largely through sheer ignorance. I didn't lose all my money on the turf, Middlebrook, I can assure you—I was robbed by more than one worthy man of my native town—legally, of course, bless 'em! And it was that, I think, turned me into the Ishmael I've been ever since—as men had robbed me, I thought it a fair thing to get a bit of my own back. Now that bank-manager chap was one of those fellows who are born with predatory instincts—my impression of him, from what I recollect, is that he was a born thief. Anyway, he and I, getting pretty thick with each other, found out that we were just then actuated by similar ambitions—I from sheer necessity, he, as I tell you, from temperament. And to cut matters short, we determined to help ourselves out of certain things of value stored in that bank, and to clear out to far-off regions with what we got. We discovered that two chests deposited in the bank's vaults by old Lord Forestburne contained a quantity of simply invaluable monastic spoil, stolen by the good man's ancestors four centuries before: we determined to have that and to take it over to the United States, where we knew we could realize immense sums on it, from collectors, with no questions asked. There were other matters, too, which were handy—we carefully removed the lot, brought them along the coast to this very cove, and interred them in those ruins where we three foregathered this afternoon."
"And whence, I take it, you have just removed them to the deck above our heads?" I suggested.
"Right, Middlebrook, quite right—there they are!" he admitted with a laugh. "A grand collec-
