“Your master,” said Lewis to the guide, “wishes to go to the sea.  He bids you start for the sea.”

The guide stared at Lewis, then at the stranger.

“The sea!  What is the sea?”

“The sea,” said Lewis, gravely, “is the ocean, the great water where ships sail.”

“Bah!” said the guide.  “More madness.  How shall I guide him to the sea if I know not where it is?  Tell him there is no sea.”

One of the muleteers broke in.

“Indeed, there is a sea, but it is far, far away.  It is thirty days away.”

“And how do you go?” asked Lewis.

“I do not know.  I only know that one must go to Joazeiro, and from there they say there is a road of iron that leads one to the sea.”

“Joazeiro!” exclaimed the guide.  “Ah, that is some sense.  Joazeiro is a place.  It is on the river.  Petrolina is on this side, Joazeiro on that.  As for this road of iron, hah!” He turned on the muleteer.  “Thou, too, art mad.”

The stranger listened to what Lewis had to say, then he drew out a map from his pocket, unfolded it, and spread it on the table.  “A road of iron, eh?  Well, let’s see.”

The guide grinned at Lewis.

“It is a picture of the world,” he said.  “He stares at it daily.”

“Yes,” said the stranger, “here we are—­Joazeiro.”

Lewis leaned over his shoulder.  He saw the word “Joazeiro.”  From it a straight red line ran eastward to the edge of the map.

The stranger measured distances with a pencil.  “We can make Joazeiro in fifteen days,” he said.  “Tell the men we will rest to-day and to-night.  To-morrow we start.”

The marvels of that camp were a revelation to Lewis.  He kept his mouth shut, but his eyes were open.  One battered thing after another revealed its mystery to him.  He turned to the stranger.

“You are a great traveler,” he said.

The stranger started.  He had been day-dreaming.

“A great traveler?  Yes.  I have been a wanderer on all the faces of the earth.  I have lived seven lives.  I’ll give them to you, if you like.”

Lewis smiled, puzzled, but somehow pleased.

“Give them to me—­your seven lives?”

The stranger did not answer.  Gloom had settled on the face that Lewis had seen only alight.  Lewis, too, was silent.  His life with Ann and the Reverend Orme had taught him much.  He recognized the dwelling-place of sorrow.

Presently the stranger shook his mood from him.

“Come,” he said, “let us begin.”  From one of his bags he took a pack of cards.  He sat at the table and shuffled them.  “There are many games of patience,” he continued.  “They are all founded on averages and thousands of combinations, so intricate that the law of recurrence can be determined only by months of figuring.  However, one can learn a patience without bothering with the law of recurrence.  I shall now teach you a game called Canfield.”