-long."

"The heat----"

"Oh yes, the heat's making you sweat streams, and sending your face
chalky-green, and setting your knees to play _castañetas_ in
_cachucha_ time. We'll call it the heat. Anyway, it's exposure to
an atmosphere that you aren't accustomed to, and it doesn't suit you.
You'd better try a change, or else you'll topple off in a
faint--perhaps you'll die. Now look here: it's just foolery to let this
Dog-in-the-Manger Company hold the stage any longer. Let's recast it,
and play 'The Partners.' Come, what do you say? It's only a three-part
piece, and there's a thumping good treasury to draw upon."

"Three parts!" shrieked Weems, lifting up his pistol on to his elbow
again, where it gleamed like a dancing mirror in the hot sunshine. Then
as another thought struck him, he lowered the weapon to his side once
more, and broke out into the ghost of a smile. "Oh, I see. Yes, of
course. Two for me, Mr. Cospatric, and one for you. That's much more
right and proper."

I chuckled, and mentioned that one Haigh and myself were going shares
over this matter, and that I didn't intend to see Haigh defrauded; and
then the battle of words began over again.

By this time I was so thoroughly sick of the brute's meanness that I
made up my mind stubbornly not to give way a single peg. He argued, he
prayed, he commanded, he threatened; he appealed to all my better
feelings individually and then collectively; but it was no good. All
that he could get out of me was an assurance that he might feel himself
very lucky if he fingered the proffered third, and a threat that if he
didn't accept it quickly he'd find himself empty-fingered
altogether--and probably minus a sound vertebral column into the
bargain. And in the end he sobbed out an agreement to the terms, and
then flopped down amongst the bushes, deadly sick.

This last development I was not altogether unprepared for, and, had it
seemed good to me to do so, I might have taken advantage of his plight
to grab the nickel-plated weapon and repudiate the treaty--as he most
assuredly would have done by me had the positions been reversed. But
over-reaching that kind--euphemistically termed "keen business
instinct" by some--has never been among my catalogue of acquirements
(more's the pity), and so I just hung round till he had disburdened his
stomach and recollected his wits a bit, forbearing to interfere either
by word or deed.

"It's the heat," he explained at last.

"We'll log it down as such," said I, to prevent argument, "and for
God's sake don't let us squabble any more. If you're right again, we
may as well turn-to and get at the _cache_ without further
dawdling. You have a spade, I suppose?"

"A spade! Oh dear, oh dear! what an oversight. If you'll believe me,
Mr. Cospatric, I never remembered that digging implements would be
required till this moment. The excitement of the last few days----But
don't let us speak of that now. We must use your spade in turn."

I laughed. "It strikes me we're a pair of first-class fools. I haven't
got one either. We both put out from Mahon in such a flaming hurry that
accessories never got a thought. Well, we must get one here if we can,
though that's doubtful, seeing that the native hoe, which is pick and
shovel combined, is the popular instrument hereabouts. However, I'll go
and see if something can't be got. Give me a couple of pesetas, will
you?"

"What for?"

"Why, to hire the thing, or buy it if needs must."

"But why should I pay----"

"Damnation man, because I don't own a brown cent. Go scout for a tool
yourself if you care to. I'm not keen on the job. Only you don't speak
the language, and I thought you'd prefer to sit still and recruit a bit
more before beginning to bustle about again."

"Oh, I beg pardon," said he, and counted out the money in copper and
small silver.

I turned to the Talayot, and climbed to its top. Two fields off,
towards clustered Alayor, a man was guiding a single-handed plough
drawn by a small ox and a sixteen-hand mule. Scrambling down again, I
went in a bee-line across the intervening walls. The ploughman saw me
coming, and nothing loath, pulled up his team and desisted from
scratching the furrow any further. A chat was just the thing he wanted.

I could not get clear of him for a good half-hour, and in the end was
only able to raise what I expected--to wit, a broad-bladed triangular
hoe with a short crooked handle. However, as we did not propose to go
in for any systematic navvying, and as there was nothing better to be
got, back I went with it, and found Weems quite alive again, and on the
prowl for what he could find.

"The soil has been turned up here in places," said he, pointing, "and
this is just the side where, according to Lully's diary, the entrance
passage lies. And if you notice, there are other patches rooted up
yonder, and again yonder."

"Pigs," said I. "This island's celebrated for them, and so is Mallorca.
Black, elegant, well-to-do swine, that are exported to Spain in
steamer-loads. They're the most celebrated breed of porkers in Europe.
But never mind them now. Which do you spot as our point of
commencement?"

"Somewhere between where we are standing and that palm-bush."

"Very well, then. We'll set to work at the other side of this fallen
wall-stone; and here goes for the first drive."

For a while we took spell and spell about at the hoe, working like
fiends. I had stripped to the vest at the first set-off, and by degrees
Weems let his eagerness overpower dignity till he had discarded a
similar number of garments. There was not a breath of air stirring, and
the sunbeams poured down upon us in a brazen stream. Being used to hard
work, I naturally could do the larger share; but to give the little
schoolmaster his due, he did stick to it for all he was worth; and
though he did drop more than one hint that such physical toil was
degrading to a man in his station, he didn't try to shirk doing his
just portion.

The ground was desperately hard to get through. There was very little
soil. What we came across chiefly were stones fallen from the sides of
the Talayot woven together by a network of roots. Over these we hacked
and sweated and strained, and tore our hands and wrenched our sinews.
And by degrees the heap of big stones and smaller stones and rubble and
earth and other débris grew larger amongst the bushes, and our jagged
pit sank deeper.

Those hours were the only ones in which I ever felt the smallest
respect for Weems. He hadn't chucked away his bless-you-I-know-best air
by any means. For instance, scorning example, he plucked a prickly pear
off a clump that grew out of the Talayot, and sucked the pulp out of
the skin in spite of seeing me devour one in other fashion. And then he
complained of the damnableness of a needle-sown palate. Also he
persisted in following his own theories about the extraction of the
large stones, although these seldom came off. But he stuck at work like
a Trojan, and one can't help having some respect for a man who keeps
his thews in action.

Whilst the white sun burned to overhead, and whilst it fell half-way to
the water again, did we hack and grovel and wrench, till our pit was
well-nigh twelve feet deep, and we were beginning to have dismal
forebodings that we were either delving in the wrong place, or that
Raymond the philosopher had lied most unkindly. But at last, when we
were both nearly sick with weariness and growing disgust, we came upon
a flat stone which rang hollow when the hoe struck it, and in an
instant our hopes sprang to a feverish height again.

Weems tugged at the edges of the stone, screaming and swearing in his
excitement; but it had lain in that bed for many ages, and would not
budge for such puny efforts as his. From the lip of the pit I was
bawling at him to come up out of the way; but not until he had strained
himself well-nigh senseless would he unlock his fingers from their
grip, and even then he would not voluntarily resign his place. But I
could not wait. Sliding down into the pit, I hoisted him on to my
shoulder and gave an upward heave, and then turned-to with the hoe,
battering savagely.

The flagstone was of granite, and I doubled up my weapon but scarcely
splintered the hard surface. So the edges had to be dug round
laboriously; and even then, when thoroughly loose, the weight was so
great that I could scarcely lift it. But at last the great slab was
heaved up on edge, and below there lay a hole whose blackness almost
choked the falling sunbeams. The sight of it--or the wet earthy smell
which came through--somehow made me shiver.

I looked up. Weems was craning over the edge of the pit, his eyes
goggling, and lips drawn back from his clenched teeth. He looked
unpleasant, to say the least of it, and a thought dangerous as well.
There was a bit of the wild beast peeping out somewhere.

"Come along," said I.

"How can we see?"

"Oh, I forgot that. Feel for matches in my coat pocket."

"I've better than matches. A candle; what do you say to that?"

Still he stayed glowering at me.

"Well, why the devil don't you go and get it, man?" I asked.

"Oh yes, to be sure," said he, and disappeared.

"You'll go mad, my son," thought I, "if your delicate nerves are kept
under this strain much longer," and leaned back panting against the
side. The fellow seemed to take a long time hunting for what he wanted,
but at last I heard the sound of his footsteps and looked up.

Lucky for me did I look up then too, for my eye caught a glint of the
white sunshine as it was reflected off some bright surface, and with
the inspiration of the moment I stepped into the opening at my feet and
fell noisily through amid a small avalanche of rubble. Picking myself
up, I looked out from the darkness, and saw, as I expected, Weems
standing at the brink above nervously fingering the nickel-plated
revolver.

"What have you got that blasted thing for?" I sang out.

"Oh, you see--er--there's no knowing what one might meet with down
there--er--and it's well to be ready--er--in case----"

"You lying little viper."

"Oh, I assure you----"

"Thanks, I want none of your assurances. But I'll give you one. If you
put a foot below here, I'll cave in your head with this hoe."

Then he began to whine; and then, as I was stubborn, he swore to shoot
me as I came out, which I believed him quite capable of doing; and so
matters were again at a deadlock.

"Very well," said I at last. "As I won't trust you an inch beyond my
sight, heave that revolver down first, and then I won't touch you. If
you stick to it, I know you'll try to make cold meat of me in the hopes
I shan't be found down here."

"But you might shoot me, Mr. Cospatric--by accident, of course."

"Make your dirty little soul comfortable on that score. If I wanted to
be quit of you, I've got ten fingers quite capable of squeezing the
life out of your miserable carcass."

"Still, I think I'll unload it first, if you don't mind."

"Go ahead," said I, "if it amuses you." And out came the cartridges one
by one, and then the weapon was tossed down to me. One hand grip on the
barrel and another on the stock, a good strong pressure of the wrists
together, and that gaudy little weapon was effectually spiked.

"I may come in safety now?" asked Weems, after watching this operation
with a groan.

"You won't be touched by me if you behave yourself, although you do
deserve half-killing. But mind, if I catch you playing any more pranks,
I shall just do as I said--strangle you. See those fingers? They're
lengthy, and they're ve-ry strong. _Sabe?_"

Down he came, heralded by a brown tricklet of soil and a few stones. He
knelt at the edge of the opening for a moment, and I saw his white face
peering down with "funk" writ big all over it. But he soon mastered his
scruples, and dropped through on to the flooring beside me, though a
nervous upward lifting of one elbow showed that he wouldn't have been
surprised at getting a blow. However, I didn't meddle with him, but
only bade him curtly enough light that candle.

The sulphur match spluttered and stank, and I'm blessed if his fingers
didn't tremble so much when it came to lighting the wick that he
dropped the burning splinter altogether. I grabbed the things
impatiently enough out of his hands, got a light, and led the way.

The walls beside us sloped in towards the top, where they were bridged
by flat slabs some foot or eighteen inches above my head. The passage
had been built before men knew of the arch. Under foot the ground was
hard and dry, and as I should guess, we passed over some dozen yards of
it before we came into the chamber. That was built in much the same
way, with the courses overlapping, and the top crowned with a great
flat flag instead of a keystone. But with the architecture of the
Talayot we bothered our heads little then, and indeed our solitary
candle showed it up but poorly. Right opposite the entrance a strip of
the wall had been plastered, and at that the schoolmaster and I sprang
with a simultaneous rush.

There was some writing on it!

Steadying the flame in the hollow of my hand, I held it near and
withdrew the guard.

"Good God," shrieked Weems, "what's that!"

The one word I saw was--_Hereingefallen_, scrawled in white
letters, and on the ground beneath was a piece of billiard chalk. There
was nothing on the plastered surface beside, except the scratchings of
a knife-blade. Some one had been there, read the Recipe, and then
obliterated every letter.

In a flash these things occurred to me, and I turned to see my
companion collapse on to the ground like an empty sack. It required an
effort to avoid following his example. The shock was a cruel one.

The thing had been there. The old diary had lied in no single item. And
here the treasure had been snatched away from us when it was almost
within our grasp. And--then came the most strange conclusion of all--by
some one who knew we were to follow.

Haigh was out of the question. He knew no German. It was no elaborate
joke of his. But who could it be? I sat down on the earthen floor with
my head between my fists trying to think it out. _Hereingefallen!_
Yes, "sold" indeed. But who, who, who had done it?




CHAPTER XI.

THE RED DELF AMPHORA.


The candle, stepped in a puddle of wax, burnt up steadily. There wasn't
the ghost of a draught in the place. The walls were dry-built, but
their thickness was so great that no breath drove in from the outside,
and the air of the chamber was heavy and earthlike. The place was
bone-dry. I picked up the billiard chalk, and felt that the green paper
wrapping was crisp and stiff. The name of Rolandi et Cie. was printed
upon it, but there was nothing which told me whence it came or how long
it had been there. Only that scribbled word _Hereingefallen_ on
the newly-scraped plaster seemed to fix a date on the spoiler's visit.
It appeared to me that no one would have taken the trouble to chalk up
a jibe unless he had good reasons for supposing that some one else
would come after to read and appreciate it. And yet this was only a
guess. The whole affair was too mysterious to make out any settled
theory from the slim data which lay before me.

I got up, and went down the entrance passage, taking the candle with
me. Going on past the place where we had broken in, I found marks where
another roofing flag had been moved and replaced. It was under the spot
where we had noted the torn-up turf, and I came to a conclusion that
the sleek black pigs of Minorca had been maligned. But--well, what was
the use of puzzling on? Much best to shrug the shoulders, say "Kismet,"
use strong language according to taste, and accept for granted that
every man's fate was writ big upon his forehead.

A blurred noise of moaning came down the passage-way from the black
heart of the Talayot. "That other poor devil's coming to his senses
again, and is feeling lonely," thought I, and retraced my steps. The
little man was talking a bit incoherently, whimpering to himself the
while, and mopping his face with a clammy pocket-handkerchief. He was a
tolerably poor sight.

"Look here, my son," said I: "you've lost your starch, and you'd better
go home."

"Whatever did I come for?"

"Why, to grab something that you've missed, and that I've missed too.
It's best to be philosophical over it, and clear out quietly and not
gossip. Personally, I can do all the necessary ridicule myself. I'm not
over-ambitious about spreading the tale, and getting indiscriminate
chaff thrown in from all four quarters of the compass."

"Then you think there is no hope of getting the Recipe at all."

"The event is with Allah, and I am not in his confidence."

"I must request you not to be profane in my presence, Mr. Cospatric."

"H'm! I'm feeling as if a little profanity would do me good just now."

"Then let me use the word 'blasphemy.' I object strongly to having my
ears polluted by it. Blasphemy----"

"Oh, curse you," I broke out savagely, "stow that rubbish. After
coquetting with murder, you've little call to preach about minor
morals. I guess we're both fairly rabid just now, and if nagging is
your favourite safety-valve, you'd better screw it down; otherwise
you'll get hurt."

We stood there facing one another, the candle feebly illuminating us up
to the knees, the upper parts of our bodies showing only in dim
outline. For a good five minutes neither spoke. At last Weems announced
his intention of departing, and was promptly given leave to go anywhere
from hell upwards. He went down the passage-way, but, being too short
to reach the gap in the roof, asked for assistance. I blew out the
candle and went and hove him up, and afterwards climbed to outer air
and sunshine myself. He was standing by the lip of the pit, clenching
and unclenching his fists, shivering, sweating, and periodically
groaning.

A thought struck me, and I promptly gave him the benefit of it without
reserve.

