ld what
recent battering it had suffered on the rocks. On the reverse I made out
a coat of arms, almost obliterated; but the obverse was clearer. It bore
a profile head, with the titles of Fernando I, King of Portugal, and
under that--the date.

"Thirteen-seventy," I read; and repeated aloud with a gasp:
"Thirteen-seventy! Why--that's the very year!"

He nodded slowly.

"Do you realize what this means?" I cried at him. "In the same year this
piece was minted a man of your own name set sail from England and was
lost on these shores!... It might easily have come with him--the ship
was Spanish. It probably did come with him! He may have owned this gold;
he may have held it, clinked it, gambled with it! And now to be flung up
out of the wreck, more than five hundred years afterward, not for the
first comer to find, not for just anybody, but for you--at your feet! Do
you get that?"

"It figures out to fifteen generations, doesn't it?" was all the answer
he made.

"And the place--the place! The book says they still call it Machico. Was
it there--is it possible it was there you found the coin?"

"Within a stone's throw of the village itself."

I could only stare at him.

"Coincidence--what?" said Robert Matcham grimly.

He folded up the little book and put it away without haste, and pressed
his hand over his eyes again; and suddenly the simplicity and passion of
that action hit me like a blow. The man was seething. Within the stolid
bulk of him lay pent a pit of emotion. He could not vent it; as he said
himself, he had no skill. But I saw how each casual word had come molten
from its source and how immeasurably that very lack of art had added to
its stark sincerity.

I sat back with a long sigh.

"Go on telling in your own fashion, please," I begged.

"There's little left to tell. I was rather muddled at first--I don't
know that I'm much better now. But, all the same, it was stupid of me to
flash the doubloon when I got back to Funchal. I didn't even know what
the thing was, you see; and so I asked the first shopkeeper with an
English sign at his door. You should have seen the rascal's eyes
bulge....

"It's clear enough I touched off a regular blessed conspiracy with that
coin. What it means you can guess as well as I. I've had a pack of penny
detectives on my trail ever since--the maestro here was dogging me all
last night. I squeezed all I could out of one lad--how their head devil
is called Number One. And