refore?"

There was something so tremendous in Hornigold's interest that in spite
of himself the young man felt compelled to answer.

"It was his pleasure."

"Had you not a name of your own?"

"None that I know of."

"What mean you?"

"I was found, a baby, outside the walls of Panama in a little village.
The Viceroy adopted me and brought me up. That is all."

"When was this?" asked Hornigold.

"After the sack of Panama. And the name of the village was----"

"Cuchillo----" interrupted Hornigold triumphantly.

"My God, senor, how know you that?"

"I was there."

"You were there?" cried the young man.

"Ay."

"For love of heaven, can you tell me who I am, what I am?"

"In good time, young sir, and for a price. At present I know but one
thing."

"That is----"

"There lies your mother," answered the buccaneer slowly, pointing to the
white figure on the sand.

"My mother! Madre de Dios!" cried Alvarado, stepping forward and looking
down upon the upturned face with its closely cut white hair, showing
beautiful in the moonlight. "God rest her soul, she hath a lovely face
and died in defence of her honor like the gentlewoman she should be. My
mother--how know you this?"

"In the sack of Panama a woman gave me a male child, and for money I
agreed to take it and leave it in a safe and secluded spot outside the
city walls. I carried it at the hazard of my life as far as Cuchillo and
there left it."

"But how know you that the child you left is I?"

"Around the baby's neck the mother, ere she gave him to me, placed this
curious cross you wear. 'Tis of such cunning workmanship that there is
naught like it under the sun that ever I have seen. I knew it even in
the faint light when my eyes fell upon it. I left the child with a
peasant woman to take him where I had been directed. I believed him
safe. On leaving Panama that village lay in our backward path. We burned
it down. I saw the baby again. Because I had been well paid I saved him
from instant death at the hands of the buccaneers, who would have tossed
him in the air on the point of their spears. I shoved the crucifix,
which would have tempted them because it was silver, underneath the
dress and left the child. He was alive when we departed."

"And the day after," cried Alvarado, "de Lara's troops came through that
village and found me still wearing that cross. My mother! Loving God,
can it be? But my father----"

"What shall I have if I tell you?"