n or earth
could have done, and awakened him to the one dominant sense he had
left,--the habit of duty. She heard him roll from the bed with an oath,
stumble to the door, and saw him dash forward with an affrighted face,
and plunge his head into a bucket of water. He emerged from it pale and
dripping, but with the full light of reason and consciousness in his
eyes. He started when he saw her; even then she would have fled, but he
caught her firmly by the wrist.

Then with a hurried, trembling voice she told him all and everything. He
listened in silence, and only at the end raised her hand gravely to his
lips.

"And now," she added tremulously, "you must fly--quick--at once; or it
will be too late!"

But Richard Jarman walked slowly to the door of his cabin, still holding
her hand, and said quietly, pointing to his only chair:--

"Sit down; we must talk first."

What they said was never known, but a few moments later they left the
cabin, Jarman carrying in a small bag all his possessions, and Cara
leaning on his arm. An hour later the priest of the Mission Dolores was
called upon to unite in matrimony a frank, honest-looking sailor and an
Italian gypsy-looking girl. There were many hasty unions in those days,
and the Holy Church was only too glad to be able to give them its
legal indorsement. But the good Padre was a little sorry for the honest
sailor, and gave the girl some serious advice.

The San Francisco papers the next morning threw some dubious light upon
the matter in a paragraph headed, "Another Police Fiasco."

"We understand that the indefatigable police of San Francisco, after
ascertaining that Marco Franti, the noted gold-dust thief, was hiding on
the shore near the Presidio, proceeded there with great solemnity, and
arrived, as usual, a few hours after their man had escaped. But the
climax of incapacity was reached when, as it is alleged, the sweetheart
of the absconding Franti, and daughter of a brother fisherman, eloped
still later, and joined her lover under the very noses of the police.
The attempt of the detectives to excuse themselves at headquarters by
reporting that they were also on the track of an alleged escaped Sydney
Duck was received with the derision and skepticism it deserved, as it
seemed that these worthies mistook the mail steamer, which they should
have boarded to get certain extradition papers, for a coasting steamer."

*****

It was not until four years later that Murano wa