rned the captain. "Yes, I
remember your telling me about him. Saved your life, I think you said,
when one of the beggars was going to knife you."

"That's the one," confirmed Grimshaw. "He was shipwrecked later off
the Horn. He left his box here with me to take care of for him."

"Seems to be pretty well broken up."

"The porter dropped it coming downstairs," explained Drew.

"You had it brought in here to save room, I suppose," said the captain.
"I noticed that you were all cluttered up outside."

"Why, it wasn't that exactly," replied Tyke, slightly embarrassed.
"You see, Allen an' I were rummaging around in the top loft the other
day, an' among other things our eyes fell on this box. That started me
off yarning about the tight places Manuel an' I had been in together,
an' how he'd hinted that some day he'd be rich. Then I told Allen of
how Manuel said, when he left his box with me, that there was something
in it worth more'n diamonds an' then----

"Yes, I can guess the rest," said Captain Hamilton, with a quiet smile.
"And then you both got a hankering to see what was in the box."

"Allen did," admitted Tyke, "'an' I ain't denying that my fingers
itched a little too. But I put it off until we had got moved into our
new place. Now, didn't I, Allen?" he demanded virtuously.

Drew assented smilingly.

"Why didn't you wait then?" gibed the captain.

"We would have," affirmed Grimshaw eagerly, conscious that here at last
he was on firm ground, "but that black rascal, Sam, the porter, dropped
the box on his way downstairs an' it split wide open, as you see. If I
was superstitious----" here he glared challengingly at both of his
listeners, who by an effort kept their faces grave, "I'd sure think it
was meant that we should look into it right away. What do you say,
Cap'n Rufe?"

"I agree with you," replied the captain. "The man is dead, and the box
is yours by right of storage if nothing else. This Manuel didn't have
wife or children that you know of, did he?"

"Nary one," responded Grimshaw. "When he'd been drinking too much he
used to cry sometimes an' say that he hadn't a relative in the world to
care whether he lived or died."

"That being the case, heave ahead," advised the captain. "You don't
owe anything to the living or the dead to keep you from finding out all
you want to know."

Reinforced by this opinion, the old man again lifted the coat from the
top of the box.

What lay beneath