On the following morning, as, a few minutes after nine, the southbound train from Naples to Tarento drew out of the station, Taberman, winking a little at the sudden glare of the sun, began to look about him. The morning promised a hot day, and his comfort in traveling was likely to be lessened by the fact that in the second-class compartment with him were five Italians. They had already settled themselves back against the cushions, turning upward sunburnt, perspiring faces, and allowing themselves to be jolted by the train like so many dead-weights. Their ugly straw hats, high-crowned and narrow-brimmed, were set on their knees or wedged beside them on the seat; two of the travelers had gay bandannas tucked into their collars about their throats. One man—a pursy old codger in the corner—had lighted, after a mumbled "con permesso," a long Virginia, which filled the compartment with a thin blue haze and an acrid smell as of burning leather.

The train rumbled along over a dubious roadbed, flanked by its cinder-strewn berms; and Tab, looking through the window on his right, recognized the line as that by which he had gone to Pompeii. At times the train went close to where the curling ripples of the sapphirine bay were breaking gently on the shore; sometimes it ran through small hamlets, and again passed country places where the busy peasants were at work in the rich vineyards, the orchards, or the tilled fields.

At the end of half an hour, they stopped at Pompeii for a moment, and Jerry, through the opposite window, recognized the station and the paltry inn beyond. As the train drew out again, he caught brief glimpses of the ancient city, dull red-brown walls among the silver-gray of the olive-trees.

The train sped on southward. It dipped into little vales, and wound its way up and into the hills that ring themselves around the plain of PÆstum. In an hour's time they pulled up at a small town on the left of the track. Jerry made out the name of the station, enameled in big white letters on a blue field, Battapaglia. The guard came by, unlocking the compartment doors, and as the men in his compartment got out and left their luggage behind them, Jerry concluded that here was to be a wait of some minutes. He therefore followed the example of his fellow travelers, and stepped down upon the sunny platform. It was very hot. Tab mopped his face with his handkerchief and turned down the brim of his Panama all around.

"Graniti, signor? Citron? Orang'?"

A small boy had singled him out, probably because he was the only forestiere on the platform, and was offering him syrupy drinks cooled with cracked ice. For a soldo Tab secured a glass of sherbet, fruit-juice and water half frozen and very delicious. It was so refreshing that he bestowed an extra soldo on the vender in sheer gratitude. The lad rewarded him with a curt "grazie," and a look half grateful and half suspicious, and then hastened on to urge his wares on other travelers. Jerry looked after him in amusement at the fringe made by the tatters of his trousers, and in lazy admiration of the sinewy brown arms left bare by the sleeveless cotton shirt and of the jaunty poise of the curly head.

The train still waited.

Jerry lighted a cigarette and got into the shadow of the cars. Presently a big express came thundering out of the pass in the hills with a roar, and rushed away to southward on the main track.

"Pronto! Partenza! Partenza!" cried the guard, with a blast of his horn.

The road was again clear, the express-mail having passed. The passengers clambered aboard, and settled themselves in their former places. The old man with the Virginia had purchased a copy of "Il Papagallo," though it was a mystery how he could have got hold of it in such a place. He clucked oilily as he read, occasionally calling the attention of his nearest neighbor to some gaudy cartoon or some political pasquinade. Jerry speculated in regard to what it might all be about, and was filled with that vague sense of baffled irritation which comes from seeing others enjoying jokes in a language one cannot understand.

Mile after mile of level track, flanked by the interminable cinder-covered berms. Once in a while the level was broken by clumps of dusty cactus, ugly and forbiddingly aggressive in the sun. To the right, beyond a flat, gorse-grown waste, relieved only by an occasional palm or oleaster, Tab could discern the blue shimmer of the sea. To the left, he could see only the same dull plain, bounded by bluish hills, which rose about it like the seats of some titanic amphitheatre. Now and again two or three buffaloes, their black hides caked with patches of yellow mud, lay in their wallows or stood contemptuously indifferent to the noisy train, which beside them seemed so impertinently modern.

At last the train, with a screaming of gritty brakes on the wheels, and the inevitable clanking and banging of cars and couplings, drew up beside a tiny station on the right of the track.

"Pesto! Pesto!"

