the Captain learnt there was some one on the track of the treasure a terrible fear seized him lest his crime should be discovered. Whipped on by a fearful fury of madness, he ruthlessly hunted down the meddlesome interloper, and eventually capturing the wretch chained him living in a dungeon and sealed the door up against him, having hung the stolen plans about his neck for a warning to any who might find him and be so bold as to follow in his steps. The tale gripped me chiefly because of the intensity of the atmosphere of terror and madness which prevaded it, till the reading of it seemed like the very tones of my father's voice as he had used to speak in the old times when the night hung black outside the pane, and only the firelight leapt and sank in the shadowy chamber where we sat together, he leaning back in his chair, and I huddled at his knees. I knew I was reading a piece of great literature; and again that regretful reproach sounded in my heart against my father: Why had he neglected such talents to squander his life away in a stupid hunt for gold? But another reason which made the story of interest to me was the picture of the wretched victim chained into the dungeon with the plans about his neck, for I thought I had come upon a further link in the strange series of crimes which had made one tale of horror of the searching for that evil gold. Here was the explanation of the skeleton I had found at Sunset Towers. Worthing's uncle had said that the story of its coming there was interesting enough in its own way. Doubtless he was referring to this yarn of my father's. But when I began to put things together I found that after all I had learnt little. The yarn was probably no more than a yarn, springing from my father's fertile imagination. And even if it were true it only told me of something so distant as to be of no value. Yet the story clung to my memory. I kept turning to it as though somehow it contained the clue to the mystery I was seeking to unravel. Reading my father's papers sent me frequently to his grave, which now was nothing but a grass-grown mound in the woods, nameless and dateless. I set to work to carve a rough cross with his name upon it. I had thought to have added something to tell of my love for him, and the blank which his death had made in my life. But words were so stupidly inadequate that I merely carved his name and locked my wounded and inarticulate love in my own heart.