“But why? Why?” exclaimed Byrne. “Why should she wish for my death?”
“No doubt for the sake of your excellency’s coat buttons,” said politely the saturnine Gonzales. “We found those of the dead mariner concealed on her person. But your excellency may rest assured that everything that is fitting has been done on this occasion.”
Byrne asked no more questions. There was still another death which was considered by Gonzales as “fitting to the occasion.” The one-eyed Bernardino stuck against the wall of his wine-shop received the charge of six escopettas into his breast. As the shots rang out the rough bier with Tom’s body on it went past carried by a bandit-like gang of Spanish patriots down the ravine to the shore, where two boats from the ship were waiting for what was left on earth of her best seaman.
Mr. Byrne, very pale and weak, stepped into the boat which carried the body of his humble friend. For it was decided that Tom Corbin should rest far out in the bay of Biscay. The officer took the tiller and, turning his head for the last look at the shore, saw on the grey hillside something moving, which he made out to be a little man in a yellow hat mounted on a mule—that mule without which the fate of Tom Corbin would have remained mysterious for ever.
June, 1913.
BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS
CHAPTER I
While we were hanging about near the water’s edge, as sailors idling ashore will do (it was in the open space before the Harbour Office of a great Eastern port), a man came towards us from the “front” of business houses, aiming obliquely at the landing steps. He attracted my attention because in the movement of figures in white drill suits on the pavement from which he stepped, his costume, the usual tunic and trousers, being made of light grey flannel, made him noticeable.
I had time to observe him. He was stout, but he was not grotesque. His face was round and smooth, his complexion very fair. On his nearer approach I saw a little moustache made all the fairer by a good many white hairs. And he had, for a stout man, quite a good chin. In passing us he exchanged nods with the friend I was with and smiled.
My friend was Hollis, the fellow who had so many adventures and had known so many queer people in that part of the (more or less) gorgeous East in the days of his youth. He said: “That’s a good man. I don’t mean good in the sense of smart or skilful in his trade. I mean a really good man.”