about, with the gold lightnings in it. And—perhaps he was right in more ways than one."
Again the pad of shoeless feet, and the gypsy smiled up at her, delighted at this vindication.
"An' see, Señorita, as I tell you, eet is floating away."
And indeed, as they voyaged northward, it did seem to be drifting, drifting, behind and away from them, over the rim of the sea, over the edge of the world.
No, no mariner ever brought word of the three buccaneers again. No letter ever came to the elder Huntington, and Lloyds and all the human sleuths of the sea gave them up as deservedly lost.
Benson always swore that they reached the yacht, and raised jib and foresail—he saw them steer through the murk, over that unprecedented swell—the yacht list as she reached the choppy Dead Man's Channel, between the Twin Horns. Even so they sailed to their doom, for no eighty-foot craft could live in that sea.
It was not until long afterwards that Sally realized that there were seven that perished,—old Joe Beam, by the knife, the sailor in the jaws of the shark, the wicked old man in his shower of gold, the Pink Swede from the viper's bite; and at last, in the sea itself, in the last eruption, MacAllister, who had fancied himself omnipotent; his henchman Pete; and the wayward and luckless Phil—lost, all lost through their lust for that gold. Seven of them—one for each of the moons.
Carlotta, they say, does not sing any more—at least in
