his promise, oh, he won't!" said a tense voice in my
ear; and, turning, I beheld the Princess.

"That is not the trouble," said I, as low as she. "It is that we have
not the treasure, and we are supposed to be in possession of it."

"Who has it?" she asked quickly.

"Your brother denies that he has shifted it, but the mutineers
undoubtedly found it gone. It is an unfathomed secret so far."

"But," she said, looking at me eagerly, "you have a suspicion."

"It is none of us," I said, with an embracing glance.

"That need not be said," she replied quickly. "I know honest men."

She continued to hold me with her interrogating eyes, and an answer was
indirectly wrung from me.

"I should like to know where Pye is," I said.

She took this not unnaturally as an evasion. "But he's of no use," she
said. "You have told me so. We have seen so together."

It was pleasant to be coupled with her in that way, even in that moment
of wonder and fear. I stared across at the door which gave access to
the stairs of the saloon.

"It is possible they have left no one down below," I said musingly.

She followed my meaning this time. "Oh, you mustn't venture it!" she
said. "It would be foolhardy. You have run risks enough, and you are
wounded."

"Miss Morland," I answered. "This is a time when we can hardly stop to
consider. Everything hinges on the next few hours. I say it to you
frankly, and I will remember my promise this time."

"You remembered it before. You would have come," she said, with a
sudden burst of emotion; and somehow I was glad. I liked her faith in
me.

"What the deuce do you make of it?" said Barraclough to me.

I shook my head. "I'll tell you later when I've thought it over," I
answered. "At present I'm bewildered--also shocked. I've had a
startler, Barraclough." He stared at me. "I'll walk round and see. But
I don't know if it will get us any further."

"There's only one thing that will do that," said he significantly.

"You mean----"

"We must make this sanguinary brute compromise. If he will land us
somewhere----"

"Oh, he won't!" I said. "I've no faith in him."

"Well, if they haven't the treasure, they may make terms to get it," he
said in perplexity.

"_If_ they have not," I said. He looked at me. "The question is, who
has the treasure?" I continued.

"Good heavens, man, if you know--speak out," he said impatiently.

"When I know I'll speak," I said; "but I will say this much, that
whoeve