“Then you admit that you are Vasa?”

“Wal,” drawled the captain again, “that’s one of my names, I guess, though I haven’t used it since I traded that blamed mummy in Paris, thirty years ago.  There’s nothing like owning up.”

“Are you not Swedish?” asked Lucy timidly.

“I am a citizen of the world, I guess,” replied Hervey with great politeness for him, “and America suits me for headquarters as well as any other nation.  I might be Swedish or Danish or a Dago for choice.  Vasa may be my name, or Hervey, or anything you like.  But I guess I’m a man all through.”

“And a thief!” cried Don Pedro, who had resumed his seat, but was keeping quiet with difficulty.

“Not of those emeralds,” rejoined the skipper coolly:  “Lord, to think of the chance I missed!  Thirty years ago I could have looted them, and again the other day.  But I never knew—­I never knew,” cried Hervey regretfully, with his vividly blue eyes on the mummy.  “I could jes’ kick myself, gentlemen, when I think of the miss.”

“Then you didn’t steal the manuscript along with the emeralds?”

“Wal, I did,” cried Hervey, turning to Archie, who had spoken, “but it was in a furren lingo, to which I didn’t catch on.  If I’d known I’d have learned about those blamed emeralds.”

“What did you do with the copy of the manuscript you stole?” asked Don Pedro sharply.  “I know there was a copy, as my father told me so.  I have the original myself, but the transcript—­and not a translation, as I fancied—­appeared in Sir Frank Random’s room to-day, hidden behind some books.”

Hervey made no move, but smoked steadily, with his eyes on the carpet.  However, Archie, who was observing keenly, saw that he was more startled than he would admit.  The explanation had taken him by surprise.

“Explain!” cried the Peruvian sharply.

Hervey looked up and fixed a pair of very evil eyes on the Don.

“See here,” he remarked, “if the lady wasn’t present, I’d show you that I take no orders from any yellow—­that is, from any low-down Don.”

“Lucy, my dear, leave us,” said Braddock, rising, much excited; “we must have this matter sifted to the bottom, and if Hervey can explain better in your absence, I think you should go.”

Although Miss Kendal was very anxious to hear all that was to be heard, she saw the advisability of taking this advice, especially as Hope gave her arm a meaning nudge.

“I’ll go,” she said meekly, and was escorted by her lover to the door.  There she paused.  “Tell me all that takes place,” she whispered, and when Archie nodded, she vanished promptly.  The young man closed the door and returned to his seat in time to hear Don Pedro reiterate his request for an explanation.

“And ’spose I can’t oblige,” said the skipper, now more at his ease since the lady was out of the room.

“Then I shall have you arrested,” was the quick reply.