n Queen of France.
Her personal property would be stamped with the Royal arms. What you
took to be three spear-heads were really the lilies of France."

"And the inscription?"

"'Sanc. X. Pal.' You can expand it into Sanctae Crucis Palatium. Some
one has made a note upon the mirror as to whence it came. It was the
Palace of the Holy Cross."

"Holyrood!" I cried.

"Exactly. Your mirror came from Holyrood. You have had one very singular
experience, and have escaped. I trust that you will never put yourself
into the way of having such another."

THE BLIGHTING OF SHARKEY

Sharkey, the abominable Sharkey, was out again. After two years of the
Coromandel coast, his black barque of death, _The Happy Delivery_, was
prowling off the Spanish Main, while trader and fisher flew for dear
life at the menace of that patched fore-topsail, rising slowly over the
violet rim of the tropical sea.

As the birds cower when the shadow of the hawk falls athwart the field,
or as the jungle folk crouch and shiver when the coughing cry of the
tiger is heard in the night-time, so through all the busy world of
ships, from the whalers of Nantucket to the tobacco ships of Charleston,
and from the Spanish supply ships of Cadiz to the sugar merchants of the
Main, there spread the rumour of the black curse of the ocean.

Some hugged the shore, ready to make for the nearest port, while others
struck far out beyond the known lines of commerce, but none were
so stout-hearted that they did not breathe more freely when their
passengers and cargoes were safe under the guns of some mothering fort.

Through all the islands there ran tales of charred derelicts at sea,
of sudden glares seen afar in the night-time, and of withered bodies
stretched upon the sand of waterless Bahama Keys. All the old signs were
there to show that Sharkey was at his bloody game once more.

These fair waters and yellow-rimmed, palm-nodding islands are
the traditional home of the sea rover. First it was the gentleman
adventurer, the man of family and honour, who fought as a patriot,
though he was ready to take his payment in Spanish plunder.

Then, within a century, his debonnaire figure had passed to make room
for the buccaneers, robbers pure and simple, yet with some organized
code of their own, commanded by notable chieftains, and taking in hand
great concerted enterprises.

They, too, passed with their fleets and their sacking of cities, to make
room for the