The guard unlocked the compartment door, and Jerry stepped out. The station was smaller than any they had passed, and Tab smilingly reflected that the lodge at the entrance of his father's place at Dedham was bigger. He was the only passenger to alight, and no sooner was he out than the guard, like an overgrown mechanical toy, called out his "Pronto! Partenza!" blew his toy horn, and swung himself aboard again. The long train, with bitter metallic complaint at being obliged to go farther, drew past the little station, and rolled away toward a gap in the southern hills, far beyond which lies Tarento.

Taberman turned to the station master, a discouraged-looking individual who stood on the platform with his truncheon tucked under his arm, examining a batch of dispatches as if this were the first time such papers had ever come under his notice. Jerry's Italian vocabulary was limited to some score of words, with a few expressions, such as dolce far niente and the like, more ornamental than useful. As, however, he could perceive no sign of any temples,—or town either, for the matter of that,—he determined to question the capo.

"Bonn giorno," he began with a painful sense of effort, but with a mild self-congratulatory thrill at having said something in Italian.

"Buon' giorno," responded the station master, turning a pair of dull eyes and an emaciated face from the dispatches to Taberman.

Jerry spoke French moderately well, and resolved to address the official in that tongue, in the hope that the Italian might understand.

"Peut-Être vous parlez FranÇais?" he began.

"Cosa?" asked the Italian, obviously puzzled, as he stepped out of the sun into the shadow of the little station.

"What?" demanded Jerry in English, and with much the same puzzled air.

"Non capisco," said the man, with a sort of dull finality.

Conversation languished. Jerry felt himself pretty well baffled, yet he had no choice but to go on with the unpromising attempt to elicit information here, as no other human being was in sight. He considered a moment, and then in an explosive tone, demanded:—

"Templi?"

"Bruto Inglise!" murmured the capo under his breath. "Che volete?" he added aloud.

"What?" asked Jerry, again scared over the dubious boundary of his Italian into English.

"Non capisco," repeated the Italian morosely, wetting his dingy forefinger, and going over his papers for at least the third time.

"Damn it!" cried Jerry, in complete exasperation, "if you say that again I'll punch your head!"

The other started back in such obvious terror that Tab hastened to propitiate him by putting on quickly his most ingratiating smile, and nodding as if he had made a merry joke. The other seemed reassured, although he edged away a little, as if he were doubtful of the sanity of this foreign brute; and Tab fell again to the effort to rally all the words in his Italian vocabulary about one idea.

"Dove," he began in one grand final attempt to wring information out of this sullen and taciturn official, "dove"— He was so pleased with himself for having remembered the word that he came near forgetting all the rest, but with a desperate rally, he went blundering on. "Dove, I say, is—is—la via per i templi?"

The capo looked at him, apparently in mingled curiosity and disgust. Then he beckoned him to the edge of the platform on the other side of the station, whence stretched westward a ribbon of dust-heaped road.

"Ecco-la" he ejaculated, waving his truncheon vaguely toward the distance.

"Ah," said Jerry, "grazie."

As the capo responded to this speech not at all, Tab set out on the dusty road without more ado. The way was inches deep in loose, gray dust, and spiny cacti bristled on either hand. Jerry had not gone far before, turning a bend, he saw at no great distance ahead of him an arched gateway through which the road passed. The arch, broken and crumbled, was set in a ruined wall, which trailed away on either hand, now rising to the height of something like a dozen feet, now razed to the very ground.

"That's a forlorn-looking piece o' work," commented Tab aloud.

Had Jerry been blessed with the education of his forefathers, instead of having brought out of school and college a hodgepodge smattering of physics and economics, he might have known and reflected that the wall he thus carelessly characterized had been standing some two thousand years, and gloriously attested the puissance of old Rome. With no such thought, however, he passed beneath the crumbling gateway and continued his march. At some distance ahead he now perceived signs of life in the shape of a few dwellings.

