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Brazil,-if he returned there,-on board the schooner, and when he reached New York again. Very soon I had determined on my course of action. I would visit the schooner, tell the captain that I had come unexpectedly to the States, would make arrangements to ship some goods on his vessel and would go along as a passenger. The only trouble was that he might not be returning to Brazil for some time.

But I soon found my fears on that score were needless. The captain greeted me like an old friend, told me he was loading for a trip to Brazilevidently he had found it a profitable voyage-and would be very glad to have me go along as a passenger.

Then, as I was leaving the schooner with all arrangements made, I almost bumped into the dark man. He scowled, gave me a searching look and hurried aboard. I was sure I had never seen the fellow before the day he had been seated beside the skipper in the park, and yet, somehow, his face and appearance seemed strangely familar. However, I soon dismissed him from my thoughts altogether, for he was of little consequence, merely the go-between for the captain and the pawnbroker probably, and had no hand in the actual smuggling of the stones from Brazil.

The schooner was to sail two days later, and I was on board in good season. Why I was taking

the trip, what I expected to discover by the long voyage, I really did not know. But I felt that there was a chance that if I became friendly enough with the captain and crew I might learn of something, might pick up some clue, and that by long association with the skipper I might find him off guard. Moreover, by shipping cargo and going as a passenger on the schooner, I would be in a position to remain aboard when the vessel reached Brazil, or at least to come and go as often as I pleased, without arousing suspicion.

But we had scarcely passed Quarantine when I had a surprise.

"Got another passenger erlong, this vyu'ge," remarked the skipper, as he expectorated over the lee rail. "Some sort o' a South Amerikin, I reckon. Goin' erlong fer his health, so he says. Guess ye'll be a mite pleased fer to hear it-wont be so consarned lonesome fer ye."

Instantly I suspected the truth, and when, a little later, my fellow passenger put in an appearance, I was not at all surprised to find him the dark fellow of the diamonds.

He introduced himself as Senhor Barhona, a Portuguese merchant of Madeira, and seemed genuinely pleased to have a fellow traveler. He was an educated, pleasant and agreeable chap; spoke English, Portuguese and Spanish fluently, and had evidently traveled a great deal. He had not, however,

so he said, ever visited Brazil, and he plied me with questions about the country. But very soon I was convinced that he was an accomplished liar. There were many little things he said, chance remarks and slips of the tongue, that led me to think he not only had visited Brazil before but had resided in the Empire for a considerable time. Indeed, I became more and more certain, as the days passed, that Barhona was a Brazilian. And also, I could not get over the idea that we had met before and under very trying or at least dramatic conditions. Gradually, however, I managed to rid myself of this foolish obsession, deciding that it must be some remote resemblance of the fellow to some one else.

Nothing occurred on the long but uneventful voyage to give the least inkling of what I most wished to know, and neither the skipper nor Barhona gave the slightest sign that they had ever met before the Portuguese had boarded the schoon'er for the voyage. Indeed, had I not actually seen the little transaction in the park, I could have sworn that they had been utter strangers up to the moment of setting sail from New York. So perfect was their acting that I had almost begun to think that I had been mistaken, and to doubt the evidence of my own senses.

Thus matters stood when we reached Brazil. Of course my men had already received their in

structions:-orders to board the schooner as soon as she arrived, to shadow each and every person who left her or came aboard, and, above everything, not to recognize me or act in any way differently than if I were an ordinary citizen. It was late in the afternoon when we passed quarantine and drew alongside the dock, and I noted with gratification that my men were on hand. Two boarded the schooner, two more were on the dock, and when, a little later, Barhona went ashore, I saw a ragged, slouching fellow, who appeared to be a beggar, rise from a pile of bales and follow after. And best of all, my men treated me like an utter stranger; searching my luggage as thoroughly as one could wish and examining my papers even more carefully than those of my fellow voyager.

Leaving some of my belongings in the cabin as an excuse for returning on board, and explaining that I would come for them the following day, I went ashore, quite secure in the thought that goatbeard and his crew, as well as friend Barhona, were under constant observation and could not possibly purchase a stone or take one aboard without knowledge of the transaction reaching my ears. Two days passed; the schooner's cargo was being discharged, I had taken the last of my things ashore, and nothing had been accomplished. The crew mostly remained aboard the schooner; the skipper made regular trips up town on business,

and Barhona had remained in his hotel and had not returned to the AMANDA and MARY since her arrival.

As usual, the rigging and sails were being repaired and the vessel painted, and in compliance with my orders, every package, box, or bundle, every case of supplies, in fact everything that was sent aboard, was searched. There had been no opportunity for Barhona and the skipper to meet without being watched; no opportunity for either to buy illicit stones; no chance to get diamonds aboard the schooner and no place in which they could have been concealed without being detected. I began to think that I was wrong after all, or that the skipper had decided to abandon his smuggling game, and my chief was beginning to get impatient.

At last the time drew near for the AMANDA and MARY to sail, and completely at a loss, feeling myself baffled, I decided to go north on her. I was certain no smuggled stones were on board, and yet it was my only chance. If, after I reached New York, I found her skipper had smuggled stones again, I would confer with the American officials, would see that he was prosecuted, and would at least put an end to his smuggling, even if the mystery of how it was done was never solved.

With this idea in view I boarded the schooner the evening before she was to sail. But the skipper, I found, was ashore, and cautioning my men and

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