“You asked a moment ago if everybody wasn’t rescued.  Well, everybody was rescued from the wreck except Captain Driggs.  I don’t know what happened.  No one knows.  The fire had got into the engine-room and the ship was sinking fast.  Passengers saw him, pale, like a ghost, some said.  Others say there was blood streaming from his head.  When the last boat-load left they couldn’t find him.  They had to put off without him.  It was a miracle that no one else was lost.”

“How did the fire start?” inquired Kennedy, much interested.

“No one knows that, either,” answered Guiteras, shaking his head slowly.  “I think it must have been smoldering in the hold for hours before it was discovered.  Then the pumps either didn’t work properly or it had gained too great headway for them.  I’ve heard many people talk of it and of the treasure.  No, sir, you wouldn’t get me to touch it.  Maybe you’ll call it superstition.  But I won’t have anything to do with it.  I wouldn’t go with Mr. Everson and I won’t go with you.  Perhaps you don’t understand, but I can’t help it.”

Dolores had stood beside her father while he was speaking, but had said nothing, though all the time she had been regarding us from beneath her long black eyelashes.  Arguments with the old pilot had no effect, but I could not help feeling that somehow she was on our side, that whether she shared his fears and prejudices, her heart was really somewhere near the Key of Gold.

There seemed to be nothing for us to do but wait until some other way turned up to get out to the expedition, or perhaps Dolores succeeded in changing the captain’s mind.  We bowed ourselves out, not a little puzzled by the enigma of the obdurate old man and his pretty daughter.  Try as I might among the busy shipping of the port, I could find no one else willing at any reasonable price to change his plans to accommodate us.

It was early the next morning that a young lady, very much perturbed, called on us at our hotel, scarcely waiting even the introduction of her plainly engraved card bearing the name, Miss Norma Sanford.

“Perhaps you know of my sister, Asta Sanford, Mrs. Orrin Everson,” she began, speaking very rapidly as if under stress.  “We’re down here on Asta’s honeymoon in Orrin’s yacht, the Belle Aventure.”  Craig and I exchanged glances, but she did not give us a chance to interrupt.

“It all seems so sudden, so terrible,” she cried, in a burst of wild, incoherent feeling.  “Yesterday Bertram Traynor died, and we’ve put back to San Juan with his body.  I’m so worried for Orrin and my sister.  I heard you were here, Professor Kennedy, and I couldn’t rest until I saw you.”

She was looking anxiously at Craig.  I wondered whether she had heard of our visit to the Guiterases and what she knew about that other woman.

“I don’t quite understand,” interposed Kennedy, with an effort to calm her.  “Why do you fear for your sister and Mr. Everson?  Was there something—­suspicious—­about the death of Mr. Traynor?”