"We're in a nice pickle, Mr. Weems, aren't we? You've spent a lot of
the money you're so close-fisted about, and will have to travel cheap
if you mean getting home again. And I'm in a ten times worse fix. I've
chucked up a steamer-berth at Genoa; I'm on a God-forsaken island where
there's next to no sea-traffic; and I've run up debts with no prospect
of repayment. It looks a bit as if jail's somewhere very close under my
lee. And whom have we to thank for it? Why you, my sportsman, and no
one else."

"Great heavens, what do you mean?"

"Why, that word _Hereingefallen_ shows that the chap who looted
this Talayot knew we were on the track; and as I haven't mentioned a
word about the affair to any one except Haigh, it stands to reason
you've split."

"I assure you, Mr. Cospatric----"

"Oh, very likely you didn't do it on purpose. But you've got into
conversation with some smart fellow, who's pumped you carefully without
letting you get an inkling of what he's got hold of."

"Upon my word of honour as a gentleman, sir----"

"Faith, gentleman! your word of honour! What's that worth?"

"I must say you are very--very--er--rude. I would have you remember
that I am a graduate of Oxford, and as such----"

"Of course take brevet rank as 'gentleman.' An 'M.A. and a gentleman.'
Lovely!"

"And you," shouted the little man, with a sudden spasm of rage--"you
who presume to lecture me are a man who has been expelled from Cambridge,
a man of no means and no profession, a blackmailer--a--a----"

He spluttered and stopped for want of epithets.

"Blackleg," I suggested, "_chevalier d'industrie_, and all the rest of
it. Very well; I'll admit the whole indictment if it pleases you.
And"--I laughed, and stopped to load and light a pipe--"and now let's
stop slanging one another like a pair of drabs in a sailor's pothouse,
and go our several ways. I'm sure I don't want to see your face again,
and I don't suppose you're anxious to feast your eyes on mine."

"I'm not," said Weems.

Those were the last words I heard him speak. We climbed the roadside
wall to set off, he towards Alayor, and I by the way I had come, and,
so far as I know, never set eyes upon one another again.

I strolled heavily on, musing sourly enough to myself, and feeling
utterly dispirited. There had been moments when life had appeared to me
to be of a very dusky gray, but never before had I seen it all black,
with no single tinge of lighter colour. I looked back over my vagabond
existence, and thought what a hopeless muddle it had been. Even Weems
was to be envied, although his trade was the one trade on earth which I
most thoroughly loathed.

In fact, till I opened the main road to Mahon the blue devils were in
full possession, and made the most of their time. But there a flash of
memory pulled me up all-standing, and caused me to give hoots of joy
and delight, and sent me to the right-about whence I had come, at a
very different pace.

                      *     *     *     *     *

It was late that night when I dragged my feet up the hotel stairs to
our quarters; and as I had fed on nothing that day save prickly pears
(which have but a transient effect on the stomach) and oranges (which
are not much more filling), I told Haigh to order a big dinner, at the
same time mentioning that I hadn't got the Recipe.

"The feeding-hour's past, dear boy," said he, blinking at me anxiously,
"and the regular meal's over. I'm afraid I've strained our credit a bit
to-day. Don't you think the best thing we can do is to stroll down to
the cutter, fill your tummy on corned horse there, and help me slip
moorings unostentatiously after dark? I'm afraid our spec. has rather
missed fire here, and I don't want to expiate the offence by a spell of
_carcel_. You see I've kept out of that so far during these vagrom
years, and I don't want to break record before it's necessary."

I laughed boisterously. "Prison be damned! Look there!" And I pulled
out of my jacket pocket a little two-lugged red earthenware pot, and
poured out a chinking heap of something that glinted with many colours
in the lamplight. "Look there! Essence of rainbows, a good half-pint.
Who says half a loaf isn't better than no bread?"

"Good Lord!" said Haigh. And after a pause, "Who have you been
robbing?"

"Grub first, and then yarn. I've borne the burden and heat of the day,
and I'm very nearly cooked."

"But are you sure they ain't duffers?"

"Duffers, your grandmother! Look at 'em."

"Can't see very clearly to-night, dear boy. Day's been a bit wet,
thanks to my Juggins and his kind efforts. But I'll soon find out." And
off he went to the window with a handful of the crystals, and scratched
the glass with them, satisfying himself that they were really diamonds.

"Michael Cospatric," said he, "'tis a great man y'are, and I'll just go
down and let on to the landlord in confidence that you're an American
marquis travelling incognito."

The resources of the hotel had distinct limits, but Haigh's influence
and eloquence strained them to the very verge that night. I did not
merely feed--I dined; and in consequence spoke of the day's heat as
glorious sunshine, saw only the humours of Weems's freaks, and even
passed over the disappointment at the loss of the Recipe without
painting it in over sombre colours. It isn't in my nature to be
miserable or morbid when I've either a good meal under my belt or the
means of getting others stowed within my pockets; and so being
possessed of both these desiderata, I freely admitted to Haigh that
this terrestrial life was thoroughly well worth living.

"One thing is clear," said Haigh, as I relit my pipe after finishing a
full and exhaustive account of the day's doings--"Weems hasn't been
pumped. You've bawled the story abroad yourself."

"How's that, and where?"

"In the _caffè_ at Genoa. You said there was a man sitting beside
you?"

"Not beside, but comparatively near--say a dozen yards off. Yes, I
remember him--a good-looking fellow in coloured pince-nez. But he'd 'no
Sassenach.' Weems had been talking to him just before, and had found
out that. And so as he and I spoke in nothing else but English, I don't
see how the other could have made out what we were jabbering about."

"Do you always parade all your accomplishments, dear boy? Not much. I
also never make fifty breaks at billiards before a mixed audience. And
your friend with the spectacles was the same. Moreover, he saw that
Weems was a garrulous little beast, and not inviting to talk to. So he
just followed the John Chinaman trick and said 'No sabe,' and listened
unnoticed."

"Commend me for a most particular greenhorn."

"Not of necessity. It's an easy mistake to fall into, dear boy. And,
besides, I don't know that you were trapped that way, after all; it's
only a guess on my part."

"By Jove, you must have hit upon the right thing, though, and for this
reason. I only told Weems about the Recipe. I kept back the item about
specimens being buried under the writing, as a sort of _bonne
bouche_; and as matters turned out, never told a soul about it. So,
you see, the man who looted the Talayot could certainly not have
overhauled the Diary, or he would never have left this little red urn
full of gems. I found it where Lully buried it six hundred years ago,
the lid waxed over, and stamped with an alembic and the man's own
family coat of arms. Gad, I wonder where that signet ring's got to
now."

"Never mind that trifle, old chappie. We've got enough of the
gentleman's family jewellery to be able to do without a trumpery gold
ring. It's the rest of the legacy that I've got my covetousness upon
now. Where's that gone to? You didn't happen to inquire of your
farmeress person whether she'd had any other visitors with
archæological tastes during the last few days?"

"I didn't; but I don't think she knew of any one being about on that
tack, or she'd have told me about it. The woman was garrulousness
personified."

"Still there's no harm in returning there to-morrow and pushing
inquiries a little further."

"Not the least. It stands to reason some one has been inside the
Talayot; and thanks to this island being a small one, with a good
average of inhabitants to the acre, we should, if we push inquiries far
enough, find out who the explorer was and when he went there."

With that we left the subject, and Haigh went on to relate what a day
he'd had with the Juggins before that worthy finally tore himself away
to catch the Mallorca steamer; which topic, being treated with a
humorous touch, kept us in merriment for the rest of the evening.

Next day I lazed, and Haigh, taking his turn on duty, rode down to the
neighbourhood of Talaiti de Talt, and brought back news that mystified
us still further. The good woman who owned the farm knew nothing about
the matter, neither did the ploughman from whom I had bought the
three-angled hoe; but a stonemason in the cemetery above Alayor
reported as follows:--

He had seen three men, strangers, come up the road from Ferreiras and
walk down that towards Alayor. The time was after midnight, and as he
had finished the work which had detained him so long--to wit, opening a
vault for the reception of a fresh tenant on the morrow--he strolled
homewards after them. But as they passed on straight through the town
he got a bit curious, and, keeping out of sight, followed astern, along
the narrow country roads which led to nowhere special. He saw them pull
up before the great tumble-down Talayot which stands opposite the big
stone altar, and watched them produce lantern, shovel, and pickaxe, and
begin to dig; after which, feeling that his interest had evaporated (so
he said), or, more probably, being oppressed with sleepiness, he
returned to Alayor, and soon had his head under the bedclothes.

Now this was all understandable enough; but when that inquisitive
tombstone artificer deliberately affirmed, in spite of many attempts to
shake his memory, that the spoiling of the Talayot had taken place on
the night immediately preceding our arrival in Mahon and the arrival of
his most Catholic Majesty's mail steamer _Antiguo Mahones_, then
it seemed to Haigh and myself either that somebody was lying most
blackly, or that we ourselves could not believe certain of our own
senses which we had hitherto considered strictly reliable. For during
the gale there had been absolutely no steam communication with Mahon
from the Continent, and to Ciudadella steamers never run at any time.

"Of course," said Haigh, slowly swinging round the contents of his
glass and blinking thoughtfully at them--"of course there's the cable,
which nine days out of ten is in working order. And as this show seems
to be run on lines suitable for some place half-way between Egyptian
Hall and the Bethlehem Institution, we need be surprised at precious
little. But the idea of your _caffè_ friend with the spectacles
cabling across for some one here to copy the Recipe for him and send it
back by post is a leetle too strong. Of course the chances are several
millions to one against his knowing a soul in the island, much less the
address of such a person; but even supposing that did occur, and he had
an intimate friend here, we'll say, for the sake of argument, at
Ferreiras, why should he trust that friend? He must see the friend
would understand that the opportunity was one which would not occur
again in several score of lifetimes; and he might lay his boots on it
that the friend, be he never so confidential and honest, would not fail
to profit by the matter for his own ends. Because, you see, this earth
is peopled by human beings and not archangels. And besides this
trifling objection, doesn't it strike you that the message would never
land in the confidential friend's fingers at all?"

"I don't quite see that."

"It's simple, though. The message is handed in at Genoa. I think
there's a through wire from there to Marseille. Thence it goes to
Valencia, by which time it has been overhauled by at least three
telegraph clerks and all their intimate friends. One cable crosses to
Iviça, another continues on to Mallorca, and a third crosses to this
island. Knowing the weakness of the Spaniard for making his work as
cumbersome as possible, it's a small estimate to say that the message
is--or ought to be--fingered by at least six more men before it gets to
the delivering office. And do you suppose that out of all those poor
devils of telegraph clerks there wouldn't be at least one who would
forswear his vows and pocket the information? No, no; 'tisn't good
enough. If your man was smart enough to eavesdrop, you can lay to it he
wasn't a sufficiently stupendous idiot to shout his secret down a
telegraph wire."

"There's such a thing as cipher, though."

"There is," said Haigh dryly; "but I think we can make bold to leave
that out of the calculations. The odds are piled up star-high, as it
is, against Mr. Spectacles having a confidential agent here at all whom
he would be inclined to trust with such a job. But when you suppose
that the pair of them have a ready-arranged cipher in full working
order, why, then, infinity is a small figure for the chances against
it. Cabling is out of the question, old chappie. In fact, set alongside
of that the idea of flying across carries ordinary probability with
it."

"And as," I added, "the port captain at Ciudadella wires that he has
had no single incoming vessel during the last ten days, and we know
that none have come into Port Mahon except the fleet and the _Antiguo
Mahones_ and ourselves, we've arrived at the most unpickable
deadlock that two grown men ever scratched their heads over."

"That," said Haigh, "is about the size of it; and so I vote we just let
the Recipe slide, and enjoy ourselves on the other goods the gods have
kindly provided. Come across to the next room. The conductor of the
opera company's staying there, and if the opera company's rank bad, the
conductor, at any rate, is a musician."




CHAPTER XII.

A PROFESSIONAL CONSPIRATOR.


Up till that time I knew nothing of Haigh's gifts in the musical line,
and a bit of a revelation was in store for me. It did not come all at
once. The conductor of the opera company ("_reputado maestro D.
Vincente Paoli_" the lean handbills styled him) opened the concert, and
it was not until he and Haigh had some difference over the accentuation
of a note in an air from Bizet's _I Pescatori di Perle_ that my
shipmate strode over the piano stool.

The old professional's face was amusing to watch. Good-natured contempt
for amateur theory was very plainly written on it at first. That gave
way to surprise and wonder; and then these merged into undiluted
admiration.

Haigh had given his version of the disputed passage, and then saying,
"This is rather a fine bit too," had played through the Moor's fierce
love song; after which, without any words being spoken, he verged off
into other melody which we could appreciate even though we failed to
recognize its origin. It was all new to us, and after a while we began
to see that the player was his own composer.

He peered round from time to time, glancing over his shoulder at our
faces, and once stopped to ask if we were bored.

"No, go on," said Paoli. "I never heard music like that before. It is
new. I do not say whether I like it. I cannot understand it all as yet,
I who can comprehend all that even Wagner wrote. But it is wonderful.
Continue.--No, nothing fresh, or my ears will be dazed with surfeit.
Play again that--that piece, that study, I know not what you call it,
which ran somehow thus"--the Italian hummed some broken snatches.--"It
seemed to show me a procession of damned spirits scrambling down the
mountains to hell, with troops of little devils blackmailing them on
the road. I know not how you call the thing, and like enough I have
totally missed its motive; but there is something about it that holds
me, fascinates me, and I would hear it again that I may understand."

Haigh grinned and complied, and then he played us more of his own
stuff, the most _outré_ that human ears had ever listened to, and
we marvelled still further. But having by this time fallen in with his
vein, we both of us could appreciate the luxuries he was pouring out.

"Signor," said Paoli enthusiastically, when it was over, "if you chose,
you could found a new school of music."

"And call it the Vagabond School, eh?"

"Your airs are wild and weird, I own, but, signor, there is melody in
every note of them."

Haigh shrugged his shoulders. "Such melody, _maestro mio,_ as only
the initiated can appreciate. You have been a wanderer, _maestro_,
and so has Cospatric; therefore you understand. But the steady,
industrious stay-at-homes, the people who think that they know what
music really is, and what its limits are, and all about it, what would
they say to these queer efforts of mine? They would not even dignify
them by the word 'distorted.' They would call them unmitigated bosh,
and set me down as a virulent maniac. No, signori, I am not ambitious,
and so I shall not lay myself open to that sort of snubbing. Come
across to the other room for cigarettes and vermouth."

And there we sat till the melancholy chaunt of the _sereno_
outside told us it was five o'clock, and, with the blessing of God, a
fine morning.

A certain black box, my one piece of salvage from the wreck at Genoa,
came up from the ugly cutter next afternoon, and I am proud to say that
my violin added another link between us.

For the next three days we had as good a time as one need wish to
enjoy. Every evening after his duties at the theatre were over the old
Italian called us round his piano, and we feasted on what we all three
loved. And then the opera company took steamer to fulfil an engagement
at Valencia. Haigh was for accompanying them. Amongst other reasons he
had a bit of a penchant for the soprano's understudy. But I said "No,"
reminding him of the other business we had in hand, and pointing out
how much time had been frittered away already.

