"I was disappointed," replied Wilbraham, "but I saw something of the cargo which the waggons brought over the hill and the boats carried on board. Backwards and forwards between the _Tarifa_ and the shore they were rowed with unremitting diligence and caution, carrying first longish packing-cases of some weight, as I could gather from the conduct of the men who stumbled with them down the incline. And after the packing-cases, square boxes, yet more unwieldy than the long cases, if one takes the proportion of size. The morning was breaking before the last boat was hoisted on board, and the last waggon had creaked out of hearing over the hill." "And what was the cargo?" asked Miranda. "That was the question which troubled me," replied Wilbraham. "I lay on the hill-side in the chill of the morning as disheartened a man as you can imagine. Through a break in the bushes I watched the _Tarifa_ below me, her decks busy with the movement of her crew and from her galley the comfortable smoke coiling up into the air. Breakfast! A Gargantuan appetite suddenly pinched my stomach. Had Warriner gone on board with the cargo? And what was the cargo? And into what harbour would the _Tarifa_ carry it? I had found out nothing. Then on board the brigantine men gathered at the windlass, a chain clinked musically as the anchor was hove short, the gaff of her mainsail creaked up the mast, and the festoons of her canvas were unfolded. The _Tarifa_ was outward bound and I had discovered nothing. I was like a man tied hand and foot and a treasure within his reach. I had had my fingers on the treasure. Again the chain rattled on the windlass; she broke out her foresail and her jib; I saw the water sparkle under her foot and stream out a creaming pennant in her wake. I had lost. In the space of a second I lived through every minute of my last fifteen years and their dreary vicissitudes. I lived in anticipation through another fifteen similar in every detail, and fairly shuddered to think there might be another fifteen still to follow those. I stretched myself out and ground my face in the sand and cursed God with all my heart for the difference between man and man. And meanwhile the _Tarifa_, with a hint of the sun upon her topsails, slipped out over the tide to sea." Wilbraham's face was quite convulsed by the violence of his recollections; and with so vivid a sincerity, with a voice so mutable, had he described the growth and extinction of his hopes, that Miranda almost forgot their object, almost found herself sympathising with his endeavours, almost regretted their failure--until she remembered that after all he had not failed, or he would not have been sitting beside her in the Alameda. "Well," she said in a hard voice, "you failed. What then?"