individual, however industrious, could hope to secure.  As he had expected, soon he found plenty of worthy companions, and the company was floated.  For a while, with the help of local agencies and spies, such as Black Meg and the Butcher, with whom, forgetting past injuries, he had secretly renewed his acquaintance, it did very well, the dividends being large and regular.  In such times handsome sums were realised, without risk, out of the properties of unfortunates who were brought to the stake, and still more was secured by a splendid system of blackmail extracted from those who wished to avoid execution, and who, when they had been sucked dry, could either be burnt or let go, as might prove most convenient.

Also there were other methods of making money—­by an intelligent method of robbery, by contracts to collect fines and taxes and so forth.  Thus things went well, and, at length, after many years of suffering and poverty, the Senor Ramiro, that experienced man of affairs, began to grow rich, until, indeed, driven forward by a natural but unwise ambition, a fault inherent to daring minds, he entered upon a dangerous path.

The wealth of Hendrik Brant, the goldsmith, was a matter of common report, and glorious would be the fortune of him who could secure its reversion.  This Ramiro wished to win; indeed, there was no ostensible reason why he should not do so, since Brant was undoubtedly a heretic, and, therefore, legitimate game for any honourable servant of the Church and King.  Yet there were lions in the path, two large and formidable lions, or rather a lion and the ghost of a lion, for one was material and the other spiritual.  The material lion was that the Government, or in other words, his august kingship Philip, desired the goldsmith’s thousands for himself, and was therefore likely to be irritated by an interloper.  The spiritual lion was that Brant was connected with Lysbeth van Goorl, once known as Lysbeth de Montalvo, a lady who had brought her reputed husband no luck.  Often and often during dreary hours of reflection beneath tropic suns, for which the profession of galley-slave gave great leisure, the Senor Ramiro remembered that very energetic curse which his new affianced wife had bestowed upon him, a curse in which she prayed that through her he might live in heavy labour, that through her and hers he might be haunted by fears and misfortunes, and at the last die in misery.  Looking back upon the past it would certainly seem that there had been virtue in this curse, for already through Lysbeth and his dealings with her, he had suffered the last degradation and the toil, which could not be called light, of nearly fourteen years of daily occupation in the galleys.

Well, he was clear of them, and thenceforward, the curse having exhausted itself for the time being, he had prospered—­at any rate to a moderate extent.  But if once more he began to interfere with Lysbeth van Goorl and her relatives, might it not re-assert its power?  That was one question.  Was it worth while to take his risk on the chance of securing Brant’s fortune?  That was another.  Brant, it was true, was only a cousin of Lysbeth’s husband, but when once you meddled with a member of the family, it was impossible to know how soon other members would become mixed up in the affair.