"Oh, as to that," said he, "I think we may as well pat the pocket that
holds what we've got, and resign ourselves to Kismet with regard to the
rest."

"It's scarcely wise to throw the sponge up yet. I am not hopeful, but I
don't despair."

"I'm letting the thing drop from my mind. However, if you've an idea,
old chappie, let's hear it."

"What do you say to taking up another partner?"

"To what end? I fail to see what use a third would be. Still, give the
proposed partner a name."

"Taltavull."

"Phew! I say, I rather bar meddling with politics, especially the
white-hot explosive politics that he affects."

"So do I. I hate 'em. Still, if there's anybody able to ferret out
where that Recipe's got to, and make the present holder disgorge, that
long, lean, respectable-looking anarchist is the man. To begin with, he
has a far cleverer head on him than either of us can run to, and from
what I told you about his theories, he'll be as keen as knives when
once he's shown the scent."

"But the man's not more than human," objected Haigh. "I don't see that
he'll be able to squint farther through a brick wall than either of us
could."

"He has more chances, for this reason: he's mixed up with social
undercurrents whose flow we can neither trace nor follow. These will
take him to places where we could not get, and show him things that we
could not find."

"Which fine metaphor boiled down signifies that you want to bring the
man into partnership because he is a professional conspirator."

"Put it that way if you like. Also you must not forget that you and I
are at present dead-locked."

"So that we have all to gain and nothing to lose. Precisely; old man,
you've put it in a nutshell. The only other thing is, do you think
Taltavull would play fair?"

"We must risk that. It isn't a matter one could make out a paper
agreement over, and sign our names to across a charter-party stamp. But
I think, from what I saw of him, Taltavull is not the man to do an
unfair thing to any one who treats him well. But, as I say, we must be
prepared to risk it."

"All right then," said Haigh; "so far as I'm concerned, I'm quite
willing. You do the recruiting. We might call ourselves the Raymond
Lully Exploitation Company, Limited."

I went out there and then about the errand, and found Taltavull at his
own house, sitting in a huge stuffed armchair. He was reading
_L'Intransigeant_, and marking in blue pencil the points where he
considered its racy blackguardisms were not sufficiently pungent.

The furniture of a Spanish sitting-room is made up, as a rule, of
whitewash on the walls, and a good supply of eighteenpenny rush-seated
chairs scattered about the tiled floor. This is on account of the
climate, which at times makes all appearances of coolness to be highly
appreciated. But the anarchist was not a Spaniard, nor an Italian, nor
anything else so narrow. He was a man of no nationality, and
cosmopolitan, and sublimely proud of that expansiveness. Consequently,
he had taken his ideas of furniture from a more northern island, and
had his room well crammed with massive mahogany and dark oak, with the
upholstery in dull crimson velvet. To be sure, no style could be more
unsuited to the climate, but then, on the other hand, it was a standing
witness of his emancipation from all restraint. The thing might bring
him discomfort, but that was a secondary matter, and he was prepared to
suffer for his faith's sake. Certain hard and fast principles always
came first with him, and in the heavy mahogany and the hot plush velvet
none of them were violated.

He put down his paper when I was announced, and said he was glad to see
me; and I honestly believe that the phrase of welcome was no empty one,
even before he knew what I had come about. He seemed--I say it without
conceit--to have taken a fancy to me at our first meeting.

The gist of my tale came out pretty rapidly, although I skipped no
details, but waded through chapter and verse; but before it was half
told, Taltavull had sprung up from his seat, and was pacing backwards
and forwards over the thick carpet, fiercely waving his long arms, and
looking for all the world like a mechanical frock-coated skeleton. I
broke off, and asked half-laughingly if I had offended him.

"I deem you, señor," cried he, "the greatest benefactor that my cause
and I have ever known. I shall feel myself standing to the chin in your
debt, whatever your conditions may be."

And with that I went on to the end of the yarn.

"Señor Cospatric," said he, when the last had been told, "it is
directly contrary to the tenets of our creed to assist one
individual--much less two--in piling up wealth beyond the due
proportion. But it is also our fixed maxim to deal honourably with
those who do the like by us. You, Don Miguel, are one of our enemies, a
passive one, it is true, but none the less an enemy, because you are
not for us. Also I see with sorrow and certainty that you will never
become a convert. There is something in your blood, some hereditary
taint of conservatism, which forbids it. But for all that, you shall
find that we anarchists can keep faith with our opponents. You shall
have your rigid eighteen months' monopoly of the diamonds before we
begin to stir the market and set about revolutionizing the world."

"Always supposing you can manage to finger the Recipe, which, as we
stand at present, seems a by no means certain thing."

"Pah, _amigo_, you are half-hearted. I"--he struck his narrow
chest fiercely--"shall never think of defeat. From the outset I shall
go into the business with intention to succeed. Of my methods you may
not learn much, for to those beyond the pale we lock out secrets. But
could you know how far our brotherhood extends, and how deep is the
responsibility with which each member is saddled, you would have more
faith in the mighty weapon whose hilt I, Taltavull, grasp between my
fingers."

"Don't you go and involve Haigh and myself in a political row."

"No word of what is happening will pass outside the bounds of our own
clique."

"I just mentioned the matter, y'know, because you anarchists have got
the reputation of not sticking at much."

"My dear Don Miguel, a statesman in your own islands once evolved the
policy of Thorough. We have adopted the selfsame principle. Nobody and
nothing must stand in the way of our ends. We stand up for humanity in
the mass. _Bourgeois_ society is bound to go under. And to hasten
its downfall any one of our members is proud to offer himself as a
sufferer, or as even a martyr to death, for the Cause. We aim at
producing a state of society in which men may live together in harmony
without laws. You must see that we are merely extreme philanthropists,
and that our motives are pure in the extreme. And, _amigo_, you
must disabuse your mind from the vulgar illusion that we are nothing
but a band of brutal assassins who murder only through sheer lust for
blood."

I started some sort of apology, but he cut me short.

"My dear fellow, you haven't put my back up in the very least. A man is
bound to misunderstand us unless he is on our side; because if he does
understand and appreciate, and has any claim to the title of man, he
could not help being an anarchist. But now let us drop the question and
get to the work of the more immediate present. I am going to the
telegraph office first. Let me accompany you back as far as your
hotel."

"When shall I see you again?" I asked, as we parted at Bustamente's
doorway.

"When I find where the Recipe is."

"And that will occupy how long? A week?"

Taltavull laughed. "You will see me to-morrow afternoon at the latest,"
said he.

Confidence is said to be infectious, but I can't say that my hopes were
very highly excited by Taltavull's sanguineness of success. As to
Haigh, he had scoffed at the idea of tracing up the Recipe from the
first, and all I could tell him about the new power on the scent would
not change his cheerful pessimism. "The whole loaf we are not going to
get, dear boy," was his stated opinion; "and we may as well be
contented with the crumbs we've grabbed, and enjoy 'em accordingly.
There's the dinner bell. Let's go and make merry with the drummers."

However, true to his word, and not a little to our surprise, Taltavull
turned up about four the next afternoon and told us that he had been
successful. There was a little subcutaneous pride to be noted as he
made the announcement, for, after all, he was a human man as well as an
anarchist, and had done a thing which we deemed very nigh impossible.
But he kept this natural exultation under very modestly, saying that
all credit that might be due was owing not to him, but to the great
organization. We were merely offered a proof, he said, of what the
anarchist body could encompass when once their machinery was put in
motion. And then, having given us the broad fact, he proceeded to show
out details. Or rather, to be strictly accurate, he gave us a string of
results, without any hint as to how they had been arrived at, a certain
amount of mystery being the salt without which no secret society could
possibly exist.

Put briefly and in its order of happening, the story ran as follows:--

The raider, as we had already faintly surmised, was none other than the
man with the spectacles in the Genovese _caffè_. His name was
Pether--N. Congleton Pether; he was of Jewish extraction, and he was
stone-blind. He had been much in Africa, and it was in the southern
part of that continent that an accident deprived him of his sight. The
injured eyeballs had been surgically removed, and artificial ones
mounted in their stead. The man was clever in the extreme in hiding his
infirmity; for a week none of the hotel people where he was staying in
Genoa even guessed at it. Casual acquaintances scarcely ever detected
the missing sense.

English being his native tongue, Pether had naturally lost no word of
the discussion over Weems's manuscript, and directly the little
schoolmaster and myself had left the _caffè_ he had beckoned his
servant Sadi, who was within call, and had gone off on his arm towards
the harbour. There he threw money about right and left, and the
information he wanted was given glibly. A freight steamer consigned to
some senna merchants would be sailing for Tripoli at noon on the
morrow. To the skipper of this craft he betook himself, and bargained
to be set down unostentatiously in Minorca. It would mean a very slight
deviation from the fixed course, and what he paid would be money into
that skipper's own pocket. You see Pether knew how to set about
matters. Had he gone to the shipowners, he would as likely as not have
failed, or at any rate been charged an exorbitant fee; but by applying
to a badly paid Italian seaman who was not above cooking a log, he got
what he wanted for a thousand-franc note.

The senna steamer made for neither Ciudadella nor Port Mahon. Her
doings were a trifle dark, and she did not want to be reported. But her
skipper was a man of local knowledge, and remembered that there were
three small harbours on the northern coast of Minorca, used exclusively
by fishermen and _contrabandistas_. Further, being a man of guile,
he understood the ways of the outpost Carabinero. He knew that if an
open boat were seen to come into one of these village harbours from
somewhere out of vague seaward darkness, the local preserver of the
king's peace and the king's customs would not be rude enough to look in
that direction. That uniformed worthy would understand that some
gentleman in the neighbourhood wished to land a cargo, probably of
smokable tobacco, free of duty. He would know that if he interfered, he
would probably test the chill sensation of dull steel jabbed between
the shoulder blades before many days were over. He would expect that in
the ordinary course of events judicious short-sightedness would be
rewarded by notes for many pesetas, and American tobacco in generous
quantity. And he would reroll and smoke his Government cigarette,
placidly non-interferent, thanking his best saint for the happy time to
come.

And in fine it was managed in this very fashion. The senna steamer
hove-to in the twilight some three miles off-shore, and a boat put into
the tiny sheltered bay of Cavalleria just two hours after nightfall.
The boat scarcely touched the beach. She disgorged herself of two
passengers and a small lot of luggage, and departed whence she had come
in scared haste.

A Carabinero, with his back ostentatiously turned to the newcomers,
leaned on his rifle, whistling mournfully. Sadi wrapped a greasy note
round a pebble, and chucked it to the man's feet, whence it was
transferred to the pocket of his ragged red trousers without comment,
and then the pair took their way up past the carvel-built fishing-boats
into the straggling village street.

Cavalleria has no regular _fonda_, or even _casa_, but there is a shop
where they sell wine, and black tumour-covered sausages, and white
bread, and _algobra_ beans, and Scotch sewing cotton. The whole village
knew of their arrival, and were gathered in this shop to meet them when
they came in. Few questions were asked. The Spaniard of the lower
orders has a most Hibernian weakness for anything smacking of
conspiracy, or any enterprise which is "agin' the Government." Pether
saluted the audience with one mysterious grin, which they appeared to
consider as fully explanatory, and then inviting them all to drink with
him, put down a peseta,[2] and received much change in greasy bronze.
"_Dos reales_" was the price of that piece of lavish entertainment, the
old twopence-halfpenny still holding sway in out-districts against the
more modern decimal notation.

      [2] A _peseta_ is worth rather less than a franc at the usual
      rate of exchange.

And then a guide was wanted.

Every able-bodied man amongst the villagers offered his services for
nothing. His time and all that he possessed was entirely at the
disposition of the señores. The choice was embarrassing. But at last
one rope-sandalled hero was selected, and the trio set off into the
night between the great rubble walls. The most of their luggage had
been left to go to Mahon by mule pannier on the morrow. They only took
one small box with them, slung by a strap over Sadi's shoulders. But
the guide carried pick and shovel.

They struck the main road and held on along it till they reached the
cemetery, and there struck off through Alayor, and on down the narrow
lanes to Talaiti de Talt. Sadi and the Spaniard dug, and being used to
the exercise, and working in the cool of the night, deepened their pit
rapidly. Only the stars watched them at their labours. Pether was not
able to look on; he could only listen.

As day was beginning to gray the sky the entrance tunnel was unroofed,
and down the two foreigners dropped into it, Sadi leading. The man of
the soil feared ghosts and crouched at the lip of the hole. Also, being
ignorant of all other tongues save Minorquin, he understood no word of
what was being said beneath him.

But of a sudden a noiseless light of blinding whiteness flared out from
the inside of the Talayot; and after an interval of black-velvet gloom
it flashed out again. His fears still were strong, but curiosity
trampled them under foot, and the man in the rope sandals dropped
noiselessly on to the floor of the tunnel. Again the intense white
glare shone out, and the watcher saw words of writing on the farther
wall of the Talayot, and him of the spectacles holding his wooden box
so as to face them. Afterwards, by the light of a candle, he who had
made the flashes scraped this lettering from the plaster with his
knife, and his companion, laughing, scribbled something else on the
blank place. And then, as the cold earthy atmosphere was beginning to
make him sweat, the son of the soil climbed out again.

"Great Cæsar!" exclaimed Haigh, when the narrative had reached this
point. "I'm beginning to have an inkling of how it was all worked out.
If that chap photographed the inscription by magnesium flashlight, I
verily believe I know where the plates----But don't let me interrupt
yet. Finish the tale first."

And so Taltavull went on.

The uncanny sights which he had witnessed impressed the Cavalleria
fisherman mightily, and when he received a valuable banknote, he helped
fill up the hole and departed, fully determined to hold his tongue. The
man with the spectacles said that evil would assuredly befall if he
spoke of the things he had seen, and that fisherman believed him
implicitly.

The two raiders walked rapidly down the narrow lanes till they came
upon the broad road at that point where it is interrupted by a hedge of
wheelbarrows and gang planks. Coming down the other branch road
opposite to them was the zinc-roofed diligence, which had left
Ciudadella in chill darkness at a quarter to five. At their sign the
driver brought the ramshackle conveyance to a stand, and they squeezed
into the stuffy interior. Then with an _arre-e-ee_, and an
impartial basting with the short whip, the four wretched horses got
into their shamble again, and forty minutes later were climbing in and
out of the clean dry holes in Calle Isabella 2^a at Mahon. They only
had one hitch in their enterprise. During one of these bumps in the
uneven street the door flew open, and the camera fell out on the cobble
stones with a thud and a sound of splintering glass.

"And I thought that man a Juggins," said Haigh, "and imagined I was
blarneying and greening him _ad libitum_, whilst all the time he
was bamboozling me--me--me, gentlemen. But, Señor Taltavull, are you
perfectly certain the fellow is blind? I think you must be mistaken
there."

"He is stone-blind; but, as I told you, he is marvellously clever at
concealing it. You are by no means alone in being deceived."

"But, _amigo_, he looked at me when we were talking, and pointed
out things about the room, and, in fact, used his eyes the whole time.
Brown eyes they were, and good to look upon."

"I tell you he is very, very clever, and as his great conceit is to
hide his infirmity, he uses all his wit to do it. Sadi, his servant,
had helped him to explore the room beforehand, so that he knew exactly
where everything lay. And the sound of your voice would tell him where
to direct his gaze during a conversation. But call to mind anything
where immediate vision was necessary. Did you never ask him to read a
letter or anything of that kind, and not notice (now that you are
reminded of it) that he somehow or other evaded doing so?"

