And there were other instances when we slipped. More than once I tracked a would-be smuggler to his ship and saw him out of port. And yet, when acting on my cables, the smuggler coming down the New York gang-plank was snapped up by my old comrades and searched, nothing was found. This mystery, for mystery it was, occurred a score of times. At last we learned the trick. The particular room occupied by the smuggler was taken both ways for a round dozen trips ahead. There were seven members of the smuggling combine. When one left the room, his voyage ended, and came ashore in New York, another went duly aboard and took possession for the return trip. The diamonds had not gone ashore. They were hidden in a sure place somewhere about the room; he who took it to go to Europe knew where. And in those several times to follow when the outgoer was on and off the boat before she cleared, he found no difficulty in carrying the gems ashore. The Customs folk aren’t watching departures; their vigilance is for those who arrive. However, after a full score of defeats, we solved this last riddle, and managed a seizure which lost the rogues what profits they had gathered on all the trips before. Also, as I pried about the smuggling industry, I came across more than one interesting bit of knowledge. I found a French firm making rubies--actual rubies. It was a great secret in my time, though more is known of it now. The ruby was real; stood every test save the one test--a hard one to enforce--of specific gravity. The made ruby was a shadow lighter, bulk for bulk, than the true ruby of the mines. This made ruby was called the “scientific ruby;” and indeed! it was scientific to such a degree of delusion that the best experts were for long deceived and rubies which cost no more than two hundred dollars to make, were sold for ten thousand dollars. As a curious discovery of my ramblings, I stumbled on a diamond, the one only of its brood. It was small, no more than three-quarters of a carat. But of a color pure orange and--by day or by night--blazing like a spark of fire. That stone if lost could be found; it is the one lone member of its orange house. What was its fate? Set in the open mouth of a little lion’s head, one may now find it on the finger of a prince of the Bourse. It was while in Madrid, during my European hunting, that those seeds were sown which a few months later grew into a smart willingness to let down the bars for my filibusterer’s escape. I was by stress of duty held a month in Madrid. And, first to last, I heard nothing from the natives when they spoke of America but malediction and vilest epithet. It kept me something warm, I promise, for all I had once ridden saber in hand to smite that same American government hip and thigh. I left Madrid when my work was done with never a moment’s delay; and I carried away a profound hate for Spain and all things Spanish.