d two eyes which clearly found the very moderate daylight too much
for them. Brother Bartolome blinked without ceasing, while he shielded
with one hand the thin flame of an earthenware lamp.

"Are you come all on one business?" he asked, his gaze passing from
one to another, and resting at length on the Carmelite.

"When the forest takes fire, all beasts are cousins," said Felipe
sententiously. Without another question the friar turned and led the
way, down a flight of stairs which plunged (for all I could tell) into
the bowels of earth. His lamp flickered on bare walls upon which the
spiders scurried. I counted twenty steps, and still all below us was
dark as a pit; ten more, and I was pulled up with that peculiar and
highly disagreeable jar which everyone remembers who has put forward
a foot expecting a step, and found himself suddenly on the level. The
passage ran straight ahead into darkness: but the friar pushed open a
low door in the left-hand wall, and, stepping aside, ushered us into a
room, or paved cell, lit by a small lamp depending by a chain from the
vaulted roof.

Shelves lined the cell from floor to roof; chests, benches, and
work-tables occupied two-thirds of the floor-space: and all were
crowded with books, bottles, retorts, phials, and the apparatus of
a laboratory. "Crowded," however, is not the word; for at a second
glance I recognised the beautiful order that reigned. The deal
work-benches had been scoured white as paper; every glass, every metal
pan and basin sparkled and shone in the double light of the lamp and
of a faint beam of day conducted down from the upper world by a kind
of funnel and through a grated window facing the door.

In this queer double light Brother Bartolome faced us, after
extinguishing the small lamp in his hand.

"You say the pirates have left?"

Felipe nodded. "At daybreak. We in this room are all who remain in
Panama."

"The citizens will be returning, doubtless, in a day or two. I have
no food for you, if that is what you seek. I finished my last crust
yesterday."

"That is a pity. But we must forage. Meanwhile, reverend father, a
touch of your cordial--"

Brother Bartolome reached down a bottle from a shelf. It was heavily
sealed and decorated with a large green label bearing a scarlet cross.
Bottles similarly sealed and labelled lined this shelf and a dozen
others. He broke the seal, drew the cork, and fetched three glasses,
each of which he held carefully