im as a channel of negotiation with the British
authorities, but also to purchase immunity from punishment for himself.
And having secured this, he would seize the earliest opportunity after
our execution to return here and quietly possess himself of the immense
hoard of treasure that we have accumulated by years of toil and peril.
It was because I was thoroughly convinced of this that I did away with
Ricardo; for it was his life or ours that hung in the balance. But it
was not sufficient to put Ricardo out of the way of doing us a mischief;
the young English officer remained, and still remains, and until he also
is removed there can be no safety for any one of us; and it was this
knowledge that caused me to abandon our cruise and return here.

"And now, what do I find? Why, that he, the Senorita Lotta, and the old
nurse have disappeared! Now, I want you to note particularly the
significance of this last fact, that not only have those three
disappeared, but so has Fonseca! What does this mean? Why, without
doubt it means that the surgeon also was in the plot with Ricardo
against us, and that we have him also to reckon with. How or when he
disappeared I cannot tell you, but we know that he was with us in the
brig when we executed Ricardo. He must therefore have slipped ashore in
some mysterious manner immediately upon our arrival, and have warned the
Englishman, who thereupon must have taken to flight, carrying off the
girl, her nurse, and Fonseca with him.

"It is these four persons that I want you to hunt down and bring back to
the rendezvous. They cannot have gone very far, and they cannot get
away, for, as some of you are aware, it is impossible to make one's way
very far inland from here; we are completely shut in on the landward
side by inaccessible cliffs. But the Englishman does not know this, and
I am by no means certain that either the girl or the surgeon knows it.
I am therefore of opinion that they will all be found endeavouring to
make their way into the back country by way of False Gap. I want you
all, therefore, to spread yourselves in such a way that some one or
another of you must inevitably find them, either by overtaking them, or
by intercepting them on their return when they find it impossible to
escape landward. I will go with you, but as a measure of precaution,
Juan, with half a dozen men, will secrete themselves in the house
yonder, in order that, should we by any strange chance miss th