ould pay me for it all.

"I laughed at him, at first, not thinking what he meant, until, just
before he was to go to the boat, he clasped my hand in both his,
and said, 'Senor, I have no children to leave the "anting anting"
of my family to. When I die, it shall be yours.'

"I would have laughed again, then, had it not been that the poor old
fellow was so much in earnest that it would have been cruel. As it
was, I thanked him, and told him I hoped he would live many years to
be the guardian of the stone, and to be guarded by it himself.

"After Perico had gone, I forgot all about him. Imagine my surprise,
then, when a little more than a year afterward, I received a small
packet from a man whom I knew in Calupan, the seaport of Mindoro,
and a letter, telling me that my old guide was dead, and that during
the illness which had preceded his death he had arranged to have the
packet which came with the letter sent to me.

"The package and letter reached me one morning. Of course I knew what
Perico had sent me, and, foolish as it may seem, a bit of tenderness
for the old man's genuine faith in his talisman made me, mindful of
his admonition that the stone must not be exposed to the light of day,
restrain my curiosity to open the package until I was in my rooms
that night. What I found, when at last I held the mysterious charm
in my hands, was a smooth, dark, flint-like disc, about an inch and
a half in diameter, and perhaps half an inch in thickness.

"Whatever the stone might have done for its former owners, or might
do for me at some other time, it certainly had no errand to perform
that night. It was just a plain, dark stone, and no matter how long
I looked at it, or in what position, it did not change its appearance.

"Finally, half provoked with myself at my thoughts, I put the stone
into a little cabinet in which were other curious souvenirs of my
travels in the islands, and forgot it.

"Two years after that it became necessary for me to go to Europe. I
had taken passage on one of the regular steamers from Manila to Hong
Kong, and was to reship from there. As I expected to return in a few
months, I did not give up my lodgings, but before I started I packed
away much of my stuff for safe keeping. As I was busy at the office
during the day, I did the most of this packing in the evenings. In
the course of this work I came to the little cabinet of which I have
spoken, and threw it open in order to stuff it with cotto