“Likely at the best hotel in Nashville. Inquire at the Arcadia saloon, or the Crackerjack. If they’re not in Nashville you can find out where they’re gone, and follow them up. Their names—better note them down: John Henninger (he’s an Englishman), C. W. Hawke, Will Sullivan. Hand me that writing-tablet.
“What’s your first name?” continued Bennett, and he scrawled painfully with his left hand:
“Introducing Mr. Wingate Elliott. He’s all right.
L. R. Bennett.”
“There’s a package of evidence under my pillow,” continued the wounded adventurer. “Pull it out.”
Elliott extracted a crumpled envelope, bulging with a small, hard lump. This proved to be something wrapped in many folds of soft tissue-paper, and when unrolled Elliott saw a bright, pyramid-shaped bit of yellow metal, about the size of a beechnut.
Elliott walked away from the hospital feeling a little giddy and light-headed at the sudden prospect of fortune. The enterprise was a legitimate one. The gold had belonged to the Transvaal Government, and that government was no longer in existence. Who was its owner? Was it Great Britain? But Elliott was a Democrat and a strong supporter of the independence of the South African Republics, and he could not acknowledge any claim of the Crown. At any rate, the finders of the treasure-ship would be entitled to a heavy salvage.
But at the memory of Margaret he stopped short on the street in perplexity. What would she say? This was the very sort of adventure that he had promised to avoid. If she were there; if she knew all, and if she told him to drop it, he felt a conviction that he would drop it without hesitation. But yet—he walked on again—this was a legitimate salving enterprise, and he had never met one which offered so fair rewards.
The gold was really no man’s. No one knew where it was; and with a chilling shock he recollected that he did not himself know where it was. But no matter; it could surely be located; and in default of any better method, they could visit every island in the Mozambique Channel till they found the bones of the unlucky Clara McClay.
So he wrote to Margaret that night, saying that he was going to Nashville, on the prospect of a legitimate—he underlined legitimate; the word pleased him—enterprise which promised money.
Naturally he said nothing about his finances; he promised to write again as soon as anything definite had happened, and hinted that he might meet her at the depot when she arrived in Baltimore. When the letter was posted he felt more at ease with himself. Almost penniless as he was, his imagination already rioted among millions, and with the yellow gleam flickering before his eyes he prepared to beat his way to Nashville.