“You do me too much honor.  But as you remark, the story is interesting.  It has also the element of mystery.  For there remains the question of what became of the owner of the sloop.  His final preparations for leaving the island had evidently been made, his possessions removed from the hut, provisions for the voyage brought on board the sloop—­and then he had vanished.  What had befallen him?  Did the gold carry with it some deadly influence?  One plays, as it were, with this idea, imagining the so melancholy and bloody history of these old doubloons.  How, in the first place, had he found them?  Through chance—­by following some authentic clue?  And then, in the moment of success, he disappears—­pouf!” And Senor Gonzales disposed of the unknown by blowing him airily from the tips of his fingers.

“However, we have the treasure—­the main point, is it not?  But I have often wondered—­”

“If you would like to hear the rest of the story,” said Mr. Shaw, “we are in a position to enlighten you.  That we are so, is due entirely to this young lady, Miss Virginia Harding.”

The Spaniard rose, and made obeisance profoundly.  He resumed his seat, prepared to listen—­no longer the government official, but the cordial and interested guest and friend.

The story, of course, was a long one.  Everybody took a hand in the telling, even Cookie, who was summoned from his retirement in the kitchen to receive the glory due him as a successful strategist.  The journal of Peter was produced, and the bags of doubloons handed over to the representative of the little republic.  I even offered to resign the silver shoe-buckle which I had found in the secret locker on the Island Queen, but this excess of honesty received its due reward.

“The doubloons being now in the possession of the Santa Marinan nation, I beg that you will consider as your own the Island Queen and all it may contain,” said Don Enrique to me with as magnificent an air as though the sand-filled hulk of a wrecked sloop were really a choice gift to bestow on a young woman.

Plans were discussed for transferring the pirates from the cave to the cutter, for they were to be taken to Santa Marina to meet whatever punishment was thought fit for their rather indefinite ill-doing.  They had not murdered us, they had robbed us of nothing but the provisions they had eaten, they had, after all, as much right on the island as ourselves.  Yet there remained their high-handed conduct in invading our camp and treating us as prisoners, with the threat of darker possibilities.  I fancy that Santa Marinan justice works mainly by rule of thumb, and that the courts do not embarrass themselves much with precedents.  Only I hope they did not shoot the picturesque Tony against a wall.[*]