g the thousand
and one commodities which supplied the strange needs of humanity here in
this lost corner of the world; and, thus occupied, I was diverted by a
voice like sudden music, a voice oddly rich and laughing and confident
for such grim and sinister surroundings. It was one, too, which I seemed
to have heard before, and not so very long ago. When I turned in its
direction, I was immediately arrested, as one always is by any splendour
of vitality; for a startling contrast indeed--to the spiritless, furtive
figures that had been coming and going hitherto--was this superb young
creature, tall and lithe with proudly carried head on glorious
shoulders. Her skin was a golden olive, and it had been hard to say
which was the more intensely black--her hair, or the proud eyes which,
turning presently in my direction, seemed to strike upon me as with an
actual impact of soft fire. I swear I could feel them touch me, as it
were, with a warm ray, the radiating glow of her fragrant vitality
enfolding me as in a burning golden cloud.

I wondered whether her glance enfolded everything she looked on in the
same way. Perhaps it was but the unconsciously exerted force of her
superb young womanhood intensely alive. Yet--there was too a significant
wild shyness about her. My presence seemed at once to put her on her
guard. The music of her voice was suddenly hushed, as though she had
hurriedly, almost in terror, thrown a robe of reticence about an
impulsive naturalness not to be displayed before strangers. As for the
storekeeper, he was evidently a familiar acquaintance. He had known
her--he said, after she was gone--since she was a little girl.

While he spoke, my eyes had accidentally fallen on the coin still in his
hand, with which she had just paid him.

"Excuse me," I said, "but that is a curious-looking coin."

I thought that a shade of annoyance passed over his face, as though he
had been better pleased if I had not noticed it. However, it was too
late, and he handed it to me to examine--a large antique-looking gold
coin.

"Why!" I said, "this is a Spanish doubloon!"

"That's what it is," said the Englishman laconically.

"But doesn't it strike you as strange that she should pay her bills with
Spanish doubloons?" I asked.

"It did at first," he answered; and then, as if annoyed with himself, he
was attempting to retrieve an expression that carried an implication he
evidently didn't wish me to retain, he added: "Of cou