As he looked at them he became aware of two horsemen, who were cantering toward him on the crest of the little slope made by the road just inside the old gateway. Their horses' hoofs stirred up light clouds of yellow dust. Even at first glance the riders showed themselves to be ruggedly dressed, and with something of a thrill Jerry noticed instantly that slung across their shoulders they carried carbines. Wild tales of brigands flashed confusedly through his brain, and especially a tale the Neapolitan guide had related of the capture and murder at this very place of an English gentleman and his wife. The guide had said that that was sixteen years ago, but the place seemed so lonely, so remote, Tab's ideas of rural Italy were so vague, the effect of the landscape and of these wild figures was so startling as, riding toward him, they stood out against the sky, that it was no wonder Jerry involuntarily cast a quick glance around to note the lay of the land and to see if any possible help were in sight in case of need.

The horsemen rode down to him on a lazy lope. They were big, bronzed fellows, smoking cigarettes, and riding with their feet out of the stirrups. They nodded to him pleasantly and smiled, showing large white teeth. They had about them, these big fellows, a look so engaging that Tab was won at once, and the vague mist of his suspicions vanished like smoke in air. He grinned to himself at the idea of brigands.

"Dove templi?" he asked, returning their salutation.

The big men smiled more broadly, and one of them replied in French.

"Vous ne parlez pas beaucoup d'italien?" he asked in a pleasant voice.

"Ne pas de tout!" responded Jerry heartily, with a laugh.

Having found some one with whom he could talk, he at once began a lively conversation. He found the two men to be the custodians appointed by the government to look after the temples and to collect the fees of travelers. They explained that at this season it was extremely rare for a visitor to appear, and that they were therefore not particular about being exactly at their posts. They had heard some rumor of the discovery of antiques by peasants, and were setting out to investigate. They explained, however, that the chances of finding out anything were very small; the peasants all held together, and would all lie for one another. Jerry inferred, moreover, that they were by no means anxious to make discoveries. It was part of their duty to investigate such a rumor, for the government claimed the right to have a hand in the disposal of any treasure-trove; but the custodians seemed to have a good deal of sympathy with the wretched peasants, who tried to conceal anything they might find, in order to sell it for a fraction of its value to any stray forestiere who might appear. Now that a visitor had come, one of the men went alone on this errand, and the custode who spoke French returned toward the temples, which were near at hand, that he might formally take Tab's lira at the gate.

The Italian walked his horse beside Taberman past the two or three ruinous and apparently deserted houses, and in a few minutes the pair came to where their road ended in a broad turnpike which ran at right angles to it. On the other side of this turnpike, a little distance to his left, Jerry saw the ruins of a couple of temples, and beyond them the sea. His guide disregarded them, and led him to the right hand, where, a hundred yards or so along the highway, they came to a square two-story building of gray rubble. On its dingy front was painted in black letters the word "Osteria."

"V'lÀ l'auberge," announced the jovial custodian. "If Michu is fatigued, he can get eggs and polenta within. The wine is rough, but not so bad as the water. This way, Michu."

And leaving his horse to crop the rank grass by the doorway, he strode into the building, Tab following.

The inn was a poor place, even for southern Italy. The floor was of trampled clay; the walls were unfinished within as without, but like the ceiling, from which hung bunches of garlic and black and dusty herbs, they were garnished with abundant cobwebs and a generous coating of soot and dirt. At the back of the room was a counter, above which a grimy sign announced the right of the proprietor to sell salt and tobacco. In the left-hand corner of the back of the place was one of the altar-like ranges of Italy, upon which glowed a minute heap of charcoal. Tab smiled to find himself recognizing its use from its resemblance to the cooking-places he had seen in the ruins of Pompeii, and reflected, with the superiority of a youth born in a young land, upon the conservatism which keeps its kitchen arrangements practically the same as they were two thousand years ago. The room was lighted simply by the door through which the visitors had entered. Another doorway at the left simply yawned blackly like the mouth of a cavern. The furniture consisted of a small square table and three stools. Over the entire place was spread an appearance of squalor and neglect, depressing, but in key with the air of poverty and of deadness which had been more evident to Tab with every step he had taken in PÆstum.

The room was empty when they entered it, but after the custode had bellowed lustily once or twice for "Angelo," the innkeeper appeared suddenly. He was a little man doubled up as if with rheumatism, and with a face as yellow as a dried lemon. On seeing Taberman he croaked something to the custode, and bowed to his guest again and again, rubbing his hands and all but losing his crooked balance with each genuflection.

