not come himself, eh?” asked Nick.

“Not until he was through below. Then he appeared. But in the meantime his men had come up, two by two, carrying stuff they had stolen; but they covered everything with blankets or table linen, so I could not see a thing they were taking away.

“Once, when two of them were carrying a particularly heavy bundle toward the bow of the yacht, I half-rose from my chair, to observe them more closely; but it was only to find that one of the rascals on guard over me had thrust the muzzle of his revolver under my nose, so I resumed my seat without a word.

“Well, after awhile, Carter, the pirate got all he could find, and he came on deck himself. He came at once to where I was sitting, and said:

“‘Now, Mr. Kane, about that money, if you please.[25] Where is it? I have discovered considerably less than the sum you were good enough to mention.’

[25]

“‘You haven’t discovered any that I mentioned,’ I replied to him.

“‘So I supposed. I will ask you to produce what you have about you.’

“But he did not take my watch, my cuff-buttons, or my stickpin, and, although he relieved the count of his money, he left him his watch and other things.

“And there was an odd thing about it all, too, Carter. He did not touch with his own hands a thing we offered him. One of his men stepped forward in each instance, to accept our offerings.

“But, after it was all over, after he had returned the keys, and thanked each one of us for the use of them, the strangest thing of the whole proceeding took place.

“You asked me, when we began, how the fellow got aboard, and I told you that, to reply to that question, would be to get ahead of my story.”

“Yes,” said the detective.

“Well, until that moment, I myself had no idea how he had accomplished it. I am not positive, even, that I had asked myself the question. So many things had happened in such a short time, and my mind had been kept so employed in thinking about the absurdity of the whole occurrence, that the mere incident of how the pirate came aboard my yacht, or how he intended to take his departure, when the moment arrived to do so, did not present itself.”

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