“You depress me, Sir Michael,” he remarked. “And I was feeling very optimistic. I was told that there were a million dollars to be picked up here, and one can hardly disbelieve the word of a dying man, especially when one has tried to save his life. It was at a place called Ayer Pahit, in the Malay States. He’d taken to the jungle—they’d hunted him through every town in the Peninsular, ever since they located him settling down in Singapore to enjoy an unjust share of the loot—and one of their Malay trackers had caught him and stuck a kris in him. I found him just before he passed out, and he told me most of the story. . . . But I’m boring you.” “Not a bit, dear old sprout, not a bit!” rejoined Algy eagerly, and he was supported by a chorus of curiosity. The Saint shook his head. “But I’m quite certain I shall bore you if I go on,” he stated obstinately. “Now suppose I’d been talking about Brazil—did you know there was a village behind an almost impassable range of hills covered with thick poisonous jungle where some descendants of Cortes’ crowd still live? They’re gradually being absorbed into the native stock—Mayas—by intermarriage, but they still wear swords and talk good Castilian. They could hardly believe my rifle. I remember . . .” And it was impossible to wheedle him back to any further discussion of his million dollars. He made his excuses as soon after coffee as was decently possible, and spoke last to Patricia. “When you get to know me better—as you must—you’ll learn to forgive my weakness.” “I suppose it’s nothing but a silly desire to cause a sensation,” she said coldly. “Nothing but that,” said the Saint with disarming frankness, and went home with a comfortable feeling that he had had the better of the exchange. In spite of the protestations of Orace, he took a walk during the afternoon. He wanted to be familiar with the territory for some distance around, and thus his route took him inland towards the uplands which sheltered the village on the south. It was the first time he had surveyed the ground, but his hunting experience had given him a good eye for country, and at the end of three hours’ hard tramping he had every detail of the district mapped in his brain. It was on the homeward hike that he met the stranger. His walk had been as solitary as a walk in North Devon can be: he had not even encountered any farm labourers, for the land for miles around was unclaimed moor. But this man was so obviously harmless, even at a distance of half a mile, that the Saint frowned thoughtfully.