With the air of an archduke ordering a banquet for his retainers, Jerry's companion gave some rapid instructions to the innkeeper, told the Michu to make the place his own, and then departed to attend to his horse and other trifles, saying that he would be back in half an hour.

Tab seated himself on a stool to await his luncheon. His host puttered about the altar, occasionally mumbling to himself, like the devotee of some Stygian power making sacrifice. Jerry was watching him with amusement, and wondering what would be the outcome of his incantations in the way of food, when on a sudden the doorway was darkened, and a man entered the room. At a glance Jerry saw that the newcomer was, like himself, a traveler. The stranger was of medium height, rather inclined, hardly to stoutness, but certainly to plumpness; he was well proportioned, with broad shoulders, but had a carriage curiously shuffling and insignificant. He held a stiff-brimmed straw hat in his hand, and Tab could see, where the outer light fell upon his crown, that his hair was slightly touched with gray. His face, Jerry decided, would have been handsome, had it not been marred by two deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, which gave an appearance of sinister suspicion not without a hint of selfish cruelty. Except for a very silky mustache, he was clean-shaven.

The traveler threw Taberman a quick, almost furtive glance, and then, turning to the innkeeper, addressed that individual sharply in Italian. The crooked host bowed furiously, made apologetic and deprecatory gestures with the rapidity of a mountebank, skipped about in feverish excitement, and jerked his head more and more frantically. The gentleman—for he seemed one—continued his objurgations unappeased by all these demonstrations, and ended by swearing roundly in English.

"Oh!" exclaimed Taberman involuntarily.

The stranger turned to him.

"I beg your pardon," he said in a curious sing-song voice with a markedly rising inflection, "but this brute has not prepared my luncheon. Do you mind sharing the table with me?"

"Not the least in the world," replied Jerry. "I'm sure it will give me great pleasure."

"Good," said the stranger. "I see you are an American," he flung out as an addition.

"I am," returned Taberman, feeling a simple pride in the fact.

"Thank God I'm not," remarked the stranger. His voice showed no trace of truculence; it was murmured as if to himself. Before Jerry had time to explode the gentleman continued: "I'm English. What does that mean? Celt, Angle, Saxon, and ages of tradition—ages of it. By the bye, you mustn't mind the things I say, you know; your pernicious self-respect would force you to resent them if you did. May I ask your name?"

"My name is Taberman," Jerry replied, struggling with a mingling of indignation, amazement, and amusement, "Jerrold Taberman. I live in Boston."

"Dedham rather," returned the other easily. "I knew a Taberman when I was in college. Curious chap. I— My name's Wrenmarsh, Gordon Wrenmarsh. Fact is, I was an American, but I couldn't stand the place. Bostonians have good manners; but New York is a vile spot. So is Boston; that is— Well, perhaps you see the difference."

The tricks this extraordinary man played with his voice were astonishing, and as he went on talking he quite dizzied Tab by the cryptic, baffling nature of his nervous speeches. He had, too, a curious and disconcerting habit of displaying great emotional intensity—opening his eyes to their greatest extent and distending his nostrils—in dealing with trifles of the slightest consequence; while whenever, as happened once or twice in the course of the luncheon, they touched even remotely on subjects of really vital importance, the extraordinary Mr. Wrenmarsh fairly oozed indifference. His conduct was so thoroughly strange that once or twice Jerry felt a puzzled doubt whether the man were entirely sane.

"I'll tell you," said Mr. Wrenmarsh, when their slight repast was over, "we'll do the temples together. I've been camping in this abominable hole of an osteria for over a week, so that I know them pretty well. One of them is in my period, moreover."

Jerry looked at him as if to ask if the stranger claimed to be a contemporary of the ruins.

"Your period?" he echoed confusedly.

"Yes; you see, I'm an archÆologist—collector, in fact. Hello; here's the custode."

The custodian entered as Mr. Wrenmarsh spoke, and Taberman had somehow the idea that the look he gave the Englishman was not very friendly.

"Ah, Michu, have you found a friend?" he asked in his queer French.

"I don't know," Jerry returned, with a half laugh.

"Well," responded the Italian, "if Michu is ready to see the temples, I am waiting."

"Bien," responded Jerry; and then turning to the archÆologist, he asked, "Are you coming?"