"No, no---- By Jove, yes, I did though. I asked him to play cards, and
he wouldn't from conscientious motives or some rot of that kind."

"There you are, then."

"Right. Of course he couldn't see the pips. And this was the man I
thought I was having on for a Juggins. And this is the man who has got
the Recipe for Diamonds locked up in a photographic double dark-back.
That is, unless he's taken it out and got it developed."

"So far as I can make out," said the anarchist, "the negative is still
undeveloped. Pether took it to Palma, and he has it there now, not
daring to trust it in a photographer's hands, and not being able to
develop it himself. Señores, I believe it will be for us to unlock that
tremendous mine of potential energy. Mallorca, I regret to say, is too
strictly Catholic to be a profitable sowing ground for our propaganda,
but we have scattered adherents here, and these are working their best
for us. But our presence in that island is imperatively demanded.
Unfortunately, the next steamer does not sail for two days."

"Then we'll take the cutter," said Haigh. "Wind's in the sou'-sou'-east
and lightish, but if it holds as it is we should make Alcudia Bay by
early to-morrow morning, and from there could hit off the railway at La
Puebla and get to Palma."

And to this Taltavull and I agreed.




CHAPTER XIII.

AT A MALLORQUIN FONDA.


Our preparations for that short sea trip were few and simple. Taltavull
exchanged three small diamonds for cash, which enabled us to settle
outstanding accounts; Haigh procured a basket of bread, hard-boiled
eggs, and vermouth bottles; I made two or three chandlery purchases,
and gave the rigging a bit of an overhaul. It was in the gloaming when
we got the anchor, and night when we stood out between the dismantled
old fort and the obsolete new one at the harbour's mouth, and got into
open water.

Wind was fresh at first, and the ugly cutter's stem hissed through the
water like red-hot iron; but as the moon rose into a steel-blue sky
amongst bright white stars, the breeze dropped till it scarcely gave us
steerage-way. Haigh sat smoking at the tiller throughout the night;
Taltavull and I patrolled the narrow decks, chatting. We none of us
felt inclined for sleep.

Dawn came with a flash of vivid green, the sulphur-coloured disc hard
upon its heels. We were then off the south-western corner of Minorca,
with the high ground on the northern parts of the sister island
standing up clearly against the horizon. Even from that distance we
could make out with the glasses a watch-tower on the peninsula which
divides Pollensa Bay from Alcudia. Up there the sentinels of those
naked slingers who loved wine and women when the world was young had
peered over the blue sea for a first sight of Roman or Carthaginian
pirate galley.

"Happy times when those men lived," said the anarchist; "there were few
laws to trouble them."

"Happy indeed," echoed Haigh, "for a boy with a taste for liquor and
ladies, and who thought unlimited head-breaking a pleasing diversion."

In the middle of the channel a steamer passed us on her way to Algiers.
She was the _Eugène Perrier_, the very Transatlantique Company's
boat that had put us on our course again during that wild, tearing race
from Genoa.

The fact was pointed out, and we looked her over again as one looks at
an old friend who has rendered a big service.

"Bit of a change this day from that, isn't it?" said Haigh.

"About as big as they make 'em," I admitted.

"I'm not so sure that I care for it, though," said he. "It had its
strong points that trip."

"Especially when it was over," I agreed. "Yes, it's fine to look back
at."

"It has one or two memories that will stick. You trying to catch up the
slits in the mainsail as fast as the wind slitted them, with the
knowledge that we'd probably go to glory if you got behind; I shan't
forget that. And I think the face of that man we laughed at on the brig
will stick. Also one or two other items. But as you say, old chappie,
it's nicest to look at from beyond."

The day flushed hotly as it wore on, and still the breeze kept light.
We slid through the water slowly, leaving scarce a trace of wake behind
us. Haigh smoked and drank vermouth; Taltavull busied himself below
with dealing, on paper, with tremendous sums of money; I bathed at
intervals, diving from the bowsprit end, and climbing aboard again by
the lee runner.

It was a lazy, dreamy passage that of ours across the channel, and most
enjoyable withal; but there was a strong lure dragging us on, and I
think all of the ugly cutter's complement were unfeignedly glad when
she opened up abeam both of the high headlands which bound Alcudia Bay.
There is one lighthouse, on the northernmost cape, and we passed
another on an island about half-way in, both in mocking contrast to the
old round sandstone tower which rears itself amongst the palmetto scrub
about a mile outside the _puerto_. What that old crumbling castle
was for it is difficult to see, for in the days when it was built there
was no known artillery which would throw a ball half-way across the
shallow bay.

"The lazaretto," said Taltavull, pointing to a grim, gray fortress
farther along the shore, with high limestone walls, and lookout towers
at the corners. "Heaven help the poor cholera-stricken wretches whose
fate it is to be boxed up in that prison! It helps to show, however,
what a rabid hatred the Mallorcans have of all manner of disease. Read
George Sand's book about the island if you want to understand that. She
brought Chopin here long ago, and wintered with him at the Valledemosa
Convent, hoping to save him from consumption. The people in the village
there are as hospitable as any in the world as a general thing, but
they ostracized these two because of their dread and loathing for
sickness, and deliberately tried to starve them out."

"Brutes," said Haigh.

"I think," commented the anarchist, "that they'd a perfect right to act
as they did. They chose to, and that was sufficient. That's my creed."

"Poor creed," said Haigh. "Cospatric, stand by with that mud-hook, and
we'll bring to by the schooner here. It's getting very shallow."

We brought up to an anchor, snugged down, and then hailed a boat and
got put ashore where the fishing craft were riding to their bowfasts,
and discharging scaly rainbows on to the stone quay. The inevitable
Carabinero gave us an examination, and then we made our way up from the
little port village through beanfields and vineyards and oliveyards,
past an old Roman amphitheatre on to the double-walled town.

Very Asiatic in appearance is Alcudia as one approaches it, with its
yellow and white houses, its domes, its crumbling amber walls, with
ragged date-palms scattered here and there, and dusty green clumps of
prickly pear scrawming about everywhere. But as a walled city its days
are done. The massive gateway with its pitting of Saracen round-shot
has no guard. The two fosses are planted thickly with grotesquely
gnarled olive-trees. The streets are clean and the houses are in good
repair, but there is a lazy old-time air about the place that would
clog the hurrying feet of even a sight-seeing American.

We fetched up at the _casa_ and had dinner, which commenced with a
dry soup of ochre-coloured rice. It was a curious meal all through, and
across the little well-yard we could watch the cooking done in earthen
pipkins of various sizes, each over its own charcoal fire. Then we went
into the _café_--an irregular room, with the roof partly supported
on arches, concrete floor, and heavy odour of rancid oil and Government
tobacco--and sat on rush-bottomed chairs round a little deal table to
sip our cognac and discuss on the next move.

"Now that we are coming to close quarters," said I, "it's beginning to
be borne in upon me that our proceedings are very lawless."

"Anarchistic, to say the least of it," observed Haigh.

"We are simply acting on the principle of the 'greatest good for the
greatest number,'" said Taltavull. "Pether is one; you are two, and I
flatter myself that I and my Cause make an important third; the
interests of the one must go under in favour of the interests of the
three."

"Which being interpreted," said I, "is, that if A has a watch, and B,
C, and D are poor men with pistols, the watch of necessity changes
hands. It may be natural enough from your point of view, but it's
devilish like highway robbery from mine."

Taltavull shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "I shall never convert
you, _amigo_," said he.

"I tell you what it is," said Haigh. "Señor Taltavul's conscience is
satisfied, and so much the better for him. You and I, Cospatric, are
too poor to afford the luxury of consciences. Pether, it seems, has
this Recipe in the form of an undeveloped photographic negative.
Perhaps he had no particular title to it in the first instance; but
then, on the other hand, nor had we. Correctly speaking, I suppose the
thing either belonged to the owner of the Talayot, or else, as
treasure-trove, should revert to the crown. But on the glorious
principle of 'no catchee no havee,' I think we may leave these two last
out of consideration. Under ordinary circumstances, I should have
barred jumping on the chest of a man who is afflicted with blindness;
but as this particular individual has seen fit to humbug me to the top
of his bent, I shall waive that scruple. Señor Taltavull, I'm with you
in this to anything short of justifiable manslaughter. And
Cospatric----"

"Won't pin himself, in spite of that scrawled insult of
_Hereingefallen_," I cut in. "So that's how we all stand. And now
easy with the debate, for if I'm not a lot out in my reckoning, there's
a pair of cars coming in through the glass door yonder that understand
English."

We stood up and bowed, foreign fashion, as the newcomer seated herself
at a table near us, and she had soon drawn Haigh and the anarchist into
conversation. She had just purchased a Majolica bowl, under repeated
assurance that it was a piece of the genuine old lustre-ware. My two
companions (as I learnt with surprise) were enthusiasts and experts on
the subject, and they both assured her that the specimen she had
procured was undoubtedly spurious. It seems there is a factory at
Valencia where the bogus stuff is made, and a large trade is done in it
with the curio-collectors. And, moreover, every house on the island has
been searched by local pottery-fanatics, and every scrap of the
authentic lustre-ware stored in their salons or museums. Afterwards,
they went on to the vexed topic as to whether the ware had ever been
manufactured in the island at all. Haigh was of opinion that it had
been made in Valencia, and carted over to Italy in Mallorcan craft,
which were in the Middle Ages great carriers in the Mediterranean. This
would easily account for the name Majolica. Taltavull held that it was
a genuine product of the island, though he was bound to admit that no
remains of manufacturing potteries had as yet been discovered. And so
they went at it hammer and tongs, deduction and counter-deduction,
proof and counter-proof; and the owner of that glittering mauve-marked
bowl which had started the discussion threw in a well-considered word
here and there to keep the argument well alive.

Women are not in my way to talk to, but I sat in the background
watching this clever stirrer-up of conversation for want of anything
better to do. She was a woman with dark hair, just tinged with gray,
with features that would have been pleasant enough if they had not been
a trifle over-hard. She was neatly but not showily dressed, and wore a
little jewellery of a ten-years-back fashion. She retained her hat and
jacket, and one got the idea that she habitually wore them, except in
bed.

In fact, she was one of that cohort of masterless women who are so
copiously spread over the Continent. You find them from Trondjhem to
Athens, from Nishni to Cadiz, seldom far from the beaten track, never
under breeched escort. They speak three popular languages fluently, and
usually know some out-of-the-way tongue such as Gaelic or Albanian or a
Czech patois. This one seemed quite at home with Mallorquin. They
generally display the bare left third finger of the maiden; but even
when that critical digit is gold-fettered, you are not always satisfied
that they have ever called man husband. They always carry guide-books,
note tablets, patent medicines, and hand-satchel. They are very
reticent about their own affairs, and correspondingly curious about
yours. And finally, if one may hazard a generalizing guess, they mostly
seem to hail either from the New England States or the south of
Scotland.

Probably because I showed no desire to cultivate her acquaintance, she
began to throw out stray questions for my answering, not about the
cream and mauve lustre-ware--about which I knew nothing--but on other
points.

"It's a strange thing," said she, "how nations like the Spanish which
have beautiful languages are always cursed with harsh voices to speak
them with. I wonder if the converse holds true?" So I had to mention
Norsk and Norwegians.

And, again: "All the peasantry in Mallorca seem to know one tune and
one only, in a minor key, with a compass of three whole tones. It is
not unmusical, but, like the _sereno's_ chant, it is hard to
catch." As I happened to know the air, the least I could do was to dot
it down in her note-book when she asked me to. The book flew open as
she passed it across the deal table-top, and showed the name "Hortensia
Mary Cromwell" written on the flyleaf.

And then she found out that we had come across from Port Mahon in a
yacht, and discovered besides that I was a sailor and vagabond by
trade, and fairly drew me. To an appreciative listener I can always
talk about the sea, and the sights of the sea, and the smells of the
sea, and what those men do who make their livelihood by journeying
across the big waters. And as this Cromwell woman spoke back
intelligently about these matters, I liked her, and sat there talking
when the others went out to make a call. Nor did the experience weary
me, for when they returned after midnight, we were sitting
_vis-à-vis_, with our feet on the edge of the _brazero_,
talking still.

There was no nonsense about her. She was a salted traveller, and had
seen and done many things, and we had a score of tastes and sympathies
in common. It isn't often I'd give two sous to speak to any woman a
second time; but I liked her, and said, when she went upstairs, that I
hoped we'd meet again, meaning what I said.

Taltavull's lean face was gloomy and threatening that evening. He told
me that his correspondent in Palma had been arrested.

"The poor man's only crime was that of spreading our propaganda," said
he, "and his only real enemies were the swarming priests. He naturally
spurned their warnings with contempt, as every true anarchist must do,
and continued sowing the good seed amongst his Roman Catholic
neighbours. And so the Bishop went to the Captain-General, and our
Cause was given another martyr."

"Sad," said Haigh, "isn't it?"

"I shall write them a fair warning," continued Taltavull, with a frown,
"and if the poor fellow is not instantly released I shall give orders
to blow up the Cathedral, the _Lonja_, and the Moorish palace
where the Captain-General resides. I do not think that they will press
matters to extremes after that. The Cathedral is one of the finest
specimens of Gothic ecclesiastical architecture extant in the Spanish
dominions; the Exchange is certainly the finest piece of Gothic secular
work in the world; and the old Saracen palace is a thing these
miserable _bourgeois_ set immense store upon. It would be a
tremendous blow to take them away, but if they press me I shall not
spare the lesson. I've already wired our head office in Barcelona for a
consignment of dynamite."

"I wish you hadn't such confoundedly destructive notions, old chappie,"
said Haigh. "It's the one drawback to you as a companion. Good-night,
and give me a day's warning when you're going to blow anything
up!--Good-night, Cospatric--or, rather, good-morning."




CHAPTER XIV.

HEREINGEFALLEN!


It did not seem that I had been very long turned in when Haigh came to
my bedroom and woke me.

"Come across to my room," said he, "and see our anarchist shipmate in
the process of going crazy."

"Whatever do you mean?" I asked, sitting up.

"I don't quite know whether I mean what I say, but anyway, come and see
for yourself."

So I flung off the quilted coverlet, and pattered over the tiled floor
on my bare feet, and across the corridor, and saw the anarchist dressed
in his long black frockcoat, and apparently in nothing else. He was
dancing with fury, reeling out a continuous string of the most venomous
Spanish oaths--which, by a peculiar irony of a man of his creed, are
drawn almost exclusively from an ecclesiastical basis--and at intervals
pounding with one bony fist at a crumpled letter which lay in the palm
of the other.

Had I not witnessed the fact with my eyes, I should not have imagined
it possible that he could so lose his self-possession. I knew him to be
a man of strong emotions, but I had always believed him capable of
keeping them under iron control.

"We have been fooled, laughed at, betrayed!" he screamed. "The wretch
that holds the Recipe has been playing with us. 'Us' do I say? He might
have played with you and been forgiven. You are but tools; you do not
even belong to the inner brotherhood. But he has trifled with me; he
has dared to make sport of me--Taltavull--whose edicts have caused
thrones to totter, whose hand will soon sweep all thrones away. That
can never be forgiven. He cannot live and expiate that insult."

