ily.

"And I don't want to make no more bugbears now," continued Tom; "but I'm
sure as if some one told me, or as if I saw it all myself, that your
uncle has been dropped on, and they've got him and the gold too this
time, Mas'r Harry."

"Absurd, Tom! Why, he had not half-a-dozen yards to go."

"Then they was half-a-dozen yards too many," said Tom sullenly. "We
didn't ought to have left him, Mas'r Harry."

"But you don't for a moment think--"

"No, Mas'r Harry, I don't; but I feel quite sure as they've burked him,
and got him away with them bars of gold. You see if they haven't now!"

It seemed so improbable that I was disposed to laugh; but I felt the
next instant that it could be no laughing matter, and with a feeling of
anxiety at my heart that would not be driven away, I turned to enter the
house just as there was a noise and confusion in the yard, and, to my
surprise, old Senor Xeres, the notary and banker, was assisted into the
hacienda, closely followed by his attendant, both bleeding freely.

Tom looked meaningly at me, and the next minute we were helping to bear
the old Spaniard to a couch, when, his wounds being roughly bound up,
and a stimulant given, he told us in tolerable English that about three
miles from the hacienda, while on his way to the nearest town, he had
been set upon suddenly, and in spite of the resistance offered by
himself and servant, they had been roughly treated, and the gold
intrusted to him by Pablo Garcia had been taken away.

Again Tom gave me a meaning look, and I wondered whether the thoughts
which suggested those looks could be correct.

"Was Senor Garcia with you?" I said at last.

"No," said the notary; "he left us within ten minutes of our quitting
this house, or he might have helped us to beat the scoundrels off. Only
think, senor--two hundred and five ounces of pure gold!"

"For which you are answerable?" I said, inquiringly.

"No, no," said the notary. "I would not take it to be answerable, only
at the Senor Don Garcia's risk."

"But why does not your uncle come back, Harry?" said my aunt uneasily.
"He would not be out of the way now unless there was something very
particular to keep him."

"We'll go and have another look, Aunt," I said. "We may find him
somewhere in the plantation."

Signing to Tom to follow, I walked out to stand beneath the verandah
till Tom joined me.

"They've got it all back again, Mas'r Harry, safe," said Tom gloomily,
as so