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, senora," observed one of the men beside her. "It is not every foreigner who takes to it like your countryman vis-a-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, senor, 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, senor, 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 manana 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 fe, 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 manana, 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 manana. 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: "VITAE IN INTROITV AEDIS SANCTAE 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 Senora 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 cafe 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 A 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, 'Manana.' 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 cafe 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, senor; 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.

"Senor," 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. Senor 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."

"Senor 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, Senor 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, Senor 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 manana, 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. Senores, 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, senores," 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?"

"Si, senor," grinned the driver.

"Then after it like blue hades, and there's a hundred pesetas for you when we're alongside."

"Ah, senores, 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, Senor 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, Senor 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, Senor 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.



NELSON'S LIBRARY

A Selection of the best Fiction by the most popular writers of the day, COPYRIGHT, and issued in handsome cloth binding, library style, at a popular price.

NOW READY.

White Fang JACK LONDON. The Octopus FRANK NORRIS. The Pit (May 20) " Sir John Constantine "Q." The Princess Passes C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON.

"Good print, strong binding, and a general handsomeness of appearance render them marvels of cheapness, quite apart from the value which their high literary character adds to them."—PRESS OPINION.



NELSON'S LIBRARY

A Lame Dog's Diary S. MACNAUGHTAN. The Fortune of Christina M'Nab. S. MACNAUGHTAN. The Man from America Mrs. H. de la PASTURE. The Battle of the Strong Sir GILBERT PARKER. The Translation of a Savage. Sir GILBERT PARKER. The Lady of the Barge W. W. JACOBS. The Odd Women GEORGE GISSING. The Intrusions of Peggy ANTHONY HOPE. Quisante " The King's Mirror " The God in the Car " The Marriage of William Ashe Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD. David Grieve " Robert Elsmere "

"We have been accustomed of late years to numerous cheap reprints, but one and all fall very short of the Nelson Library in daintiness, in ease to handle, in pleasantness to read."—PRESS OPINION.



NELSON'S LIBRARY

Incomparable Bellairs A. and E. CASTLE. If Youth but Knew " His Grace W. E. MORRIS. Matthew Austin " No. 5 John Street RICHARD WHITEING. John Charity H. A. VACHELL. Clementina A. E. W. MASON. The American Prisoner EDEN PHILLPOTTS. The Hosts of the Lord Mrs. F. A. STEEL.

UNIFORM IN STYLE AND PRICE WITH THIS VOLUME.

ISSUED AT FORTNIGHTLY INTERVALS.

TO most people 6/- is a prohibitive price for a novel. They have either to read it from a circulating library, which does not give them possession of the book, or they purchase a sixpenny paper-covered edition, which makes possession a doubtful delight. Nelson's Library enables readers to form a permanent and handsome collection of the best fiction of the day at a price practically the same as the paper-covered novel. A first-class work of fiction by a notable writer, well printed, and handsomely bound in red cloth, gilt back, is much better value than either a magazine or paper-covered novel, which, once read, is usually only an encumbrance.

THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York.



Nelson's New Century Library.

NELSON'S INDIA PAPER SHAKESPEARE

(New Century Library).

Six Exquisite Volumes. Coloured Frontispieces. Specially Clear Type.

In this, Messrs. Nelson claim to have produced the ideal edition of the works of the great dramatist.

Of its distinctive features, the most noticeable is the compactness secured by the use of India Paper—a compactness not gained at the cost of using small and eye-trying type. On the contrary, the use of India Paper admits of the use of a bold-faced and beautifully clear letter, of precisely the same character and size as shown in this paragraph. Students of Shakespeare who like to carry a copy about with them will specially value and appreciate this feature.

The whole of the plays and poems are included in only six volumes of ideally handy and convenient size, neither too large for the pocket nor too small for the shelf. Each volume contains an artistic coloured frontispiece and a decorative title-page. The binding is specially neat and tasteful, and there is a choice of three distinct styles of cloth and leather bindings, at from 2/- each volume net.

The extreme neatness and tastefulness of this set makes it one of the most exquisite and acceptable gifts that can be made. It is the edition that a student or lover of Shakespeare would choose for himself.

Prices, 2/-, 2/6, and 3/-each volume. Also in Sets in Cloth and Leather Cabinets; prices on application to the Booksellers.

THE END