From one of his pockets the old man drew a revolver and held it up,
resting the barrel on a crooked arm, and aligning the sights at an
imaginary enemy.

"You two, my comrades, must help me in this just vengeance."

"Not much," said Haigh, peering at him coolly through half-shut eyes.
"I've put my name down for a little gentle highway robbery; but if
ordinary murder is to be added to the scheme, you may transfer me to
the retired list. I'm not burdened with many scruples, but making cold
meat of a gentleman for the small crime of sticking to his own property
happens to be one of them."

"And the woman who has helped him, and who has also put shame on us?"

"My dear fellow, you can't expect me to indulge in fisticuffs with a
lady--especially one with such a catholic taste in Majolica
lustreware."

Taltavull stamped and swore afresh. "And this insult--will your cold
northern blood permit you to swallow that unresented?"

"My swallowing power has its limits, Mr. Taltavull; so slow down.
There's an old adage about thieves quarrelling, and we three should do
best by not falling out with one another. Come, let's try back a bit.
What the devil is this eighteen-cornered insult you're so furious
about?"

Taltavull thrust the letter into his hand, and stalked away to the
window muttering in his beard.

I looked over Haigh's shoulder, and read with him:--

    "FONDA FORGET-WHAT, ALCUDIA, MALLORCA,
    "_Tuesday morning, 1.37 a.m._

    "MOST WORTHY SEÑORES,--Once more let me write 'Hereingefallen,' and
    if two of you fail to appreciate its delicate and subtle import, I
    am sure that the polyglot Mr. Michael Cospatric will courteously
    interpret.

    "Your arrival here came to me, I own, as a trifling surprise. I had
    not expected such pressing attention.

    "It may please you to learn that I nearly joined your conclave
    during the course of last evening. Mrs. Cromwell's prolonged
    absence made me anxious, and I descended the stairs from our joint
    sitting-room, and I was within an ace of entering the _café_ where
    you were all four seated to inquire after her whereabouts. But,
    with my hand on the latch of the door, a sound met my ear which
    caused me to pause. It was the well-known mellow voice of my friend
    Mr. Haigh, raised in argument. I recognized it in an instant. It is
    a conceit of mine to study voices, and a peculiar talent never to
    forget them.

    "To enter might have caused unpleasantness. Being a man of peace, I
    consequently forbore to enter, and waited in my room till Mrs.
    Cromwell returned. You had been most generously profuse in your
    explanations. From one or another of you she gathered all there was
    to know. Señores, you have been most solicitous after my humble
    welfare. Señores, I would have you accept my most profuse thanks.

    "I regret that the pressure of circumstances forbids my taking
    formal leave of you. But at an early hour this morning, when you
    will still be stretched upon your virtuous pallets, Mrs. Cromwell
    and I set off for the port of Soller. We shall have our morning
    coffee at Pollensa, and eat our lunch at the convent of Nuestra
    Señora del Lluch. And there we shall leave the carriage. But we
    shall not spare time to pay our devotions at the shrine of that
    celebrated black virgin. Mules will be waiting to take us through
    the ilex forests, and down the cañon, and over the high mountain
    track, and down that cleverly-built pass-road to the lovely valley
    of Soller.

    "Do you know Soller, señores--the prettiest little valley in
    Europe, full of the scents of the orange and the lemon trees with
    which it is planted? No? then visit it when you have the chance. I
    regret that we shall not be there to receive you. But we go on to
    the little port of Soller, where a feluccre is lying stern-on to
    the quay waiting for us. By nightfall we shall be in the lift of
    the swell, standing out between the lights at the tiny harbour's
    mouth.

    "Our destination? Señores, believe me, I blush for joy whilst I
    write. Mrs. Cromwell is about to honour me by adding her hand to
    the heart she has already bestowed upon me.

    "As regards that undeveloped negative, which Mr. Cospatric (with
    the skill acquired when he was bottle-washer to a photographer) so
    kindly put into the portable dark slide, my wife will take lessons
    in the art in some quiet town on the mainland, and when
    sufficiently skilled in technique will develop out its secret, and
    share with me the great reward.

    "I do not know that I am indebted to M. Taltavull for any matter,
    but I should be sorry to leave unrequited the interest he appears
    to take in my welfare. If he will send his address to 'Poste
    Restante,' Cannes, Monte Carlo, or Hyères, I shall be proud to send
    him a delicate wedge of our wedding cake. I trust, however, he
    knows my name; for here I shall only sign myself, señores, your
    infinite superior,

    "L'AVEUGLE."

"That's delicious," said Haigh when he had finished reading.

"But the insults, señor," said the anarchist, turning round again.

"Beautiful!"

"Have you read those burning gibes?"

"The humour of the thing's transcendental."

"Señor Haigh, look at that letter calmly."

"I am doing. Isn't the satire something lovely? My mellow voice! Ho,
ho, ho! And Cospatric's experiences as a photographer's bottle-washer!
Grand!"

The anarchist began to stamp about in a new access of fury, and so
Haigh changed his tone.

"Laugh when you're licked, my dear fellow," said he. "Believe me, it's
the best way, and Lord knows I ought to be an authority."

"We're differently constituted, señor."

"Faith, I grant that same's true."

"This loss means more to me than it does to you."

"You are making it do so, certainly. But there, for God's sake, don't
let's be asses enough to quarrel. Here, smoke."

We all three lit cigarettes, and there was a silence for some minutes.
Then Haigh broke out again,--

"Phe--ew!" he whistled. "Have they gone posting to Soller after all?"

"Eh?" said Taltavull.

"I mean, isn't this all a blind? Wasn't that letter written just to put
us on the wrong track? Why should the man have taken the trouble to
make all that long screed just for the sake of jeering, when he
wouldn't be here to see what effect his smart sarcasms would have?
Besides, if he showed his route, he might think we could work the
telegraph wires and get him and his blessed feluccre stopped in Soller
Port till we came up. Now, here or Palma are the orthodox outlets to
this island. What's the best way to Palma?"

"La Puebla, and rail from there."

"Bet any one an even ten pesetas that Mr. Pether has cleared by the
early train from La Puebla."

"The same road leads out of here till it branches, whether one is going
to Pollensa or La Puebla," exclaimed the anarchist, with a fresh access
of excitement. "I can wire friends at both places, who can find out for
me which way they have gone. I will go and do it at once."

He rushed away to the stairhead till Haigh shouted, "Put on your
trousers, man, first!" and then he turned to his own bedroom.

"He don't take a whipping well," said I, as the gaunt figure
disappeared.

"Ruffle a fanatic," said Haigh, "and you'll soon see that he's all
superfluous nerves and useless springs."




[_There breaks in at this point an extract from the life-history of
Mr. N. C. Pether, which bears upon the main narrative. It is told by
himself._]

CHAPTER XV.

CAMARADERIE.


... Again I distinguished the Belgian drummer's steps coming aft along
the deck planks. "They are all so sick below," said he, "that I could
endure it no longer." He sat down on the saloon skylight beside me.
"You see that low hummocky island we are coming to, out yonder on the
port hand? Cabrera, monsieur, where they say Hannibal was born, and
where they hope and expect M. Blanc's successors will find a
resting-place for their tables when France and Italy hound them out of
Monte Carlo. I was over in Cabrera the other day. I ran across in the
little packet from Palma. There's a lovely harbour there--almost as
good as the one at Mahon; and the place holds two hundred people, who
are planting vines and building fortifications. My faith, it will be a
heavy change if they make that into the fashionable gambling hell of
Europe.

"You are regarding the island--you see its contours; now shut your
eyes.

"'_Messieurs faites vo' jeu._'--There's the big fast Steamer that
has just run over from Marseille in ten hours with a full passenger
list of French, English, Russians, and Americans. Few have braved the
sea-trip just to idle about the _casino_ as they used to do near
Monaco. These are men and women who have come for hard business at the
tables, and who for the most part expect to break or be broke.

"There is a gorgeous hotel awaiting them at the head of the harbour,
where they dress and dine, and then out they go, down the avenues of
rustling date-palms (which bear electric lamps amongst their ochre
fruit-clusters), and so on, to the most sumptuous building in the
world, the new Cabreran _casino_.

"It differs hugely from the old temple of chance on the edge of the
Continent--that _enfer sur terre_ set amid a _paradis_. There
is no ornate concert-room here, or theatre or opera house. There is not
even a _salon_ for gossip and smoke and exercise. The whole is one
enormous _salle de jeu_, and the clink of gold against yellow gold
is the only instrumental music. The cartwheel five-franc piece is
nowhere permissible now, and at the _rouge et noir_ tables
hundred-franc notes are the smallest stake. There is a change in
everything except in the croupiers and the chefs, and the actual tables
and machinery over which they preside. Even the atmosphere is new. The
old dry heat is no more. In its place is a moist warmth, heavy with the
scent of heliotrope and tuba roses. It seems as if one of the scent
factories at Hyères had staved its vats somewhere close at hand. Change
everywhere. Mesdemoiselles les cocottes----But I weary m'sieu' with my
twaddle. '_Rien ne va plus._' The farce is over.

"Regard that brown promontory yonder, the easternmost horn of Palma
Bay. With permission take my _lunette_. So; now you cannot fail to
see. A ship of the Romans laden with pottery struck there in time past,
filled, and went down in deep water. The fishermen often bring up in
their nets unbroken pieces from her cargo, crocks and pipkins identical
in shape and texture with those the islanders use to-day. Ah, m'sieu',
but they are ignorant, these Mallorcans, and happy in their ignorance.
Food is so easily gained that none need starve; they have the best
climate imaginable, free from the sirocco which plagues Algeria, and
from the mistral which kills one on the Riviera; they are too indolent
to meddle with politics; they live in a lotus-land of beauty and ease.
We should despise them, monsieur, but I fear many of us will envy their
lot."

The _Antiguo Mahones_ was threading her way through a fleet of
small fishing-boats, as I could tell by the reduced speed, the hooting
of the siren, and the constant and prolonged rattle of the steering
rods. Soon she would bring up to the quay in Palma harbour. Why should
I not get ashore there and work out the hard problem that was engaging
me?

So far I had made no scheme of ultimate route. The meeting at the Mahon
hotel with that cheery _chevalier d'industrie_ Haigh, and the
knowledge that that more robust brigand, his blustering, heavy-fisted
partner Cospatric, was close at hand, had given me little leisure to
plan far ahead. All my time was occupied in thinking how to fool the
one and keep out of sight of the other till I could make escape from
their immediate vicinage.

But having once cleared from the island, it seemed to me that all
probable danger of our future meeting was passed; at any rate, Mallorca
would be the most unlikely spot to run foul of them in. So when the
commercial traveller had turned away to look after his own affairs
again, I got hold of Sadi, and told him to pull our traps together and
pay up what we owed.

Sadi turned and set about fulfilling the order without a question. That
is the best of Sadi. He never wants to know the why or wherefore of
anything. Within limits he is the perfection of a servant for a man
such as me.

I had trusted Sadi with many things, and so far he had never failed me.
I felt sure that he liked me, which was more than I would have said for
any other member of the human race. But all the same, if he had seen it
worth his while to rob or betray, I'd a pretty strong notion that blood
instinct would prove too strong, and he'd do it. You see, Sadi's mother
was half Arab, half Portuguese; his father was all Portuguese--jail-bird
Portuguese; his youth had been spent in Marquez, which is on Delagoa
Bay; and these things do not breed immaculate honesty calculated to
stand every strain.

I may have wronged Sadi. As I say, he never failed me. But I felt that
there might reasonably be a limit to his faithfulness, and to let him
have the solving of that inscription which I carried about my person
locked in a fleckless photographic plate might very well have
outstepped that limit. It would have been a heavy test on an
archbishop's honesty.

So I did not intend to employ Sadi about this matter except as a last
resort. I wished to let this, the most valuable secret the world
contained, be known to no one except myself, if it could be so
contrived. I desired to get it stored within my brain alone, and then
to destroy the only other trace of it that was existent.

Yet labouring under my peculiar disadvantage, the task appeared a
hopelessly impossible one.

As I went down the gang-plank and ranged up against Sadi's elbow,
walking with him past the wine casks and other litter on Palma quay, it
seemed to me that after all I should have to accept the risk and
recruit this companion's aid. But such a decision was far too momentous
to be hurriedly jumped at. The Recipe was safely locked in the
yellow-green film. To most of the world its very existence was unknown,
and I did not think that either Haigh or Weems or Cospatric would ever
guess the manner in which it had been carried off and transferred to an
invisible shape. Yes, the dark slide and its contents seemed safe in my
possession, and as we entered the sacking-floored carriage that was to
take us up to our _Fonda_, I registered a resolve concerning it.
_Pace_ accidents, I would cudgel my own resources for one entire
year before I gave in and sought external aid.

At the Fonda de Mallorca I took, in Spanish fashion, a three-roomed
suite, and for one entire day did not move out of their whitewashed
fastnesses.

I sat thinking, thinking, and thinking, and felt my brain grow duller
with every effort.

"This will not do," I told myself. "I am used to fresh air, and
sunshine, and the sound of voices, and I must live amongst all these as
usual if I am to puzzle out this riddle. The answer, the key, if it
comes at all, will arrive in a snap and a sudden, and won't be got at
by tedious pondering in an uncomfortable hermitage."

So the next morning I spent on the roof chatting with a girl who was
hanging out clothes to dry on the roof adjoining, sniffing the scent of
the oranges which came from a roof-garden across the street, toasting
myself under the hot sun, and getting fanned by the sweet sea-air that
poured up over the housetops from the curved bay beyond.

A bell clanged below, and I went down the steps to luncheon. The
landlord, according to his wont with strangers who were entered as
_Señor_ and not as _Don_, intended that I should join the
drummers' mess; but I was in no particular mood for that racy assembly
just then, and bade Sadi take me to the dining-room at the other end of
the house, where I sat down amongst garrison officers, proprietors come
in from the country, and members of that bachelor fraternity which
lived at the club opposite, and had their two principal daily meals
here. They all knew one another, and had their well-worn cycle of
conversation. They were tolerably cultured men, who rose superior to
patois, and spoke pure and beautiful Castilian.

No one addressed me, and I did not open my mouth for speech. Probably
it never dawned upon them that I understood a word of their tongue. We
Anglo-Saxons abroad have not a reputation for being polyglot, and I
never advertise my own small linguistic attainments unless specially
called upon to do so. I do not care particularly for the trouble of
talking myself, and one scores sometimes by a taste for silence. I made
rather a good point that way once in a certain Genovese _caffè_.

When that _desayuno_ had progressed as far as cold pickled tunny,
which came as a fourth course, we had an addition to the party. There
was a light pattering of feet along the tiles to the doorway, and I
felt the men around me bow--as they bowed to each newcomer. I joined
them in the salute, and heard with surprise, as the fresh arrival went
round by the table-head, the rustle of skirts--of tweed skirts, or else
of rough serge, I could not be certain which.

She took a seat opposite to me. The waiter placed before her a basin of
soup. It was a Mallorquin soup, which consisted for the most part of
slices of bread and a few slips of greens soaked in a very thin stock,
with an egg broken over the whole so that the boiling mixture poached
it lightly. Also there was a little oil added--native rancid oil. This
sounds very nasty, but like the taste for olives, if a taste for that
soup is once developed, it fascinates. Myself, I like this soup. The
woman opposite did not. She told the waiter to take it away, naming it
by its proper Mallorquin name.

