from my friends to take the interurban for San
Pedro at the big electric station. Before my car reached the port, dusk
was falling.

Whistling as I went, I walked briskly down the hill toward the wharf. As
I passed an alley my name was called. I stopped in my stride and turned.
Then a jagged bolt of fire seared my brain. My knees sagged. I groped in
the darkness, staggering as I moved. About that time I must have lost
consciousness.

When I came to myself I was lying in the alley and a man was going
through my clothes. A second man directed him from behind a revolver
leveled at my head. Both of them were masked.

"I tell you it ain't on him," the first man was saying.

"We want to make dead sure of that, mate," the other answered.

"If he's got it the damned thing is sewed beneath his skin," retorted
the first speaker.

"He's coming to. We'll take his papers and his pocketbook and set sail,"
the leader decided.

I could hear their retreating footsteps echo down the alley and was
quite sensible of the situation without being able to rise, or even cry
out. For five minutes perhaps I lay there before I was sufficiently
master of myself to get up. This I did very uncertainly, a little at a
time, for my head was still spinning like a top. Putting my hand to the
back of it I was surprised to discover that my palm was red with blood.

As I staggered down to the wharf I dare say the few people who met me
concluded I was a drunken sailor. The _Argos_ was lying at the opposite
side of the slip, but two of our men were waiting for me with a boat.
One of them was the boatswain Caine, the other a deckhand by the name of
Johnson.

"Split me, but Mr. Sedgwick has been hurt. What is it, sir? Did you
fall?" the boatswain asked.

"Waylaid and knocked in the head," I answered, sinking down into the
stern on account of a sudden attack of dizziness.

Caine was tying up my head with a handkerchief when the mists cleared
again from my brain.

"All right, sir. A nasty crack, but you'll be better soon. I've sent
Johnson up to have a lookout for the guys that done it," the boatswain
told me cheerily.

"No use. They've gone to cover long since. Call him back and let's get
across to the ship."

"Yes, sir. That will be better."

He called, and presently Johnson came back.

"Seen anything of the scoundrels, Johnson?" demanded Caine.

"Not a thing."

I had been readjusting the handkerchief, but I happened to look up
unexpecte