ard entered a room which surprised him, so greatly
did its size and the wide outlook from its windows contrast with the
dinginess of its approach. A thin man with the face of a French abbe sat
indolently twiddling his thumbs by the side of a big bureau.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Mr. Hillyard?"

"Yes."

Commodore Graham nodded to the girl, and Hillyard heard the door close
behind him.

"Won't you sit down? There are cigarettes beside you. A match? Here is
one. I hope that I didn't bring you home before your time."

"The season had ended," replied Hillyard, who was in no mood to commit
himself. "In what way can I help you?"

"Bendish tells me that you know something of Spain."

"Spain?" cried Hillyard in surprise. "Spain means Madrid, Bilbao, and a
host of places, and a host of people, politicians, merchants, farmers.
What should I know of them?"

"You were in Spain for some years."

"Three," replied Hillyard, "and for most of the three years picking up a
living along the quays. Oh, it's not so difficult in Spain, especially
in summer time. Looking after a felucca while the crew drank in a cafe,
holding on to a dinghy from a yacht and helping the ladies to step out,
a little fishing here, smuggling a box of cigars past the customs
officer there--oh, it wasn't so difficult. You can sleep out in comfort.
I used to enjoy it. There was a coil of rope on the quay at Tarragona;
it made a fine bed. Lord, I can feel it now, all round me as I curled up
in it, and the stars overhead, seen out of a barrel, so to speak!"

Hillyard's face changed. He had the spark of the true wanderer within
him. Even recollections of days long gone could blow it into clear, red
flame. All the long glowing days on the hot stones of the water-side,
the glitter of the Mediterranean purple-blue under the sun, the coming
of night and the sudden twinkling of lights in the cave-dwellings above
Almeria and across the bay from Aguilas, the plunge into the warm sea at
midnight, the glorious evenings at water-side cafes when he had half a
dozen coppers in his pocket; the good nature of the people! All these
recollections swept back on him in a rush. The actual hardships, the
hunger, the biting winds of January under a steel-cold sky, these things
were all forgotten. He remembered the freedom.

"There weren't any hours to the day," he cried, and spoke the creed of
all the wanderers in the world. "I saw the finest bull-fights in the
world, and mad