"This treasure was sent, in time of war, by the enemies of England, for the purpose of her undoing--that is her undoing from the point of view of the established government of the time. It was in itself an act of war. The very documents that could, or can, prove the original ownership, would serve to prove the hostile intent of such owners in sending it. Remember, that it came in a warship, one of the great Armada built and brought together to attack this country. The owner of the treasure, the Pope, gave it in trust for the _cestui que trust_, the King of Spain to your ancestor Bernardino de Escoban, as hereditary trustee. Your ancestor himself had the battleship _San Cristobal_ built at his own cost for the King's service in the war against England. You see, they were all--the individual as well as the nation--hostile to England; and the intention of evil towards that country, what British law calls 'malice prepense' or the '_mens rea_' was manifest in all!" The Spaniard watched me intently; I could see by the darkening of his swarthy face and the agonised contraction of his brows that the argument was striking home to his very heart. The man was so distressed that, enemy as I felt him to be, it was with a pang that I went on: "It remains to be seen what view the British law would take of your action, or what is the same, that of your predecessor in the trust, in hiding the treasure in the domains of Britain. As a foreigner you would not have, I take it, a right in any case. And certainly, as a foreigner in arms against this country, you would have--could have--no right in either domestic or international law. The right was forfeit on landing from your warship in time of war on British shores!" There was a long pause. Now that I came to piece out into an argument the scattered fragments of such legal matters as I had been able to learn, and my own ideas on the subject, the resulting argument was stronger than I had at first imagined. A whole host of collateral matters also cropped up. As I was expounding the law, as I saw it, the subject took me away with it: "This question would then naturally arise: if the forfeiture of the rights of the original owner would confer a right upon the Crown of Britain, standing as it does in such a matter as the 'remainder man.' Also whether the forfeited treasure having been hidden, being what the law calls '_bona vacantia_,' can be acquired by the finder, subject to the law relating to the Royal prerogative. In both the above cases there would arise points of law. In either, for instance, the nature of the treasure might limit the Crown claim as over against an individual claiming rights as finder." "How so?" asked Don Bernardino. He was recovering his _sang froid_, and manifestly was wishful to reassert himself.