g to have an inkling of how it was all worked out.
If that chap photographed the inscription by magnesium flashlight, I
verily believe I know where the plates----But don't let me interrupt
yet. Finish the tale first."

And so Taltavull went on.

The uncanny sights which he had witnessed impressed the Cavalleria
fisherman mightily, and when he received a valuable banknote, he helped
fill up the hole and departed, fully determined to hold his tongue. The
man with the spectacles said that evil would assuredly befall if he
spoke of the things he had seen, and that fisherman believed him
implicitly.

The two raiders walked rapidly down the narrow lanes till they came
upon the broad road at that point where it is interrupted by a hedge of
wheelbarrows and gang planks. Coming down the other branch road
opposite to them was the zinc-roofed diligence, which had left
Ciudadella in chill darkness at a quarter to five. At their sign the
driver brought the ramshackle conveyance to a stand, and they squeezed
into the stuffy interior. Then with an _arre-e-ee_, and an
impartial basting with the short whip, the four wretched horses got
into their shamble again, and forty minutes later were climbing in and
out of the clean dry holes in Calle Isabella 2^a at Mahon. They only
had one hitch in their enterprise. During one of these bumps in the
uneven street the door flew open, and the camera fell out on the cobble
stones with a thud and a sound of splintering glass.

"And I thought that man a Juggins," said Haigh, "and imagined I was
blarneying and greening him _ad libitum_, whilst all the time he
was bamboozling me--me--me, gentlemen. But, Senor Taltavull, are you
perfectly certain the fellow is blind? I think you must be mistaken
there."

"He is stone-blind; but, as I told you, he is marvellously clever at
concealing it. You are by no means alone in being deceived."

"But, _amigo_, he looked at me when we were talking, and pointed
out things about the room, and, in fact, used his eyes the whole time.
Brown eyes they were, and good to look upon."

"I tell you he is very, very clever, and as his great conceit is to
hide his infirmity, he uses all his wit to do it. Sadi, his servant,
had helped him to explore the room beforehand, so that he knew exactly
where everything lay. And the sound of your voice would tell him where
to direct his gaze during a conversation. But call to mind anything
where immediate vision was necessary. Did y