o low that
you could not hear what they planned.

They lost three pawns almost straight off, then a knight, and shortly
after a bishop; they were playing in fact the famous Three Sailors'
Gambit.

Stavlokratz was playing with the easy confidence that they say was
usual with him, when suddenly at about the thirteenth move I saw him
look surprised; he leaned forward and looked at the board and then at
the sailors, but he learned nothing from their vacant faces; he looked
back at the board again.

He moved more deliberately after that; the sailors lost two more
pawns, Stavlokratz had lost nothing as yet. He looked at me I thought
almost irritably, as though something would happen that he wished I
was not there to see. I believed at first that he had qualms about
taking the sailors' pound, until it dawned on me that he might lose
the game; I saw that possibility in his face, not on the board, for
the game had become almost incomprehensible to me. I cannot describe
my astonishment. And a few moves later Stavlokratz resigned.

The sailors showed no more elation than if they had won some game with
greasy cards, playing amongst themselves.

Stavlokratz asked them where they got their opening. "We kind of
thought of it," said one. "It just come into our heads like," said
another. He asked them questions about the ports they had touched at.
He evidently thought as I did myself that they had learned their
extraordinary gambit, perhaps in some old dependancy of Spain, from
some young master of chess whose fame had not reached Europe. He was
very eager to find out who this man could be, for neither of us
imagined that those sailors had invented it, nor would anyone who had
seen them. But he got no information from the sailors.

Stavlokratz could very ill afford the loss of a pound. He offered to
play them again for the same stakes. The sailors began to set up the
white pieces. Stavlokratz pointed out that it was his turn for the
first move. The sailors agreed but continued to set up the white
pieces and sat with the white before them waiting for him to move. It
was a trivial incident, but it revealed to Stavlokratz and myself that
none of these sailors was aware that white always moves first.

Stavlokratz played them on his own opening, reasoning of course that
as they had never heard of Stavlokratz they would not know of his
opening; and with probably a very good hope of getting back his pound
he played the fifth variation