“That’s just it,” said Sleight slowly; “who’s to know that your friends haven’t been there already—­that seems to have been your style.”

“But no one knew it but me, until I told you, I swear to God.  I ain’t lying, boss, and I ain’t drunk.  Say—­don’t give it up, boss.  That man of yours likely don’t believe it, because he don’t know anything about it.  I do—­I could find it.”

A silence followed.  Mr. Sleight remained completely absorbed in his papers for some moments.  Then glancing at the Lascar, he took his pen, wrote a hurried note, folded it, addressed it, and, holding it between his fingers, leaned back in his chair.

“If you choose to take this note to my man, he may give it another show.  Mind, I don’t say that he will.  He’s going to Sacramento to-night, but you could go down there and find him before he starts.  He’s got a room there, I believe.  While you’re waiting for him you might keep your eyes open to satisfy yourself.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said the sailor, eagerly endeavoring to catch the eye of his employer.  But Mr. Sleight looked straight before him, and he turned to go.

“The Sacramento boat goes at nine,” said Mr. Sleight quietly.

This time their glances met, and the Lascar’s eye glistened with subtle intelligence.  The next moment he was gone, and Mr. Sleight again became absorbed in his papers.

Meanwhile Renshaw was making his way back to the Pontiac with that light-hearted optimism that had characterized his parting with Sleight.  It was this quality of his nature, fostered perhaps by the easy civilization in which he moved, that had originally drawn him into relations with the man he just quitted; a quality that had been troubled and darkened by those relations, yet, when they were broken, at once returned.  It consequently did not occur to him that he had only selfishly compromised with the difficulty; it seemed to him enough that he had withdrawn from a compact he thought dishonorable; he was not called upon to betray his partner in that compact merely to benefit others.  He had been willing to incur suspicion and loss to reinstate himself in his self-respect, more he could not do without justifying that suspicion.  The view taken by Sleight was, after all, that which most business men would take—­which even the unbusinesslike Nott would take—­which the girl herself might be tempted to listen to.  Clearly he could do nothing but abandon the Pontiac and her owner to the fate he could not in honor avert.  And even that fate was problematical.  It did not follow that the treasure was still concealed in the Pontiac, nor that Nott would be willing to sell her.  He would make some excuse to Nott—­he smiled to think he would probably be classed in the long line of absconding tenants—­he would say good-by to Rosey, and leave for Sacramento that night.  He ascended the stairs to the gangway with a freer breast than when he first entered the ship.