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laughter. This hidden ridicule was terrifying to Henry Morgan. His hates began to raise their heads; hatreds not for Ysobel, but for his own men who would laugh at him; for the people of Tortuga who would tell the story in the taverns; for the whole Indian Coast.

Now from the little prison across the garden came a shrill voice praying to the Virgin. The penetrating sound charged the whole Palace with a fervent cacophony. Henry Morgan listened with shame-sharpened ears for mockery in the words or in the tone, but there was no mockery. Over and over, a shrill Ave Maria; the tone of a fearful, pleading sinner—Ora pro nobis. A shattered world, and the black skeleton of a golden city—Ora pro nobis. No mockery at all, but brokenhearted repentance reading its poor testimony on the dropping beads. A shrill woman's voice, piercing, insistent—it seemed to be digging at a tremendous, hopeless sin. She had said it was the sin of truthfulness. “I have been honest in my being, and that is a black lie on the soul. Forgive my body its humanity. Forgive my mind which knows its limitations. Pardon my soul for being anchored this little time to both. Ora pro nobis.”

The mad, endless rosary cankered in Henry's brain. At last he seized his rapier and his hat and ran from the hall into the street. Behind him the treasure lay smiling under the slanting sun.

The streets about the Governor's Palace had not been touched by the fire. Captain Morgan walked along the paved way until he came to the ways of