"Of course," the Englishman answered. "Never mind this custode; he's only an ignorant pig."

Jerry secretly felt that, ignorant or not, the big Italian, with his merry face and open smile, would be a much more companionable guide than the eccentric collector; but without comment he paid the reckoning, and they set out. They went down the road to a gate, paid a lira each to the custode, and entered upon a field of ploughed land, planted with maize. The Italian, who had more and more the air of not liking the Englishman, made some remarks to the effect that Michu l'Anglaise was a very learned man, and one much better fitted to explain the marvels of ancient architecture than he, a plain man who had had to pick up his education in the army. On these grounds he excused himself and went into a little lodge, while the others walked on to the temples which stood before them, ideal in their beauty.

The two pushed their way across the field and entered the nearest temple. Jerry's was not an impressionable nature, and in one way to him these august colonnades meant little; yet despite a certain sophomoric exuberance which he had never outgrown, his nature was fundamentally too refined to fail to respond to the silent grandeur of this solemn harmony in stone. The roofless enclosure, after all the indignities a score of centuries had been able to inflict upon it, possessed still a nobility and a beauty which seemed almost personal and conscious. One feels in seeing the ruins at PÆstum as if a certain inherent and indestructible loveliness would pervade the very stones were they thrown down to the last one; and while the columns stand, the place is one to make the visitor catch his breath with admiration and almost with awe. Taberman did not analyze, and indeed he was instinctively so occupied in concealing from his companion how profoundly he was impressed as to have little attention left for introspection; but he was more deeply stirred than he could have conceived possible.

He walked about with Mr. Wrenmarsh, who talked along in his curious voice, expatiating upon styles and orders, influence and epochs, with all sorts of things of which Jerry understood at best not more than a quarter; until at last, instead of going on to the neighboring temple, the strangely assorted pair sat down on the western steps of the ruin through which they had come. Taberman looked away westward, where the rim of the sea shone like a fillet of molten silver. For some time neither spoke; but at length Mr. Wrenmarsh broke in upon Tab's train of thought with a question.

"Are you traveling alone?" he asked quite suddenly.

Taberman explained that he had come over from America in a yacht. It is to be feared that it was vanity which led him to make the unlucky addition that he was in command of her until his friend should rejoin him at Naples.

"Ah," commented the archÆologist, with a new appearance of interest; "you're cruising."

"Yes," said Jerry.

The spell of the temple was upon him, and he had no inclination to talk. He was conscious of a half-defined desire to have this stranger take himself off, and not bother him further with questions.

"And what do you suppose I am doing here?" queried the collector in a tone of almost fierce intensity.

"Why," Jerry responded rather absently, "I supposed you were studying or something."

"Why, yes, to be sure I am; haven't I told the custode so?" chuckled Mr. Wrenmarsh. His laughter was as extraordinary as his speech and manner. He would double up as if with a sort of a spasm and snigger gastrically. "But that's not all," he went on, as Jerry turned to look at him questioningly; "that's not all. I'm doing something else. I'm waiting."

"What for?" asked Taberman, seeing that he was expected to speak.

"Help," replied Wrenmarsh laconically.

"Help?" repeated Jerry blankly.

"Yes, help; waiting. Collecting is nothing but waiting anyway,—waiting for news, waiting for funds, waiting for auctions, waiting for old countesses to die, waiting for some fool of a peasant to discover something; waiting, waiting, waiting all along the line. It's the man who waits with his ears and eyes open and his mouth shut that gets what he wants. He's the man."

"But—but what sort of help do you want now?" Tab inquired.

He was sympathetic by nature, and this extraordinary individual had aroused not only his curiosity, but in some mysterious manner stimulated him to a desire to be of service. He had come to PÆstum for amusement. He felt that in meeting the collector he had been amply repaid. The unwonted emotion which had been stirred by the temple melted in his boyish heart before the warmer human interest which the collector aroused, and it was perhaps with some unrealized relief at getting back to more familiar levels of feeling that he now began to enter into the affairs of his companion. It came over him that he was being appealed to, and he was ready to take the position that if any aid of his could bring relief to Mr. Wrenmarsh, that eccentric gentleman should no longer need to go on waiting for help.

