ed to her, and I looked up into her face. Her eyes were fixed
inquiringly on Dr. Beauregard, and he, happening also to look up, met
them with a smile.

"You will see in a moment," he said, as if answering her thought,
and, reaching forward, he laid two fingers on Glass's pulse.
"Yes, in a moment now."

Sure enough, in a moment Glass's eyelids fluttered a little, and he
came back to life with an audible catch of the breath.

"In two minutes' time, sir"--the Doctor turned to Captain
Branscome--"I shall be glad of your services, and of Mr.
Goodfellow's, to carry the fellow down to the boat--that is to say,
if, in deference to the ladies, you have really decided not to leave
him here to his fate. He will sleep after this; nay, if you will
listen, he is sleeping already. The other man is dead, I suppose?"

"He must have died instantly," answered Captain Branscome, who had
stepped across to the body to assure himself.

"I had no doubt of it, by the way he dropped. Well, there is no need
to fetch a spade. Their thoughtfulness provided one. You will find
it in the boat there."

Half an hour later we embarked, leaving behind us on the beach a
scuttled boat, a mound of sand, and a chest of false jewellery, over
the top of which the rising tide had already begun to lap.

Aaron Glass lay along the bottom boards, asleep and breathing
apoplectically. I pulled the stroke paddle, Mr. Goodfellow the bow,
and the Captain steered. Dr. Beauregard addressed himself to the
ladies, of whom Miss Belcher sat with a corrugated brow, as though
turning a thought over and over in her mind, and Plinny with scared
eyes, staring into vacancy.

"I am sorry, indeed, ladies," said the Doctor, "that I could not have
spared you this. The fool shot his mate--you saw it yourselves--
without rhyme or reason. Against madness, and the impulses of
madness, no man can calculate. I might plead, too, that in an
undertaking like this you match yourselves against forces with which
it is not given to ladies to cope. I grant admiringly the courage
that brought you across thousands of miles to Mortallone, as I grant,
and again admiringly, the steadiness of your behaviour this
afternoon. But one thing you did not know--that in the nature of
things you were bound to meet with such men and see such things done.
I have not lived beside treasure all these years without learning
that it attracts such men as carrion attracts the vultures. Hide it
whe