inst her husband. He knew that the three
negroes he had met in Paris in the service of Mrs. Horn had once been
his own slaves, held not by any right of law, but by brutal force, and
he knew that the people with whom they were then travelling must have
been in some way connected with his old comrades, the Rackbirds. He had
made bold attempts to turn this scanty knowledge to his own benefit, but
had mournfully failed.

In the course of time, however, he had come to know everything. The news
of Captain Horn's great discovery of treasure on the coast of Peru had
gone forth to the public, and Banker's soul had writhed in disappointed
rage as he thought that he and his fellows had lived and rioted like
fools for months, and months, and months, but a short distance from all
these vast hoards of gold. This knowledge almost maddened him as he
brooded over it by night and by day. When he had been set free from the
French prison to which his knavery had consigned him, Banker gave
himself up body and soul to the consideration of the treasure which
Captain Horn had brought to France from Peru. He considered it from
every possible point of view, and when at last he heard of the final
disposition which it had been determined to make of the gold, he
considered it from the point of his own cupidity and innate rascality.

He it was who devised the plan of sending out a swift steamer to
overhaul the merchantman which was to carry the gold to Peru, and who,
after consultation with the many miscreants whom he was obliged to take
into his confidence and to depend upon for assistance, decided that it
would be well to fit out two ships, so that if one should fail in her
errand, the other might succeed. The steamers from Genoa and Toulon were
fitted out and manned under the direction of Banker, but with the one
which sailed from Marseilles he had nothing to do. This expedition was
organized by men who had quarrelled with him and his associates, and it
was through the dissension of the opposing parties in this intended
piracy that the detectives came to know of it.

Banker had sailed from Genoa, but the Toulon vessel had got ahead of
him. It had sighted the _Dunkery Beacon_ before she reached Kingston; it
had cruised in the Caribbean Sea until she came sailing down towards
Tobago Island; it had followed her out into the Atlantic, and when the
proper time came it had taken her--hull, engine, gold, and everything
which belonged to her, except he