"I'll tell you the whole business," said the archÆologist, in a sudden burst of frankness. "You look trustworthy. I've been here ten days—waiting. I've written, of course, for help; but it doesn't seem to come. Three weeks ago I was in Naples, and heard—no matter how—that somewhere down here a lot of good stuff had turned up. I kept coming down here daily until, by dint of discreet questions—discretion's the backbone of the game—I found out what had happened. A peasant here had been spading over some ground. One day the earth sunk suddenly under him, and down he went into a hole. He found, as soon as he could get his wits together, that he had broken through the roof of an ancient cella of some sort. He got out without much trouble, pulled himself together, and did what any peasant would know enough to do,—covered the place with brush and dirt so that no news of the thing should get to the custodi. Then he went on with his spading."

"Without investigating?" asked Jerry, full of interest.

Mr. Wrenmarsh looked at him curiously.

"Of course," he responded. "If he had let his curiosity get the better of him, or his tongue wag, he'd be a good deal poorer than he is at present. They are stupid louts, these peasants, but they do learn enough not to take the government into their confidence when they find anything. They know that they'd get nothing out of it if they did. Besides, they are as stolid as buffaloes. They can wait well enough."

"But what did he find?" demanded Taberman, his interest thoroughly aroused by this tale of treasure-trove, which appealed to every boyish and every adventurous fibre in him.

"He went by night with a lantern and a couple of panniers. He filled his baskets twice, filled them with priceless things in a perfect condition—beautiful kylixes and glass bowls. There's one that measures at least half a metre across the top. Think of that! Why, it's the finest glass I've ever seen or heard of! It's the finest glass there is!"

"Great Scott!" cried Jerry, alive with excitement. "It must be awfully old!"

"Old!" retorted Wrenmarsh with scorn; "do you know where you are?"

Jerry twisted his head to look up at the tall columns and broken pediment above him, on the pinkish-gray stones of which the afternoon sun fell with loving warmth.

"Yes, of course," he said. "But what did he do with the things?"

"I kept at him till I wormed the whole business out of him," the collector answered, "and I bought his things—damn him!"

He brought out the objurgation with amazing vigor; then stopped and stared gloomily before him.

"Well?" said Jerry. "What are you waiting for? More?"

"More!" exploded the collector, disgust and indignation in his face. "Man, I've got hold of a collection that is all but unique! More! Don't you see—I can't get away with it! Piece by piece I could run it out of the country, but I don't dare to leave anything behind me. If only my men were at hand—but they're not, they're not. One's off the track in the T road, and the other's in America."

He passed his hand before his eyes with a gesture so expressive that it was even more impassioned than his tone.

Taberman was moved, both by the enthusiasm of this man for his work and by the exciting romance of the finding of this treasure. He knew vaguely of the laws that forbade the taking of works of art out of Italy and Greece, but he had no conception that they were strictly enforced. It gave him a new sensation to be thus brought in contact with the actual working of a statute which was aimed to prevent a man from removing his own possessions from one country to another. He had been too well brought up under a high protective tariff to have any moral scruples about smuggling anything. A Mugwump atmosphere had acted upon the natural inclination of youth to defy authority, and had bred in Jerry the feeling that smuggling, however little its true nature was appreciated in high places, was really in its essence a maligned virtue. In the present instance, moreover, the boyish feeling that what one owns is his to do what he chooses with despite all fiats of principalities, potentates, and powers, helped to make the idea of this especial case of an attempt to defy the laws one of particular merit. He gave himself eagerly to considering how it could be done.

"Can't you take your traps to Naples, and ship 'em from there?" he at last demanded of the archÆologist.

"You don't understand, I'm afraid," replied the other. "My reputation in itself compels me to lie close. Besides that, there's the awkward problem of the octroi and the export examinations. I couldn't take the things into Naples without running into the one, or out of it without getting afoul of the other. They'd be no end sharp in examining anything I tried to pass. I'm hideously notorious in Italy." His pride in this last statement was entirely evident, but Jerry was impressed by the deeds of archÆological daring which were implied in such a reputation. "I simply can't get these things away without help," he continued. "I've written and telegraphed to every mortal I can count on,—there are only five or six of them,—and not one of them can help me out just now. Meanwhile I starve on eggs and polenta, under the suspicious eyes of the custodi—damn 'em! They'd have got me a week ago if they'd had any brains."

