atever. When one has got things all
his own way one can afford to be lenient. The man had been already very
severely wounded, and his power for doing harm was at an end. At any rate,
I am very glad now that I did not kill him. And you must remember that I
owed him something for his work upon the cutter, from which he was not now
to profit, but which was to afford me the means of returning here and
bringing back the treasure from which we shall all obtain some benefit."

"That is all true, Don Estevan; but the real reason of all was that you
pitied the poor wretch, and so were ready to run a great risk to succour
him. We might not have acted as you did, but at least we shall all love
you the better for it. As to the prize-money, it is ridiculous that our
share of it should be as large as yours, and I hope the government will
see that, under the circumstances, you have a right to a handsome slice of
it, for indeed, after the wreck of the vessel, it seems to me that their
claim to it was fairly lost."

"I cannot see that. It was never out of my possession."

"I don't know," the other laughed. "They were two to one against you, and
probably held the opinion that they had as much right to its possession as
you."

"If they had been Spaniards it might have been so," Stephen agreed; "but
you see the treasure had never been theirs, and from the moment that the
ship surrendered they had nothing whatever to do with it."

"Nothing except to take possession of it, and I grant that the temptation
to do so must have been strong."

"I felt that," Stephen replied; "but until the vessel was completed and
victualled and a means of escape open, the gold was absolutely useless,
and therefore the question as to its possession would not really arise
until we neared land. I did think it probable that the two Peruvians might
then put in a claim to at least one of the boxes of money each; and I had
made up my mind that if they would content themselves with this, I should
be willing for them to land somewhere along the coast with it, rather than
run the risk of a fight, especially as I could not possibly have kept
awake night and day, and they must therefore have had me in their power. I
am sure that the captain meant honestly, and under the circumstances his
claim to a portion of the money, that he and his companion had done as
much as I had to save, would not have been an unfair one."

"It would have been terrible had the natives arrived