the confidence of the other. Nor was this all. A few bids
later it chanced that my eye encountered that of Captain Trent, and his,
which glittered with excitement, was instantly, and I thought guiltily,
withdrawn. He wished, then, to conceal his interest? As Jim had said,
there was some blamed thing going on. And for certain, here were these
two men, so strangely united, so strangely divided, both sharp-set to
keep the wreck from us, and that at an exorbitant figure.

Was the wreck worth more than we supposed? A sudden heat was kindled
in my brain; the bids were nearing Longhurst's limit of five thousand;
another minute, and all would be too late. Tearing a leaf from my
sketch-book, and inspired (I suppose) by vanity in my own powers of
inference and observation, I took the one mad decision of my life. "If
you care to go ahead," I wrote, "I'm in for all I'm worth."

Jim read and looked round at me like one bewildered; then his eyes
lightened, and turning again to the auctioneer, he bid, "Five thousand
one hundred dollars."

"And fifty," said monotonous Bellairs.

Presently Pinkerton scribbled, "What can it be?" and I answered, still
on paper: "I can't imagine; but there's something. Watch Bellairs; he'll
go up to the ten thousand, see if he don't."

And he did, and we followed. Long before this, word had gone abroad that
there was battle royal: we were surrounded by a crowd that looked on
wondering; and when Pinkerton had offered ten thousand dollars (the
outside value of the cargo, even were it safe in San Francisco Bay)
and Bellairs, smirking from ear to ear to be the centre of so much
attention, had jerked out his answering, "And fifty," wonder deepened to
excitement.

"Ten thousand one hundred," said Jim; and even as he spoke he made a
sudden gesture with his hand, his face changed, and I could see that he
had guessed, or thought that he had guessed, the mystery. As he
scrawled another memorandum in his note-book, his hand shook like a
telegraph-operator's.

"Chinese ship," ran the legend; and then, in big, tremulous half-text,
and with a flourish that overran the margin, "Opium!"

To be sure! thought I: this must be the secret. I knew that scarce a
ship came in from any Chinese port, but she carried somewhere, behind a
bulkhead, or in some cunning hollow of the beams, a nest of the valuable
poison. Doubtless there was some such treasure on the Flying Scud. How
much was it worth? We knew not, we were gambl