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Rh mind refused to follow this swift feminine leap at conclusions. She didn't wait for him, but ran on far ahead.

"You lived in that house!" she cried to the stranger. "You knew the charts. You told me 'five paces north.' Why did you do that?"

He shook his head.

"You are wrong. As I told you yesterday, I am just a rover—who happened here. As for the legends, they are known to all who have sailed these seas. The gold would have been found before, perhaps, by someone with the chart, for it was floating around the world for many, many years. That is, they would have found it, if they had had the wit to read the chart as you had, and if they had not feared the place. It is dreaded by every man, white and black, in the Caribbees. Even the owners fled long ago. Shipwreck and fever, murder and earthquake, and visits from the unseen powers—a long chain of disasters—have linked this island-paradise to the Devil himself.

"And yet it is so lovely." He sighed as his glance ranged from the serene blue mountain down over the exquisite shadings of the green terraces, to the coral strip bordered by the white wreaths of foam, now receding as if in fear, and again rushing on as if they could not resist the allure of its beauty.

"If I had come first," the musical voice went on, dreamily now, as if he himself had fallen for a moment under the spell, "I might have found the gold. But you came first. It is rightfully yours, your wedding-gift from Heaven, Mademoiselle, even though planted by wicked old pirates. And it is not half rich enough for so sweet and lovely a bride."