"Where?"

"Below the beach. Your frien' showed the place; and, sure enough, there
we dived and foun' it. But him--Oh, _la la_!" He chuckled. "Him and
her, what do they care? They 'ave gone off together by their lones to
see the sunrise--those dears!"

"Who was she?" I cried, starting up dizzily.

"What? You not know that divine _ballerina_, that dancer so sublime,
that singer so sweet?" He kissed his finger tips. "Anna Darfetho, of
Lisbon, and Paris, and Madrid! Only now--good-by! It is finish'! She are
going with him to Australia. Imagine! And what for, do you think? To
spend their share--'Oly Virgin!--in raising little woolly sheeps
together!"

"Share?"

"Oh, we all share--that is agree'. Only me--you understand, I am--'ow
you say?--the tiger for eat the mos'. Yes, I get the mos', because truly
it should belong all mine.... Be'old--for this our fazers used to cut
the throat!"

He took up from the table one of several blackish, common-looking lumps,
like slag, and weighed it; and smiled his smile of the gentlemanly
brigand who gloats upon the fortune won. And as I stared at that
superior knave the whole stupendous marvel closed up with a final click.

Pilot? Pilot? I remembered the quaint phrase of the chronicle: "Great
fighting pilot of Spain"--pilot? Pirate, rather. Pirate, of course!...

"Then you must be Pedro Morales?" I gasped.

"Ah, you know my name?" he twinkled pleasantly. "What a coincident!"

But I had had enough--enough of coincidence, of romance and adventure
and authentic thrill to last me for some time, and rather more than I
had bargained for with my ten pounds. I groped my way out into the open
and the brisk morning breeze; and there, looking down to seaward through
an alley in the cane, I saw the new sun come up, as round and broad and
ruddy as--as a Portuguese doubloon.

THE PRACTICING OF CHRISTOPHER

Sutton was startling enough, and brisk, and eager--too eager. For five
minutes after he broke in upon us he held us paralyzed with the story of
his adventure through the back slums of Colootullah and the amazing
discovery he had made there. And yet the gross fact glanced from us
altogether, perhaps through his very vehemence, perhaps because of a
certain obscure unsteadiness in the fellow....

"That's where the chief went to hide himself!" he cried, and we heard
the words, but rather we were listening to the tone and watching Sutton;
he convinced us of nothing.

He stood before