"The _arte de cocina_ of our island is not for every one's palate,
I fear, señora," observed one of the men beside her. "It is not every
foreigner who takes to it like your countryman _vis-à-vis_."

Till then I had been uncertain of her nationality, though I had had my
suspicions of it, for the Anglo-Saxon walk differs from the gait of the
southern nations; but on this slender introduction we dropped into
conversation, and spoke in English of those desultory matters which one
does chat upon to a casual hotel acquaintance.

We others had ended our meal before she was midway, and the Spaniards
had finished their cigarettes and coffee before she rose.

"You say, sir," said she, when she pushed the dish of burnt almonds
finally away and rolled her napkin into its ring--"you say, sir, that
you are staying here some time. So am I. It is my happiness to know the
island well. If I can be of any use to you, command me. I see, with
regret, that you are blind."

I'm afraid I frowned angrily. She had touched me on my only sore point.
"Madame," I said, "I congratulate you on your clear-sightedness. I
flatter myself that I conceal my blindness from most people. I dare lay
a heavy wager that none of the others who have been sitting round this
table has so much as guessed at it."

"I had--that is, I knew some one intimately, sir, whose eyesight had
been destroyed. So you see I naturally noticed trifles about you which
would escape others. But you may trust me not to mention a word about
it. _Adios, señor, y diez mil perdons._"

She rose and bowed. I did the same. I was angry with the woman and yet
attracted by her, and at the same time ashamed of being so. I suppose
these three conflicting emotions combined to make me careless. Anyway,
the next thing that happened was that I, who never stumbled, found
myself blundering over a rush-seated chair, and sweeping two
dessert-plates from the table as I clutched out to preserve my balance.
The waiter, who was in the room, rapped out a good round obscene oath
of surprise. Nothing but the woman's action could have prevented his
discovering my infirmity. She laughed amusedly, and said in Spanish,
"Why, señor, one might think you were blind. You should look to your
path even when you are very polite." And then she drew near me at the
corner of the table, and rested her elbow against mine as skilfully and
unobtrusively as Sadi himself could have done it.

"You see, I know better than to grip you by the arm," she said,
dropping into English again.

"You have a skill and tact that not one in a million possesses. I am
deeply grateful." We were at the foot of the stone stairs. I had my
hand on the slim iron rail.

"You will be able to get back to your rooms now?"

"Perfectly."

"Then again buenas."

"Adios. But shall I not see you again?"

She laughed quietly. "Whenever you please, sir. I shall probably be
staying in this hotel for some time yet."

"Would you," I began, and felt myself to flush as I spoke, though no
novice at chatting with most kinds of women--"are you in a hurry, that
is? Would you come out into the _patio_ down the passage yonder
and sit awhile? We shall find some hammock chairs, and if the glare off
those tall white walls hurts you, there is an awning to pull down."

She assented very gracefully, and we sat there for a couple of hours,
afterwards strolling out past the great amber-coloured cathedral, and
on to the walls, whilst the sun sank into the water beyond the little
lateen-sailed fishing-boats that dotted the bay. With clever,
unobtrusive tact she made herself my eyes. Into her talk she infused
the tale of the quick and the still things we passed in our stroll,
never entering into pointed descriptions, but rather mentioning them in
her chat as though they were of interest to herself alone.

And afterwards, in the evening, she was kind enough to come to a box I
had secured at the opera-house--a building which is almost equal to La
Scala--and I had the delight of _seeing_ Balfe's "The Talisman"
acted, as well as of listening to the music.

She was a woman of perfect self-reliance. She had seen men and women
and places. She knew well how the restrictions of society were ruled,
but she was quite capable of mapping out her own line of conduct to
suit her own ideas. At least I deduced as much, though we exchanged no
single word upon the subject. There had arisen between us a
_camaraderie_ that for me was delightful. Sadi was good, but his
companionship had its limits. She was all Sadi was, and more. It would
be a poor compliment to say she was everything a male comrade could be.
She was woman through it all. She was thoughtful, bright, amusing,
resourceful.

Yet we never verged beyond the bounds of mere _camaraderie_, nor
do I think that either of us wished to do so.




CHAPTER XVI.

CRUELLY INTERRUPTED.


For the life of me I cannot say now who proposed it. I think the scheme
must have been evolved spontaneously between us. But the fact remains
that next morning saw Mrs. Cromwell and myself driving out through the
city _puerto_ by the railway station and the _Plaza de Toros_, and out
along the level road across the plain, towards the hills that skirt it.
She knew the island thoroughly--knew every inch of it, one might
say--and understood and appreciated the people of all grades. I could
not have found anywhere a more interesting companion.

The old Mallorcan nobility, the oldest in Europe, are but little in
evidence. They stay indoors, and outside their old palaces one hears
little about them. Even in Palma, where times change but slowly, times
have changed for them. They are woefully hard up--the result of heavy
gambling in a past generation, and the depreciation of land in this.
Indeed, with one exception, all classes down to the peasants are poor;
but they are not unhappy. It would be impossible to find a race more
contented with their lot. There is no absolute poverty. Bean porridge
can be got almost for the asking, and if one eats bean porridge enough,
one is not hungry. Their other wants are very few, and they are easily
supplied. So that, practically speaking, every one, even the very
poorest, is well off.

Life for the Mallorcan does not consist of making money. He rather goes
to the other extreme, and takes it as meant for doing nothing in, for
chatting, for smoking indifferent cigarettes, for strolling about under
a melodramatic black cloak with crimson plush lining, and for other
enjoyments. He has no marked objection to money when it comes to his
hand, but he will neither stoop nor climb to gather it. Allah has given
him a lovely and fruitful island, with a perfect climate, and a store
of philosophical contentment, and a theory of life called the
_mañana_ theory which utterly eliminates hurry. He wisely does not
try to go against these things that Allah has arranged, and
consequently most of his time is spent in rigorous _far niente_.

It is only the women of Mallorca who work when they have got nothing
else to do. In these frequent intervals they whitewash their dwellings
and neighbourhood generally, which gives sanitation and neatness.

Of the only wealthy class in Mallorca she seemed reluctant to speak.
They were converted Jews, locally known as _Chuetas_. I found she
had somehow imbibed a notion that I too was a Jew; but when I
emphatically denied the impeachment, and said that I strongly hated
Jews, she told me about these _Chuetas_.

They are the Christianized lineal descendants of those Spanish Jews who
in the old days disliked the alternative _auto da fé_, and
preferred to 'vert. To-day they are a caste distinct to themselves,
intermarry, and are loathed by all the other natives with a great
loathing, and have no communications with outsiders except upon
business. Needless to say, this last item is a large one, and in
reality accounts for all the others. The Mallorcans are an easy-going
race, and if they get hard cash to-day, repayment is a matter for
_mañana_, and therefore unworthy of consideration. And so the
_Chuetas_ have contrived to get the upper hand all through the
country. They might be forgiven for neglecting to toil and spin, for
that is the custom in general favour; but the other idiosyncrasy
rankles, and from noble to _puta_, every soul hates, abhors, and
detests them. A man, an Englishman, who had not entered the island till
middle life, told how he came there with tolerant notions, and thinking
the treatment of these tribesmen unjust, cultivated the acquaintance of
many of them. But he said he soon had to give them up. Their language,
their thoughts, their sentiments, their mode of life, were alike
disgusting. He understood why that low-grade _puta_ who had been
offered marriage by a wealthy _Chueta_ had spat in his face by way
of answer. They were utterly unfit to associate with. It was the old
tale: kick a dog for centuries and he becomes an utter cur, and cur he
will remain for centuries to come. And yet by a ghastly irony, the most
devout of the devout Palman Catholics is the hated and despised Palman
_Chueta_.

The mules were dragging our carriage across the plain whilst she told
me these things about the people, and at intervals she served me as
eyes to note the beauties that we passed. There were orchards of
almond-trees that seemed from a distance to be bearing a crop of
snowflakes, till one came nearer and could distinguish the delicate
pinks and mauves of their blossom; there were bushy algobras with rich
green foliage; oranges, bearing the last of that juicy crop which, when
fresh gathered, melts in the mouth like ice; olive-trees, with dry gray
leaves and trunks so grotesquely gnarled as to suggest arboreal pain.
The hot sun above, dappling the young corn and filling the stone
water-conduits with soft tree-shadows; the tinkling twitter of unseen
birds; the repose everywhere, made up a charm which my poor words
refuse to utter. And yet she made me feel it all, and more besides.

We approached the cup-edge of the mountain. To a Spaniard all trees
except fruit-trees mean so many cubic feet of wood for building or
charcoal. As Spain and Italy both know, climates change when the
forests go, and the crops suffer from long droughts or heavy deluges
which sweep the soil bodily away in spite of laboriously-built stone
terraces or concrete-lined water ducts. But that is for _mañana_.
The timber is wanted for to-day, and down it comes. Yet from a merely
scenic point of view this ruthless axemanship is hardly to be deplored
where we were then. The rocks were bare, save for scattered dark-green
dottings of pine or ilex perched where they could not readily be come
at; they were full of fantastic shadows; they were shaven, gray, and
rugged; they were unspeakably grand.

The crags closed in as we went on, and the hiss of the stream which had
neared the road began to drown the bird-songs. Some of the hills beside
us were clothed with green shrubs, and some were gaunt and bare, of
homely gray splashed with red. Ahead there was a wee white house,
apparently balanced like an eagle's nest in an inaccessible eyrie. The
orchards had gone, but the stony land was still scratched up to receive
crops, and laboriously terraced to keep the soil from being swilled
into the sea.

The hills pressed farther together into a rocky gorge, with the rut of
the road perched high on one side, and the stream brawling away fifty
feet below. Goats with tinkling bells were flitting about the crags
like so many brown flies. One began to wonder whether the road was not
a _cul-de-sac_, and whether Valledemosa did not lie in some other
direction. There seemed absolutely no outlet except for wings.

But with an angle of the gorge one opened out a new scene. Another wide
valley lay ahead of us, through which the road wound steeply, past
women gathering the purple olives from the turf beneath the trees, past
laden orange-trees, and sprawls of prickly pears, and fields of
sprouting beans.

And then we came to two yellow gate-posts, on one of which was the date
1063, whilst the other bore this inscription: "VITÆ IN INTROITV ÆDIS
SANCTÆ EXUS."

"Valledemosa is here," said my companion, "the village beside that
convent where Madame Dudevant brought Chopin to die, and from which she
took him away full of new life. The mules will bait here. It is for you
to say whether we go on or return to Palma."

"From the day when I lost my eyes to this day," was my reply, "I have
never known what it was to see the shapes that God has builded on the
face of the earth, or the colours with which He has painted them. Mind,
I have never whined for the sight that was taken away from me. I have
accepted my _Kismet_, and have made it as bright as thought and
contrivance could manage. I believe, without egotism, that there are
few blind men who have trained themselves to be as conscious of their
surroundings as I am. But my powers have great limitations. However
preternaturally sensitive a man may be to all manner of sounds, he
cannot tell everything from sound alone, not even though his sense of
touch besides is laboriously refined. Without the gift of sight there
must always be (so I had been forced to decide) a black gaping hiatus
which it seemed that no human power could fill. Of my helpers, till
yesterday, Sadi was the only one who showed the least fraction of
talent; yet even his best efforts could scarcely throw a glimmer
through the cloud.

"But to-day you have done what I believed no breathing person could do.
You have worked a miracle. You have made me to see as with mine own old
eyes. Heaven grant that this is not all a dream to be waked up from."

We spent that night at the Archduke's _hospitar_ at Miramar--near
Raymond Lully's birthplace--where free housing is given to any
passer-by for three days, with olives, salt, and oil, the typical trio,
provided. In the evening I told her across the _brazero_ a tale
that had never crossed my lips before, the tale of how I had lost my
eyes. I took her in my story to the south of Africa, and led her out
over green rolling veldt to a hawthorn-crowned kopje, where we lay out
of sight amongst the bushes. I explained to her that I was a diamond
merchant, and that I was waiting there for men who were to bring me
stones for sale. And then I told how, instead of those I expected,
others came out of the soft black tropical night, in turn mistaking me
also for some one else. They thought I was there for I.D.B.--I, an
honest trader--and not daring to kill, had loaded their guns with
rock-salt. I told her how the first charge had struck me full in the
face and destroyed my sight for ever; how I had got up and fled
shrieking away, and then lay hid for days in a clump of karoo-scrub
nursing my hideous pain, and wishing for the death which would not
come. And then I sketched to her the way that Sadi had found me, and
nursed me, and been with me in all those groping after years, paying
full tribute to his devotion.

When I had finished she said she wanted to ask me one question, if she
might do so without offence.

"Nothing you would say," I replied, "can annoy me."

"Then tell me, Mr. Pether, were you a registered diamond merchant out
there?"

"I was. I swear I was. Had I been there for Illicit Diamond Buying I
should have deserved all I got, and more besides. But after being
blinded, where was the use of trying to retaliate? of proving it was
all a mistake? of pressing for a money recompense? Imprisoning a man,
or fining him, or even blinding him in turn, could not restore my
eyes."[3]

      [3] _Note, by another hand._--Inquiries pushed by me,
      Taltavull, through the agents of my brotherhood in the
      neighbourhood of Du Toit's Pan, have elicited the following
      communication: "Pether, more generally known as Conkleton, was a
      regular Jew Kopjewalloper from Petticoat Lane. He had abundance
      of money, and was the pest of the diamond fields. Several of his
      runners were caught and convicted, but no case could ever be
      framed against him in person, as he flourished before the days of
      Diamond Registration. However, the charge of I.D.B. grew so
      strong against him that at last the boys took the law into their
      own hands and rock-salted him. Afterwards he disappeared. The
      lesson appeared to have been sufficient. Rock-salt, so they say,
      when fired into the skin, hurts." The name of my informant cannot
      be divulged; but he is a most earnest worker in the Great Cause,
      and I, Taltavull, will pledge my credit on his veracity.

      (Signed) TALTAVULL.

      _Anarchist Headquarters, Barcelona._

And then I went on to tell her how it was a pure platonic love for
diamonds themselves that had turned me to trade in those lovely stones;
how their iridescent glitter delighted my eye, and how the very act of
handling them in their dull, rough, uncut state was a joy to me that
almost amounted to monomania. The theme pleased her, and she asked me
to go on. I had not spoken of diamonds once during all those long years
of darkness, and to discourse about them again to any one who took the
obvious interest in them that she did was for me an indulgence nothing
short of delicious. And when we parted for the night, and I found
myself once more alone, I was almost surprised that I had said nothing
about this new enterprise in the diamond industry which fortune had
thrown in my way. "I feel sure," I told myself, "that she will share
this great secret. She is the one person in this world for me to trust.
But I cannot part with it yet. Besides, I have only known her two days.
Time enough when we get back to Palma."

