unexpected incursion into the realms of sentiment when he
considers that my sudden attack was not, like most such sudden attacks,
an interruption in the robuster course of events, but, instead,
curiously in the direct line of my purpose. Because the eyes of an
unknown girl had thus suddenly enthralled me, I was not, therefore, to
lose sight of that purpose.

On the contrary, they had suddenly shone out on the pathway along which
I had been blindly groping. But for the accident of being in the dirty
little store at so psychological a moment, hearing that strangely
familiar voice and catching sight of that mysterious doubloon as well as
those mysterious eyes, I should have set sail that very night, and given
up John P. Tobias's second treasure in final disgust. As it was, I was
now warmly on the track of some treasure--whether his or not--with two
bright eyes further to point the way. Never surely did a man's love and
his purpose make so practical a conjunction.

When I reached my lodging at last in the early morning following that
night of wonders, my eyes and heart were not so dazed with that vision
in the cave that I did not vividly recall one important detail of the
strange picture--those streams of gold that had suddenly poured out of
the mouth and hands of the lovely apparition.

Need I say that over and over again the picture kept coming before
me?--haunting me like that princess from my childhood's fairy-book, from
whose mouth, as she spoke, poured all manner of precious stones. We all
remember that--and had I not seen the very thing itself with my own
grown-up eyes? No wonder it all seemed like a dream, when, late next
forenoon, I woke from a deep sleep that had been long in overtaking me.
Yet, there immediately in my mind's eye, without any shadow of doubt,
was the beautiful picture once more, vivid and exact in every detail.
Without doubting the evidence of my senses, I was forced to believe
that, by the oddest piece of luck, I had stumbled upon the hiding-place
of that hoard of doubloons, on which my fair unknown drew from time to
time as she would out of a bank.

But who was she?--and where was her home? There had seemed no sign of
habitation near the wild place where I had come upon her, though, of
course, a solitary house might easily have escaped my notice hidden
among all that foliage, particularly at nightfall.

To be sure, I had but to enquire of the storekeeper to learn all I
wanted; but I was av