"Upon my word," cried Jerry, the idea suddenly striking him for the first time, "it's extraordinary you should tell me all this, and I a stranger."

"I count on your helping me," responded Mr. Wrenmarsh in keenly incisive tones.

"My helping you!" ejaculated Tab in amazement. "What in the world have I to do with the business?"

"You practically said so," returned the collector. "At least your face did." He looked at Jerry, and then turned away to the brown expanse of plain in a manner so stricken and so reproachful that Taberman could not help feeling convicted of consummate wickedness. "I counted on you," he added, in a tone of profoundest pathos.

Jerry was completely nonplussed. He felt that he was being played with; he was angrily conscious that the whole affair was no concern of his, and that he had no business to be dragged into it. Yet he felt no less but rather more keenly that he could not endure the imputation of having encouraged a man in difficulties with a hope of assistance and of having then refused to fulfill them. His youthful blood, moreover, was stirred by the flavor of adventure which came alluringly to his inner sense. For a moment there was a strained silence, and then it was broken by Tab.

"You've mistaken my interest for something else, I'm afraid," he said, trying to speak lightly, and feeling that he was making a mess of it. "It never even occurred to me that I could help you out of this blessed muss; and I don't see that there's anything I can do anyway, except to keep mum about it. Of course that I'd do anyway."

"No use," retorted the archÆologist. "If you can help me and won't, after my taking you into my confidence, you—you ruin me."

"Hmm," Jerry observed rather coldly, "that's too subtle for me. I fail to see it in that light. You're no worse off than you were before."

"I'm sure, Mr. Tableman"—

"Taberman," Jerry corrected.

"Pardon me, Mr. Taberman; but you don't see the catena logica by which I arrive at my conclusions!" Mr. Wrenmarsh, both in speech and gestures, was momentarily growing more and more theatrical. "Suppose you should, knowing my story and the law against taking works of art out of the country, tell my case to the police. What then?"

"It would be the trick of a blackguard, of course," Jerry replied promptly, "but"—

"Momento!" interrupted the other, holding up his hand. "Now suppose things to be as they are, and you learn that the custodi are on my track"—

"They've heard something of the find," interposed Jerry; "they told me that."

"There! You see!" Wrenmarsh said, with a gesture which seemed to appeal to all humanity to bear witness that in whatever he had said he had been completely right. "Suppose, now, that you have—with perfect security to yourself, mind—a chance to give me a friendly word of warning, and don't do it. What then?"

"Why," Tab answered, feeling every moment more and more as if he were being snarled up in a web, "it would be, in such a case as you suppose, a pretty shabby trick, of course. At the same time"—

"Wait a bit," cried Mr. Wrenmarsh, again interrupting him, and growing visibly more excited still; "wait a bit. I want you to consider the present case. You say yourself the secret is leaking out, and of course every moment makes my danger greater. With practically no bother and with absolute safety you can help me out of the whole tangle. If you don't, I shall be caught; I shall lose this incomparable treasure and all the money I paid for it,—and that's no small sum, let me tell you,—and all because you, my forlorn hope that I've confided in in rebus angustis, won't devote twenty-four hours of your time to saving your own self-respect. By Jove!" he cried, starting to his feet, "if you don't help me you betray me as much as if you went straight to the custodi with my story."

"Sit tight!" cried Jerry, startled by the violence of the other's demonstration. "Sit tight!"

"Will you help me?" demanded Mr. Wrenmarsh, his brown eyes blazing. "Will you help—help me to dodge these Italian robbers and get my things—my antiquities that I have paid for with hard cash—out of this rotten country? Will you help, or will you desert me, and take sides with those that are waiting to rob me?"

"By George, I've a mind to try!" incautiously ejaculated Jerry, for the moment carried off his balance by the enthusiasm and the persuasive personality of the other.

"Good man!" cried the antiquarian in a rapture; "good man! I knew you would. We'll beat 'em! I"—

"Hold your horses a bit!" put in Tab hastily, taken aback by the force Wrenmarsh gave to his unconsidered words. "Go slow, please. I may have"—

"Oh, that's all right," returned the collector impetuously. "We'll take a turn down the road, and plan it all out. I can think better when I'm walking—sort of peripatetic, you see. Ha, ha!—and it'll look queer if you don't go down to see the other temple. Come on."