We went out afoot after breakfast next morning, and during all that day
I revelled in the beauties of Miramar, the finest piece of cliff and
coast scenery in Europe. There is one of the many watch-towers here, a
gray old building whose architect was dead before the Pharaohs or even
the Phoenicians began to pile stones together, and yet the old citadel
has not bent one inch to all that string of time. We ascended half-way
outside up a ladder, and entered a small domed chamber. Then we climbed
together on to the roof, which is half a covered sentry-house, half a
balustraded lookout post. We could hear the rattle of the surf creaming
away twelve hundred feet below, and could look down almost sheer into
the many-hued blue water; and behind there were mountains rising
steeply up into the clouds. The view was incomparable.

Then we went down again, winding along a narrow path that was edged
with flowering heath, and gained a jutting crag which seemed almost to
overhang the water; and going on farther amongst the wind-brushed
pines, we came to another spot which we had previously viewed from
above. It was a little round stone oratory perched on the crest of a
jutting pinnacle, and linked to the main rock by a narrow causeway
which rested on a slender arch. It was lit by a lantern in the roof,
and over the altar was the marble effigy of a man of years.

I do not know why it was, but as we stood on the balcony outside that
tiny chapel, leaning over the rail, and listening to the murmur of the
woods beside and of the waters beneath us, I almost felt impelled to
there and then show my companion that little wooden case I carried in
my breast-pocket, and tell her of the vast and wonderful secret it
contained. In fact, I believe it was the very greatness of the impulse
which made me resist it. I am the last man to be called superstitious,
but it seemed to me then that old Lully's shade was hovering near his
birthplace, and was busying itself in my direction. I did not like the
guidance, and so resisted it; and directly afterwards we strolled back
across the bridge, and on through the woods again.

I cannot, I will not tell in detail how the next few days passed. The
little idyl concerns no one but myself--and one other--and there is no
reason to desecrate them by bawling its delicate folds abroad. Suffice
it to say that we went on through Deya to Soller, and then taking
mules, climbed the mountain passes to the convent of Nuestra Señora de
Lluch.

"You can stay here if you choose," observed my companion, as our mules
drank out of the fountain basin in the courtyard. "Inside the big
doorway yonder is written up '_Silencio_' and '_Vir prudens
tacebit_,' but the monks are not overstrict, and, like the Archduke
at Miramar, they offer free hospitality to all wayfarers. If you have
never stayed in a convent of this kind before, the experience will
amuse you."

"And you?"

"Oh, I shall go on to Pollensa, and you can join me there, if you
choose, to-morrow."

"But why not remain here?"

She laughed. "I'm afraid I belong to the anti-monkish sex. True, they
might offer me house-room--I do not say they wouldn't--but I do not
care for putting myself in the way of being refused."

"Then," said I, "I don't think a convent is very much in my way just at
present. I will push on for Pollensa too."

And so thither we went together, covering the short distance to Alcudia
on the afternoon of next day.

But at Alcudia there was a rude awakening, and, thanks to a woman's
wit, a narrow escape awaiting me. It turned out that Cospatric and
Haigh had added brains to their own council in the form of a
scoundrelly anarchist, and were hot-foot upon the trail. Mrs. Cromwell
heard my name mentioned as she came back into the _café_ from some
small errand in the town, and instead of returning to the sitting-room
upstairs, ordered coffee and sat down near three strangers who were
talking in English. She was soon in conversation with them, and from
one and the other cleverly elicited the whole tale of their adventure.
They seemed overjoyed, poor fools, to discover in her tastes for
pottery, music, and tattooing, and waxed garrulous without the smallest
suspicion. Much was incomprehensible to her, but she sat on there far
into the night, thinking that what she could learn might be of service
to me.

Made anxious by her absence, I had descended the narrow stairs to
inquire after her, and nearly burst in upon their conclave. A
recognition of their voices made me pull up with my fingers on the
latch, and then return with a cat's tread to the place whence I had
come.

A week ago my first impulse would have been to evacuate the spot there
and then, so that even if I were followed, my start would be a good
one. But the last few days had changed me much. From being absolutely
self-reliant, I had grown to be curiously dependent again. I shrank
from taking a flight alone. And, moreover, there was another thing that
held me back: I could not bear to rush away so suddenly from my
companion. It seemed to me that if I deserted her then, I should never
see that woman more; and rather than that should befall, I was prepared
to brave anything. So I waited in that bare, whitewashed sitting-room,
and waited and waited till she came, fearing desperately for the safety
of my great treasure, yet determined to expose it to any risk rather
than beat retreat alone.

It was a torturing vigil.

                      *     *     *     *     *

The clocks had long struck midnight, and the _sereno_ had several
times raised his dirge-like chaunt in the street outside, before my
companion came to me. She wasted no time in preliminaries. I think she
could see by my outward expression that I knew how danger threatened,
and so she told in as few words as possible what she had learnt. "I
hope you can understand it," she said at the conclusion. "I confess the
most is gibberish to me, but it seemed to concern you, and so I thought
would be interesting."

"I am deeply grateful. But let me explain."

"Don't think it an obligation, Mr. Pether. There seems to be some
little mystery about the matter, and I do not want to pry into your
affairs."

"I wish you would."

"Why?"

"Because then I could feel that you took an interest in me."

"Believe me, I do--a deep interest."

I groped and found her hand. It pressed mine with a slight tremble.

"You pity me because I am blind."

"I am deeply grieved for your misfortune."

"Ah"--I dropped the hand, and sighed regretfully--"only pity. But,
then, what else could I expect?"

"What would you have?" she asked softly.

"I had hoped for love. I had prayed that I might be loved, as I love."

And then? Why, honestly, I do not know how it came about, but in a
minute or so each knew concerning the other all there was to tell.

"I should not even mind resigning the Recipe now that I have got you,"
I told her.

"Ah, but," she said, with a little laugh, "if we are going into
partnership, you and I, the interests of the firm must be looked after.
There is no packet leaving the island for two days, so you must wire
Sadi in Palma to hire a steamer and have it ready for us. The train
leaves La Puebla at 7.55. We will go down to meet it by that."

"But Cospatric and his friends will most certainly go by the same
train."

She put her lips to my ear and whispered, and then we laughed, and I
took paper and pen and wrote a long letter.

She read over my shoulder.

"Admirable. Monsieur l'Aveugle, your friends will either stay here and
rave, or else start on a wild-goose chase across the mountains to
Soller. And we, you and I, Nat, we will go far away, away to----"

She did not finish the sentence. She stooped and kissed me instead.




[_Michael Cospatric again resumes speech._]

CHAPTER XVII.

VENTRE À TERRE.


"Now," said Haigh, as the anarchist reappeared dressed, and tore away
down the stairs, "it seems to me a reasonable supposition that there's
movement in front of us to-day, and so it's as well to prepare for it.
I'm not a breakfast eater myself, and coffee and cognac will be all I
can manage; but I'd advise you, as you are talented in that direction,
to stow away as much solid food as you can lay your hands upon. The
Lord knows what wild paper-chase that frock-coated idiot will try to
lead us on when he turns up again. That is always supposing he does
turn up, for, to tell the truth, I shouldn't be surprised if he made a
bolt of it at this stage of the proceedings, and just played on for his
own hand. And to let you into a secret, dear boy, I shouldn't be very
savage if he did sell us in that way. We've got some good plunder as it
is, and there'd be a devil of a lot of bother with one thing and
another if we set about to collar the rest."

"I can't say," I observed, "that I should object to being a billionaire
myself. I've never tried the sensation, and I dare say there are
drawbacks to it; but still, after a man's been beastly hard up all his
days, he doesn't mind going to a little trouble to make a big haul."

"You're energetic, old man; I'm not, and that's the difference between
us. When I've specie in my pocket, I've never been in the habit of
exerting myself to grab more till that's spent. I adopt the principle
which obtains hereabouts, and shrug my shoulders, and say,
'_Mañana_.' However, if you're still on the gathering tack, I'm on
for helping you to the limit of my small ability. Only, as I say, I'm
not wonderfully keen on it from my own point of view."

We breakfasted at leisure, the one sketchily, the other with emphasis,
according to our appetites, and had just lit tobacco when the
swing-doors of the _café_ clashed and the anarchist rushed in.

"I have ordered a carriage," he exclaimed. "Come at once; we must meet
it at the stable. There is no time to drive round here. We shall barely
catch them as it is."

"Ho, ho!" said Haigh placidly; "so you've hit off the trail, have you?
Pollensa and Soller, is it?"

"No, señor; your guess was a true one. They drove off to catch the
Palma train at La Puebla. But come at once, or I must go alone."

So we went off with him to the _establo_, climbed into a
sacking-floored shandrydan, and rattled boisterously through the narrow
streets of Alcudia. Once on the broad level road beyond the walls, the
driver, who had already received his orders, made the cattle stretch
out into a canter, and the pace was pretty smart. But it did not equal
Taltavull's impatience, and every minute or so out went his head and
beard bidding the driver to hasten and hasten; and the driver, crouched
there in his little penthouse, rumbled out fierce _arr-e-ees_, and
prodding forth a blue-sleeved arm beneath his blanket, lashed the
scraggy mules into a gallop.

"Good for any one with a torpid liver this," said Haigh.

"Señor," exclaimed the anarchist, "how can you have the face to speak
of trivialities at such a moment? Is it nothing to you what we have at
stake?"

"On the contrary, it is decidedly something. But I don't let that
confounded Recipe worry me unduly, as you appear to do. Cospatric, give
me a match--there's a good fellow."

The old man glowered on him sourly, and turned to urge the driver for
increased speed.

We flew past the brown vine-stumps, and the mule-gins above the wells,
and the many ducts and gutters which drain the marshes, our animals
steaming as they strained at the traces, and the driver jerking about
like some frenzied jumping-jack as he forced them on. The pace was
almost racing pace, and to be in a race always warms one's blood. I
began to share Taltavull's excitement. He was looking at his watch ever
and anon, at each time crying that we should have scarcely time to meet
the train. And yet it was evident that the mules could go no faster.

I cast about me for some means of increasing the pace, and I was not
long in hitting off an idea. It was not very brilliant, but I thought
it worth sharing, and so spoke,--

"Look here, Monsieur Taltavull: if we chuck some of the ballast
overboard, the mules will have less to drag, and we shall go faster.
The only thing is, have we enough money with us to afford it?"

"Explain, explain! I cannot understand your barbarous sentences."

"Why, we can smash off the lid and most of the sides of this ramshackle
Noah's ark till it's as light as a Kentucky trotting wagon. The only
thing is, we must pay the driver cash down, or he may object and stop,
and we shall lose time that way."

The anarchist unbuttoned his waistcoat, and, ripping away the lining,
brought out a sheaf of notes. "A man," said he, "who never knows one
minute whether he may not be arrested and have his pockets cleared the
next, should never be without these. Señor Briton, use your big
strength and tear away all that seems you good. I will satisfy the
driver."

"Hooray!" shouted Haigh. "If there's one thing I do love, it's
destruction. Cospatric, I'll bear a hand here. Now, then, heave with
those big shoulders of yours; tear and rip; splinter and smash; don't
spare; the thing's got no friends. Use your feet, old chappie, if you
want to; all's fair here. Faith, look at that worthy farmer toting up
his mule-cart load of seaweed for manure!" He broke off into a roar of
laughter, and hove a cushion right against the man's gaping mouth as we
tore past. "If he doesn't go home and report us to his wife and cronies
as stark staring maniacs, I'm a Scotsman. _Whoop_! work away, Don
Miguel. There's more joy over one brick hove through a windowpane than
in a whole house furnished on the hire system. Ain't we making a bally
wreck of it? Good business! Wrench away the back of this seat, and I'll
lug off the steps. _Arr-e-ee!_ Send those beasts along, Pedrillo.
Make 'em burn the ground."

The lust for destruction, when once thoroughly lit in an able-bodied
man, is not an easy flame to extinguish, and in consequence we went
ruthlessly on with the dismantlement of the carriage, till even
Taltavull, hardened destructor as he was himself, was fain to call upon
us to leave off.

"But don't you think," said Haigh, "that we might just snap the thing
in two amidships, and leave the hind wheels and all the back part
behind? It would ease the load by at least three hundred-weight, and I
think we could all perch on the foot-board in front. I'm sure the pole
would keep it right side up."

However, it was judged that quite enough was done already; and though
Haigh seemed inclined to argue, further freaks were put a stop to by
another incident turning up.

The pace had slackened.

Taltavull shrieked for the driver to quicken, and the driver used the
butt of his whip-stock with true Southern mercilessness.

"Why, that poor brute of a near mule has a stone in its shoe," Haigh
called out. "It's going dead lame."

"I know," said Taltavull. "It's a great nuisance, but it can't be
helped. The stone may be knocked out again."

"The stone won't be knocked out again. It's jammed firmly in, and gets
set tighter every time it touches ground. The mule's in awful pain."

"I can't help that."

"By God, I can though. Here, pull up."

"Señor Haigh, you must be mad."

"I may be that, but I'm hanged if I'll sit here and see that poor
miserable mule tortured. Here, Cospatric, stand by to grab this elderly
person if he interferes.--And now, Mr. _Cochero_, pull 'em up in
their tracks or I'll do it for you."

The driver did as he was bade willingly enough, and Haigh nipped down
and levered out the stone with his knife. I stayed where I was. I had
my arms full. To be accurate, they were wrapped round the third member
of our trio, who was wriggling like a demon, and foaming at the mouth
in his wrath.

But after all the halt was only a short one. "All clear," shouted
Haigh, thirty seconds after he had descended. "_Arr-e-ee_, and
away you go, my tulip. Not much time lost there, Señor Taltavull, after
all."

The anarchist favoured him with the most poisonous look of hatred that
I ever beheld, and spoke with shut teeth: "If we fail through this
halt, Señor Haigh, look to yourself."

"Thanks," replied Haigh, squinting at him coolly enough; "I'm quite
capable of doing that same, so think well before you play any pranks."

We didn't talk much after that, but squatted upon our ruin like three
bears, the mules meanwhile being sent along for all they were worth. It
would be hard for me to say how long we took over the passage, as I
didn't clock it, but I dare bet that we covered the ground in record
time for a four-wheeled conveyance.

Only once Haigh spoke. "If we miss this 7.55 train, when's the next?"
he asked.

"Five fifty-five in the afternoon," returned Taltavull gloomily.

"Surely there's a train out of La Puebla before. The service can't be
as fragmentary as all that."

"Yes, another train leaves there at 2.45 for the San Bordils Junction;
but it doesn't go through, and there is no connection on."

"And how far is it by road to Palma?"

The old man did not know, and so I mentioned that the fifty-five
kilometre post was by the quay at Alcudia Port.

"Oh, come," said Haigh, "that isn't so bad after all;" but what he
meant I did not understand, as he relapsed into silence again. But we
were pulling in the last knots very rapidly then, and presently we
passed the cemetery, and got into the wished-for La Puebla. We tore
through the place with the one casualty of a small black porker run
over and left squalling in the road, and pulled up before the station
in time to see the 7.55 train steam out along the metre-gauge track.

Taltavull rushed into the waiting-room, and tried to storm the
barricade, offering threats, money, anything to have the train stopped,
if only for three seconds, whilst he got on board. But the officials
were stolid and obdurate; they were unaccustomed to hurry and flurry,
and they refused to do anything to help him; and the old man came out
to us again, wringing his bony hands, and using language that was
plaintive and powerful alternately.

