"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 debris 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 caffe 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 archaeological 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 caffe 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 Ivica, 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 outre 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, senor," 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.

"Senor 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 caffe. 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 caffe 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 senores. 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 Caesar!" 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, Senor 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. Senores, 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 Eugene 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 cafe—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. "Senor 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. Senor 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-a-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 SENORES,—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 cafe 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. Senores, you have been most solicitous after my humble welfare. Senores, 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 Senora 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 canyon, and over the high mountain track, and down that cleverly-built pass-road to the lovely valley of Soller.

"Do you know Soller, senores—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? Senores, 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 Hyeres, 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, senores, your infinite superior,

"L'AVEUGLE."

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

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

"Beautiful!"

"Have you read those burning gibes?"

"The humour of the thing's transcendental."

"Senor 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, senor."

"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 Hyeres 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 Senor 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 caffe.

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.