Off I started, and measured my length twice in the first fifty yards. The ground was awfully uneven, and the palmetto scrub so thick that one could not see where to tread. The trio ahead were close upon their boat, and it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I should be too late. But a fresh crashing amongst the spiky shrubs behind made me turn my head, and I saw the absurd figure of the old man charging down on a mule that he had cut adrift. He passed me like a flash, his face glowering like a fiend's, and he reached the shingle just as the dinghy had got two boat-lengths away. The passengers were encouraging the two sailors at the oars to every exertion; but Taltavull pulled up as his mule's feet splashed in the water, and whipping out a blue revolver covered the two rowers and sharply bade them stop. They easied in the middle of a stroke, and raised their oar-blades, glistening and dripping. "And now, Senor Pether, I hold you covered. I am a dead shot, and if you carry the Recipe a yard farther away you bring your fate upon your own head. I, Taltavull, swear it." I saw Mrs. Cromwell lean over and cover the blind man's body with her own. Sadi also made a movement, apparently for the same purpose. But Pether waved them both back. He slipped a hand into his breast-pocket, and brought out the little mahogany case. "Here it is, Senor Taltavull. You'll share the contents with your two friends?" "Yes," exclaimed the old man, stretching out his bony hands; "I have promised." "Then there you are, Senor Taltavull," said the other quietly. He deliberately drew back the shutter, exposed the yellowy-green film to the full sun-glare, and flung it from him with a sideways jerk. It flew circling to the anarchist's feet; and for a moment we were all so paralyzed with the action that no one spoke or moved. Sooner than share or surrender, the man had deliberately destroyed the Recipe for good and all. The anarchist was first to act. Slowly I saw him raise his weapon, and as if fascinated I could not move to interrupt him. With a leathery grin of cruelty he had brought it to bear, and in another moment there would have been murder done. But at that instant a flash of something brown shot by, and Taltavull and his mount were bowled over amongst the palmettos. A cavalry reinforcement had arrived. Haigh had cut loose another of the mules, and had deliberately ridden the old man down. "It's an old polo trick," said he, with a pleased grin. "Useful when a man persistently crosses you; quite simple when you know it.--Good-afternoon, Mrs. Cromwell.--Afternoon, Juggins, dear boy. Let me congratulate you on drawing this game. I thought we were going to gather in the beans.--Eh, what's that?" Taltavull was sitting up amongst the scrubs, and was shaking a trembling fist at the boat and snarling out the word "iconoclast."