As he picked the thing up I saw that it was a little iron safe about ten inches square--everybody knows the kind. Although small, it was heavy and quite complete, possessing a combination lock of no small merit. In the captain's quarters that Tommy and I now used as a dressing room I had noticed a safe similar to this, and asked if it were the same, whereupon he laughed, saying: "Yes. Gates keeps his pipes in it, but I got him to flip the combination on 'em for to-night. Well, here goes!" And a few minutes later as he descended the stairs, I, with repressed excitement, stepped back to the cockpit, taking a chair where I could see without being seen. The dinner had scarcely begun when Monsieur, looking about, asked: "Where's my boy Jack?" "Where's Jack?" Tommy repeated, in a voice unnecessarily loud, I thought. "Didn't you know about Jack? Why, he's in bad shape--maybe die, for all I know!" I must say that the professor looked genuinely concerned, and would have left at once to doctor me had not Tommy sternly interposed. Across the carpeted floor of the dim passageway that led past the staterooms I now saw a thin streak of light, as if some one had quietly opened a door an inch or so. Since this happened to come from Doloria's room, I suspected the Indian woman of listening. "Don't you go near him or he'll jump overboard, I tell you," Tommy was saying. "He wouldn't let you, and you couldn't help him, anyhow; no one can, poor old Jack! When the Princess stopped speaking to him, and he saw the game was up,--well, his heart kind of broke!" "_Pardieu_, I am sorry--I am sorry," the professor shook his head. "Don't let's talk about it," Tommy replied, as dolefully as the loud tone would permit. "I can't look at his suffering--really I can't! It almost kills me! And there's no remedy, now!" And, when finally the conversation had been diverted to other channels, the streak of light disappeared. Sometime later Tommy, with, a fine show of indifference, said over his demitasse: "By the way, if we land to-morrow this is your last chance to open that treasure box." "Treasure box?" "Yes, the little safe I found tucked down in Efaw Kotee's trunk. Jack and I intended to tackle it to-night, but since he's knocked out I've lost interest." "I had not heard of this," the professor cried, his eyes sparkling with all manner of hope and enthusiasm. "Oh, you heard of it, but just forgot. Anyhow, here it is." He lifted it from the floor and placed it on the table. "You're welcome to its secrets; I'm satisfied to get home with a whole skin." Whereupon he reached for a recent Key West newspaper, tilted back his chair and settled down to read.