Spanish Doubloons

Being an orphan, I was supposed to be under Aunt Jane's wing, but this was the merest polite fiction, and I am sure that no hen with one chicken worries about it more than I did about A

onted her with this unpleasant fact. When she came to she was bitter instead of grateful, and went about for weeks presenting a spectacle of blighted affections which was too much for t

st until Christmas. People wrote alluringly from town, but what had town to offer compared with a saddle-horse to yourself, and a litter of collie pups to play wi

e frightfully respectable. I was sure they numbered no convicts among their acquaintance, or indeed any one fro

rder, whereas to manage Aunt Jane demands aggressive and cont

ory thrill, I kept Aunt Jane's letter till the last and skimmed through all the others. I should be thankful, I suppose, that the peace soon to be so rudely shattered was prolonged

ink but are frozen by the cold eye of an unsympathetic listener. Nevertheless, as I spread out the close-filled pages I felt a mild wonder. Writing so large, so black, so staggering, so madly underlined, m

aid. "Don't w

got to have a time-table. I leave for the city

ting you. Aunt Jane was going to look for buried treasure, in company with one Violet Higglesby-Browne, whom she sprung on you without the slightest explanation, as though alluding to the Queen of Sheba or the Siamese twins. By beginning at the end and reading backward-Aunt Jane's letters are usually most intelligible that way-you managed to piece together some explanation of this Miss Higglesby-Browne and her place in the scheme of things. It was

knowledge of this hoard was Miss Higglesby-Browne's alone. It had been revealed to her by a dying sailor in a London hospital, whither she had gone on a mission of kindness-you gathered that Miss Browne was precisely the sort to take advantage when people were helpless and una

proving cold before its great opportunity, Miss Browne had shaken off its dust and come to New York, where a mysteriously potent influence had guided her to Aunt Jane. Through Miss Browne's great organizing abi

r plans to any one, but that she did want to hear from me before they sailed from Panama, where a letter might reach her if I was prompt. However, if it did not she would tr

of it. What those people are up to I don't know-probably they mean to hold her for ransom and murder her outright if it is not forthcoming.

long to the island

to glar

let them mu

you-" co

r narrow margin of faith my fellow-voyagers on the City of Quito had had in me would shrink to nothingness. I had been obliged to be so queer and clam-like about the whole extraordinary rendezvous-for how could I expose Aunt Jane's madness to the multitude?-that I felt it would take the actual bodily presence of my aunt to convince them that she was not a myth, or at least of the wron

negation of his tone my heart gave a sickening downward

he island?

s the woe in my face touched him, for he descended from the eminence of the hotel cle

all the way from San Francisc

shrewd eyes piercing th

," I hastened to add. "I i

tell you that Miss Harding and her party embarked this morning on the freighter Rufus Smith, and I think it very likely that the steamer ha

ships great and small, ships with stripped masts and smokeless funnels, others with faint gray spirals wreathing upward from their stacks. Was one of these the Rufus Smith, and would I reach her-or him-before the thin gray feather became a thick black plume? I thought of my aunt at the mercy of these unknown adventurers with whom she had set forth, helpless as a little fat pigeon among hawks, and I felt, des

ere, get there, was the

e into the boat. "Pronto!" he shouted to the native boatman as we put off. "Pronto!" I urged at intervals, my eyes upon the funnels of the Rufus Smith, where the o

I must come ab

ult of my emotions made me indifferent. Bare brawny arms of sailors clutched at me and drew me to the

y voice. "What's this mean? Wh

red-faced man in

aunt," I

Why the devil should you

with firmness. "I don't see

Smith shook two large r

on have a white horse and a minister aboa

der died away came the smal

wrapping by mistake. Her eyes, round, pale, blinking a little in the tropical glare, roved over the circle until they lit on me. Right where she stood Aunt Jane petrified. She endeavored to shriek, but achiev

shore with me." I spoke calmly, for unless you a

at, but the other woman spoke in a loud voice, ad

d!" It was an unmistaka

rt iron-gray hair visibly bristled. She had a massive head, and a seamed and rugged countenance which did its best to live down the humiliation of a ridiculou

ertain of my identity as though she had guided me from my first tottering steps, but that in a flash she had gras

the company with del

n is

ed me ex

ould be charitable to infer madness in those who have led her into it!" When I reviewed this speech

in deep and awful tones, "the tim

ard of its having originally been that of a total stranger. So severe were her shrieks and s

owne. It was fifteen minutes before Aunt Jane came to, and then she would only moan. I bathed her head, and held her hand, and did all the regulation thing

he ship. Dropping Aunt Jane's hand I rushed on deck. There lay the various pieces of my baggage,

under weigh, and heading out o

ho stood issuing orders in the

; turn around! You must p

or here a-waitin' on your aunt's fits? You come aboard without me askin'. Now you can go along with the rest. This here ship has got her

appened to go t