The sailor rose to his feet. It was as Lisalda said, for such (her secret once revealed) we may as well henceforth style her, Aquelarre having finished his business with the cabalist come to summon the page to his attendance. But he first drew a bottle and three goblets from a press and placed the latter on one of the tables. Filling them to the overflow, he appointed one to each to drink a parting cup. All three raised on high and touched together their goblets in token of sentiment, somewhat hollow. Ataurresagasti had scarcely put his lips to the liquid, when memory started armed from his brain. It was hocussed. There was no doubt about it. He had been drugged once before by the pressgang of the pirate, with whom he had served out his buccaneer articles. Once bit, twice shy. He replaced the goblet on the table, the other two mechanically followed his example. The good fellowship that shone upon his weather-beaten face was in inverse ratio to the ready subtlety that scanned every loophole from within; and presently he swooped down with unerring instinct upon the only possible coign of vantage. The meaning eyes of the landlord had turned upon the innocent eyes of Lisalda. He was staring out her inmost soul. Taking advantage of this absorption of the two, Ataurresagasti reversed the positions of the drugged goblet and that of the landlord. So smartly did he execute this manoeuvre that it would most certainly have escaped the notice of an ordinary observer. But had it escaped the lynx-eyed Aquelarre? The sailor breathed more freely when, upon all three once more raising their goblets, the whole of the hocussed stuff disappeared without question down the landlord's corded throat. All having drained to the dregs, Aquelarre turned and addressed himself to the quondam buccaneer:-- "May I be burnt by the Parliament of Bordeaux if my customer upstairs let me into the secret as to which of you two he mastered. Now I'll be bound 'tis you, my jolly Roger (and not this queasy cabin-boy) that has chaffered for gold his rest o' nights to the wandering Jew up aloft there." "Your guess does honour to your penetration, Monsieur Four Cross Roads, though you did overshoot your bolt a bit when you called me Jolly Roger." "Ho, ho, Monsieur Lisaldo, so you turned your skin then with your livery, and no longer acknowledge the Black Flag?" "How do you know that I had ever anything in common with the Black Flag?" "Easy as lying, Monsieur Lisaldo, easy as lying. Your face, my friend (and for the matter of that, everyone's face), is as an open book whereon I read. Nay, your hand alone, my friend, shouts your past, your present, and your future to such as I that have ears to hear." "Of the past and of the present I am already sick at heart, but I am open to receive any index (what it may befit me to know) as to how the future shall shape itself before me."