"Eight."

I doubted it.

"Nine."

I had made up my mind to save my life for Dolores.

"Hold," I said; "I will give it to you!"

He smiled.

"I think you are very sensible," he said; "anybody else but an Englishman would have given it up long ago, and then a great deal of trouble and several lives would have been saved."

I put my hand in my pocket despising myself the while for giving way, but still convinced that I should have been a fool to throw my life away under the circumstances.

"Perhaps you will tell me," I asked, as I drew the packet from my pocket, "how it is that you know I am here and that I have the packet with me?"

He laughed.