bed and attempted to lift up, to push off the horrible lid

smothering the body. It resisted his efforts, heavy as lead,
immovable like a tombstone. The rage of vengeance made him desist;

his head buzzed with chaotic thoughts of extermination, he turned
round the room as if he could find neither his weapons nor the way

out; and all the time he stammered awful menaces. . .
A violent battering at the door of the inn recalled him to his

soberer senses. He flew to the window pulled the shutters open,
and looked out. In the faint dawn he saw below him a mob of men.

Ha! He would go and face at once this murderous lot collected no
doubt for his undoing. After his struggle with nameless terrors he

yearned for an open fray with armed enemies. But he must have
remained yet bereft of his reason, because forgetting his weapons

he rushed downstairs with a wild cry, unbarred the door while blows
were raining on it outside, and flinging it open flew with his bare

hands at the throat of the first man he saw before him. They
rolled over together. Byrne's hazy intention was to break through,

to fly up the mountain path, and come back presently with Gonzales'
men to exact an exemplary vengeance. He fought furiously till a

tree, a house, a mountain, seemed to crash down upon his head - and
he knew no more.

* * * * *
Here Mr. Byrne describes in detail the skilful manner in which he

found his broken head bandaged, informs us that he had lost a great
deal of blood, and ascribes the preservation of his sanity to that

circumstance. He sets down Gonzales' profuse apologies in full
too. For it was Gonzales who, tired of waiting for news from the

English, had come down to the inn with half his band, on his way to
the sea. "His excellency," he explained, "rushed out with fierce

impetuosity, and, moreover, was not known to us for a friend, and
so we . . . etc., etc. When asked what had become of the witches,

he only pointed his finger silently to the ground, then voiced
calmly a moral reflection: "The passion for gold is pitiless in

the very old, senor," he said. "No doubt in former days they have
put many a solitary traveller to sleep in the archbishop's bed."

"There was also a gipsy girl there," said Byrne feebly from the
improvised litter on which he was being carried to the coast by a

squad of guerilleros.
"It was she who winched up that infernal machine, and it was she

too who lowered it that night," was the answer.
"But why? Why?" exclaimed Byrne. "Why should she wish for my

death?"
"No doubt for the sake of your excellency's coat buttons," said

politely the saturnine Gonzales. "We found those of the dead
mariner concealed on her person. But your excellency may rest

assured that everything that is fitting has been done on this
occasion."

Byrne asked no more questions. There was still another death which
was considered by Gonzales as "fitting to the occasion." The one-

eyed Bernardino stuck against the wall of his wine-shop received
the charge of six escopettas into his breast. As the shots rang

out the rough bier with Tom's body on it went past carried by a
bandit-like gang of Spanish patriots down the ravine to the shore,

where two boats from the ship were waiting for what was left on
earth of her best seaman.

Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried
the body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin

should rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the
tiller and, turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on

the grey hillside something moving, which he made out to be a
little man in a yellow hat mounted on a mule - that mule without

which the fate of Tom Corbin would have remained mysterious for
ever.

June, 1913.
BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS

CHAPTER I
While we were hanging about near the water's edge, as sailors

idling ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour
Office of a great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the

"front" of business houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps.
He attracted my attention because in the movement of figures in

white drill suits on the pavement from which he stepped, his
costume, the usual tunic and trousers, being made of light grey

flannel, made him noticeable.
I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not grotesque.

His face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair. On his
nearer approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a

good many white hairs. And he had, for a stout man, quite a good
chin. In passing us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with

and smiled.
My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had

known so many queer people in that part of the (more or less)
gorgeous East in the days of his youth. He said: "That's a good

man. I don't mean good in the sense of smart or skilful in his
trade. I mean a really GOOD man."

I turned round at once to look at the phenomenon. The "really GOOD
man" had a very broad back. I saw him signal a sampan to come

alongside, get into it, and go off in the direction of a cluster of
local steamers anchored close inshore.

I said: "He's a seaman, isn't he?"
"Yes. Commands that biggish dark-green steamer: 'Sissie -

Glasgow.' He has never commanded anything else but the 'Sissie -
Glasgow,' only it wasn't always the same Sissie. The first he had

was about half the length of this one, and we used to tell poor
Davidson that she was a size too small for him. Even at that time

Davidson had bulk. We warned him he would get callosities on his
shoulders and elbows because of the tight fit of his command. And

Davidson could well afford the smiles he gave us for our chaff. He
made lots of money in her. She belonged to a portly Chinaman

resembling a mandarin in a picture-book, with goggles and thin
drooping moustaches, and as dignified as only a Celestial knows how

to be.
"The best of Chinamen as employers is that they have such

gentlemanly instincts. Once they become convinced that you are a
straight man, they give you their unbounded confidence. You simply

can't do wrong, then. And they are pretty quick judges of
character, too. Davidson's Chinaman was the first to find out his

worth, on some theoretical principle. One day in his counting-
house, before several white men he was heard to declare: 'Captain

Davidson is a good man.' And that settled it. After that you
couldn't tell if it was Davidson who belonged to the Chinaman or

the Chinaman who belonged to Davidson. It was he who, shortly
before he died, ordered in Glasgow the new Sissie for Davidson to

command."
We walked into the shade of the Harbour Office and leaned our

elbows on the parapet of the quay.
"She was really meant to comfort poor Davidson," continued Hollis.

"Can you fancy anything more naively touching than this old
mandarin spending several thousand pounds to console his white man?

Well, there she is. The old mandarin's sons have inherited her,
and Davidson with her; and he commands her; and what with his

salary and trading privileges he makes a lot of money; and
everything is as before; and Davidson even smiles - you have seen

it? Well, the smile's the only thing which isn't as before."
"Tell me, Hollis," I asked, "what do you mean by good in this

connection?"
"Well, there are men who are born good just as others are born