Meanwhile Haigh had shown unwonted activity. The populace of La Puebla,
roused by our furious passage through the town, had followed hot-foot
after us to stare at the ragged vehicle, and to throw ten score of
questions at the driver, who, from a casual acquaintance of most of
them, had sprung into a public character. So hurried had the summons
been that many of them--of both sexes, save the mark--had apparently
run out of doors in the apparel which served them under the bedclothes.
Through this crowd Haigh shouldered his way, with a leery grin which
seemed to win every heart (more especially the female ones), and went
over to a double-muled carriage that was drawn up in front of the
little _casa_ across the way. It was a private carriage, and the
coachman naturally did not own the animals; but Haigh flourished under
his nose three hundred-peseta notes, and before that mine of wealth the
man's honesty fell. With his own hands he started untracing his cattle.

Seeing what was in the wind, I stepped down and with ready help from
the crowd set free the jaded animals that had brought us so far; and
before our frock-coated companion had well emerged from the station
again, we had picked him up and were off once more as hard as we could
pelt. He was a goodish man at plotting and planning beforehand, that
same Taltavull; but when it came to brisk action, he wasn't always
prompt enough. A bit of a reverse seemed to daze him.

"It's money that makes the world go round," remarked Haigh after we had
got beyond the cheerful howls of the crowd, and our two fine mules had
settled down to a steady hand-gallop. "If you look, you'll just see the
tail end of the train swinging out of sight round that curve. If we
have any luck, and the engine yonder doesn't forget its dignity and
exceed the orthodox Spanish crawl, we should overhaul 'em before they
make the next station. Our present pace is distinctly good. It's a
clinking fine pair this I've requisitioned, and from the condition
they're in, it's plain to see they haven't been rattled along like this
for a longish time. I guess somebody'll be wrath when he sees the two
screws his coachy has swapped for them. However, the resultant ructions
are for _mañana_, and suffice it for the present we're having a
regal time. Come, cheer up, Monsieur Taltavull; you aren't half
enjoying yourself."

"It is terrible this uncertainty," groaned the old man, the words being
jolted out of him in gasps. "We do not know whether or no the wretches
are in that train after all. We may even be racing away from them.
Señores, you have been too precipitate."

"Precipitate?" rejoined Haigh; "not a bit of it, _amigo_. Both
'wretches,' as you are pleased to style them, are in a drab-lined
first-class compartment in the middle of the centre coach. I saw Madame
Cromwell looking at us through the window, and took off my hat to her.
She bowed, and mentioned our presence to M. l'Aveugle. So you see they
understand our game, and see that we have tumbled to theirs. Three
A.B.'s to a clever woman and a wily blind man. The latter combination
is slightly the weaker of the two, and therefore is allowed start
according to the ordinary handicap. Nothing could be fairer. I'm open
to back either side for a win in anything up to ten carats of
diamonds."

Bar accidents, it seemed to me certain that we must overtake the train;
but as we went along, the Book of our Fate read otherwise. Apparently
that was the only day in the record of the world when a Spanish train
had run true to time, and with anything approaching speed. There was
only one explanation for it: our rivals must have "got at" the
engine-driver. However, be that as it may, we hung very closely on to
their heels, and always viewed them when the course of the line was at
all straight.

Indeed, at the junction of the Manacor branch the train was still in
the station as we drove up outside at a furious gallop; but before we
could get in and past those infernally placid officials, she steamed
out again, and we had a desperate run along the platform for nothing.
At least, Taltavull and I did. Nothing could induce Haigh to pick up
his feet for anything quicker than a walk.

We lost ground over this excursion, as the old man was so infernally
blown with the sprint that he could scarcely totter back to the
carriage; and by the time we had got under way again, the tail of the
train was a good two kilometres ahead. But the mules were all the
better for the short breather, and entering gamely into the spirit of
the thing, stretched out into a long swinging lope that kept the chase
from gaining a single inch.

It was their frequent halts at the little wayside stations that helped
us on, and if we had only had the gumption to fly on past the junction
when we were level, we should have been able to board the train at the
next stop without hurry. However, we only discovered that afterwards,
and as the mistake once made could not be rectified, we held grimly on.

Hills bothered us a little at times, and the windings of the road added
to our handicap; but when at last we came down to the semicircular
plain on whose edge Palma stands, we thought we saw victory ahead.

"There's between eight and ten kilometres to do," said Haigh, "and as
it's all on the flat and straight, we should, with luck, be home first,
and waiting to meet them."

"Don't you be too cocksure," said I. "It isn't all over but the
shouting by a very long chalk. If you notice, there's been some rain
falling here, and down on the flat there's been a lot by the look of
it. I'm afraid that will mean heavy going for our wheels."

As we got down to the level this evil prophecy showed itself a true
one. There was gluey mud on the well-made track often three inches
deep, and though our driver flogged industriously, the tired mules were
seldom able to muster up anything better than a lumbering canter. We
had the train in sight all the time, and could see that we were
dropping astern at every stride. It was very mortifying.

But as the race neared its close Fortune again pulled a string in our
favour. A distant whistle screamed, and we saw the train gradually
bring up to a standstill alongside a signal-post. The respite was not
for long, for the barrier was soon withdrawn, and she steamed into the
station; but it had enabled us to see the pair we were chasing come
sharply out of the buildings, enter a carriage, and get driven away
through the gate into the city.

"What now?" demanded Haigh.

"On after them," exclaimed the anarchist.

"What! in this rattletrap?"

"Of course," said I.

"But everybody will stare."

"Oh, what the devil does that matter?"

"Why, for myself, I must say that in a fashionable place like this,
with a lot of girls about, I----Hullo! that settles it, though."

"What?"

"Look ahead, dear boy. There's a heavy cart just shed a wheel slap-bang
in the middle of the _puerto_. The way will be blocked for an hour
at least."

"Out we get then, and follow 'em to earth on foot. Thank goodness, the
streets are very crowded, so their carriage won't be able to get along
at more than a foot's pace."

Our pursuit was not very rapid. Haigh flatly refused to move at
anything beyond a smart walk, saying that he should collapse if he did.
I could have run them down if I had wished, but had no hankering for a
row in the public streets, and so stayed with my shipmate. And
Taltavull we kept with us whether he liked it or not. I do not think,
though, that he was very keen to race on alone. "They cannot get out of
the island, señores," said he, "as no steamer leaves to-day, and they
must understand by this that they cannot escape us. I suspect that they
will go to the Fonda de Mallorca, and await us there to treat for
terms."

So we wound our way down the narrow, busy streets (wherein every fifth
building was put to ecclesiastical uses), and finally landed out into
the head of the Calle de Conquistador, where another surprise awaited
us.

The hotel is in the middle of the hill, and as we arrived in sight of
it we saw our two birds, accompanied by a dark-complexioned chap (whom
I took to be Sadi, Pether's confidential valet), get out of the vehicle
which had brought them so far, into another smarter one, which drove
off at a rapid pace as soon as they were under the tilt.

Taltavull started wringing his hands. "What now? what now?" moaned he.

"The Lord knows," said I. "Where's the nearest hack-stand? Say, quick."

"At the bottom of the street."

"Well, here's a tram going down. Up you jump."

The three of us hung on the tail-board, and rode to the bottom of the
Calle de Conquistador, where we exchanged to the most likely-looking
vehicle we could see.

"You saw that carriage that just rushed by down towards the harbour?"

"_Sí, señor_," grinned the driver.

"Then after it like blue hades, and there's a hundred pesetas for you
when we're alongside."

"_Ah, señores, muchos grac----_"

"Drive, you scoundrel; don't talk."

Away we went again, clattering, jolting, rattling, till the teeth of us
were fairly loosened in their steps. Sharp to the right it was, past
the Longa, and on by the tram-lines alongside the old walls; then an
S-turn; and then a sweep round to the left; always with the
tram-lines beside our tires. We were heading out for the white suburb
which is beneath the Bellver Castle, and what harbourage the fugitives
could hope to find in that direction we couldn't for the life of us
imagine. But that was their affair. Our business--or the business we
made for ourselves--was to get within speaking range.

Up the hill we spun, and through the pretty suburb, with its
orange-trees, and its tattered palms, and its sprawling clumps of
prickly pears; and past Porto Pi, the silted-up Carthaginian harbour;
and then, leaving population and tram-lines behind, we opened out on to
the magnificent road that sweeps round the western horn of Palma Bay.
But always at a fixed distance in front of us hovered a billowing halo
of amber-coloured dust, which no frenzied strain on our part could
bring a metre nearer.

Once where the road wound in stately zigzags down the cliff of a slope,
our driver took the ditch and cut an angle, heading across the rough
ground which intervened; but the pace had to be lessened, and the
carriage was nearly wrenched to pieces, and the experiment was not
repeated. We had lost time by it.

And so the race continued, and the monotony of it dulled our interest
in surroundings.

We thought only of the conclusion. Where the actual winning-post could
be we had given up trying to conjecture. "It seems," Haigh remarked
once, "that those two fools have made up their minds to race round this
five-franc bit of an island for so long as we three fools choose to
chivy them. It's a mad set-out whichever side you take it from, and the
fun's evaporating. I don't know what you chaps are going to do, but the
next chance I see I'm going to get down for a drink. I'm parched within
an inch of dissolution."

How long this state of things went on I can't tell. I was bruised by
the bumping from hat to heel, and was much engaged in fending myself
against further abrasions. But at last a sharp cry from the driver
roused me to look out of one of the window-ports, and I saw that we had
opened out a small bay that was backed by a high rocky island of red
and yellow stone. One end of the island showed a curious profile of a
man's face, and I recognized it as Dragonera; but what the bay was
called I didn't remember, though I had a sort of dim recollection of an
anchorage for small craft there.

Anchorage it was sure enough too, for as we rose the inlet further, I
saw a small screw boat riding there to some sort of moorings and
lifting languidly to the swell. She was an ex-yacht, Cowes or Clyde
built for a wager, of the sort one sees in small Mediterranean ports
for the petty coasting traffic; a lean, slender craft of some eighty or
hundred tons register, with all her pristine smartness thoroughly
submerged in southern happy-go-lucky squalor. There was a faint gray
pencil of steam feathering away from her escape-pipe, and as we drew
nearer I saw she had hove short, and was ready to break her anchor out
of the ground at a moment's notice.

Another cry from the driver called off my attention. The carriage ahead
had stopped; its three passengers had descended, and hand in hand were
running over the rough ground towards the shore. A small dinghy was
waiting for them at the edge of the shingle. So there had been method
in their mad scurry after all.

Our driver cursed and _arr-e-e'd_ and forced his cattle into a
scrambling gallop, and we drew up with the deserted carriage, whose
mules were standing straddle-legged, and panting as though they were
going to burst. He pulled up there, but Haigh snatched hold of the
reins through the front window, and turning the animals off the road,
sent them with a yell into the palm scrub that fringed it. The poor
beasts took fright and sprang off at fresh gallop, the carriage leaping
and bumping after them like a tin kettle at a dog's tail, till at one
jolt stronger than the rest it lost balance, and fell over with a
splintering crash to its side.

We were all heaped over to leeward amongst a tidy heap of wreckage; but
we soon managed to scramble out, and saw the fugitives making rapid
going towards their boat.

"Now, Cospatric, ye wiry divil," shouted Haigh, "run for all you're
worth, and put Pether in your pocket."

Off I started, and measured my length twice in the first fifty yards.
The ground was awfully uneven, and the palmetto scrub so thick that one
could not see where to tread. The trio ahead were close upon their
boat, and it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I should be too
late. But a fresh crashing amongst the spiky shrubs behind made me turn
my head, and I saw the absurd figure of the old man charging down on a
mule that he had cut adrift. He passed me like a flash, his face
glowering like a fiend's, and he reached the shingle just as the dinghy
had got two boat-lengths away.

The passengers were encouraging the two sailors at the oars to every
exertion; but Taltavull pulled up as his mule's feet splashed in the
water, and whipping out a blue revolver covered the two rowers and
sharply bade them stop. They easied in the middle of a stroke, and
raised their oar-blades, glistening and dripping.

"And now, Señor Pether, I hold you covered. I am a dead shot, and if
you carry the Recipe a yard farther away you bring your fate upon your
own head. I, Taltavull, swear it."

I saw Mrs. Cromwell lean over and cover the blind man's body with her
own. Sadi also made a movement, apparently for the same purpose. But
Pether waved them both back. He slipped a hand into his breast-pocket,
and brought out the little mahogany case.

"Here it is, Señor Taltavull. You'll share the contents with your two
friends?"

"Yes," exclaimed the old man, stretching out his bony hands; "I have
promised."

"Then there you are, Señor Taltavull," said the other quietly. He
deliberately drew back the shutter, exposed the yellowy-green film to
the full sun-glare, and flung it from him with a sideways jerk.

It flew circling to the anarchist's feet; and for a moment we were all
so paralyzed with the action that no one spoke or moved. Sooner than
share or surrender, the man had deliberately destroyed the Recipe for
good and all.

The anarchist was first to act. Slowly I saw him raise his weapon, and
as if fascinated I could not move to interrupt him. With a leathery
grin of cruelty he had brought it to bear, and in another moment there
would have been murder done. But at that instant a flash of something
brown shot by, and Taltavull and his mount were bowled over amongst the
palmettos.

A cavalry reinforcement had arrived. Haigh had cut loose another of the
mules, and had deliberately ridden the old man down.

"It's an old polo trick," said he, with a pleased grin. "Useful when a
man persistently crosses you; quite simple when you know
it.--Good-afternoon, Mrs. Cromwell.--Afternoon, Juggins, dear boy. Let
me congratulate you on drawing this game. I thought we were going to
gather in the beans.--Eh, what's that?"

Taltavull was sitting up amongst the scrubs, and was shaking a
trembling fist at the boat and snarling out the word "iconoclast."

"'Iconoclast' indeed. Faith, that's the pot libelling the kettle most
unjustly.--I say, Cospatric, just take that melodramatic old fool's gun
away from him, and wring his neck if he won't behave himself.--My dear
Mrs. Cromwell, I must really apologize for our companion. I assure you
that nothing but stress of circumstances could have driven us into such
dubious society. Well, the fun's all over now, and I hope you and Mr.
Pether bear no ill-will. I'm sure Cospatric and I harbour no grudge."

Mrs. Cromwell gave an order, the boat backed in to the shingle, and we
found ourselves shaking hands with one another, as if we were dear
friends who had always worked for one another's welfare.

"Mentone and Paris will be our neighbourhoods for winter and summer,"
said Pether, "and you two men must contrive to beat us up somehow and
compare notes over this mutual score."

"Ladies are seldom averse to jewellery," said Haigh. "Will Mrs.
Cromwell deign to accept from Mr. Cospatric and myself this small
packet of diamonds, to be mounted as she sees fit?"

In fact, for the space of half an hour we were fulsomely civil to one
another; and then they bobbled off in the dinghy, and the yacht took
them I know not where; and we, after putting Taltavull in one of the
carriages, drove off ourselves to Palma in the other.

"Faith," said Haigh, "it's a different man I am this day from when I
saw you first in Genoa, old chappie. But after all this fresh air and
exercise I must really go on the rampage for a bit. Come now, Palma for
a few days, and then we'll hark back to the ugly cutter and go off
somewhere else. Where shall we go?"

"Note which way the wind blows, and start before it."

"Right," said Haigh. "There's nothing like having definite plans
beforehand."


THE END.




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