Mr. Wrenmarsh made his way toward the road, trampling impetuously over the wild thyme and the acanthus, while Taberman followed in a mixture of amused amazement and indignation, but with a full determination to expostulate. He found, however, that he was not allowed any opportunity for remonstrance. Every sentence he began was choked off with some fresh exclamation of gratitude from the collector, or by some burst of delight that out of the skies, as it were, he had fallen to be the savior of the perplexed archÆologist. By the time they had walked around the third temple, which stands at some distance from the other two, Taberman had given up protesting. He merely listened to his companion's bewildering flow of talk, and felt as if he were being drawn into a whirlpool. He was helped by his own secret delight at the thought of having a share in a real adventure, and perhaps pushed on by a boyish shame at the idea of seeming to draw back and to fail another in an extremity. He had not much chance to speak,—but he soon found that what he did say was in the line of his having accepted the position into which Mr. Wrenmarsh had been endeavoring to force him.

As they returned from the third temple they found the custode beside the fountain which stood across the road from the inn. He was trying to teach his horse to shake hands.

"Ah, Michu," the Italian said as they came up to him; "I hope you were pleased with the temples."

"Much," Taberman assured him. "They are magnificent."

Seeing his companion fee the man, he in turn slipped a coin into the brown hand. His conscience gave him a little twinge at the thought of plotting to outwit this frank, big creature; but he reflected instantly that the matter was entirely impersonal, and it was not in a tariff-hating youth like Jerry to have any scruples over tricking the Italian government in a matter of this sort.

"How long would it take you to sail down here from Naples?" asked Wrenmarsh, as they took the road toward the station.

Tab considered.

"Five or six hours with a good breeze," was his conclusion.

Mr. Wrenmarsh wrinkled his brows and quickened his pace. Those uncomfortable lines from the nostrils to the corners of his mouth deepened, and he half shut his eyes. After a little meditation he spoke again.

"Very good," he said decisively. "This is the way we'll put the thing through. You go back to Naples now. Be off the shore here by eleven o'clock, and send a boat ashore for me and my boxes. They're rather big, and fairly heavy; and they've got to be handled tenderly. I couldn't get proper means of packing the things, and I've had to take what there was. Once we get the stuff on board, we must run back so as to be in Naples by sunrise. Does that suit you?"

"You seem to be running this cruise," laughed Jerry. "I suppose it's all right; but there's one thing I must know. There's no chance of getting the yacht into a scrape, is there?"

"Oh, no danger whatever."

"You're sure?" Tab insisted. "It wouldn't be exactly pleasant to get my friend's boat confiscated, you know, or into any sort of a mess of that kind."

"Bosh!" retorted Mr. Wrenmarsh brusquely. "You may make your mind easy. The worst that could happen is that I might lose my things. But we must walk a bit faster, if you're to get your train."

"It's better to say to-morrow night," Tab remarked, as they took their way down the road and beneath the old Roman arch. "You see I might be late in getting back, and"—

"Of course, of course," interrupted the collector. "You can't count on getting here to-night. To-morrow night, of course."

At the station the capo was standing almost where Jerry had left him, looking at the hills. When the two came up, he merely turned his head and nodded.

"The facchino must be doing ticket-duty," the collector remarked. "We'll go in and get your ticket."

A tall, yellow, broken-looking man was behind the little wicket in the ticket-office, puttering with some sort of repair work on a shelf. Mr. Wrenmarsh addressed him in Italian. The man took a blue and green ticket from a pigeon-hole on the wall, placed it under the stamp, on the knob of which he then brought down his fist with a nervous bang. Instantly he broke out into a violent exclamation.

"Sacro sangue della Madonna!" he shouted, and began to rave hysterically.

"What's the matter?" asked Taberman. "What is he saying?"

"He is cursing quite well," returned the archÆologist coolly. "His hand was unsteady, and he's broken the stamp. He wants to know what will become of him when the capo finds the punch is broken."

"Is he tight?" inquired Jerry inelegantly.

"Oh, he's only bally-rotten with malaria. Look at his face."

"Tell him he ought to take some quinine," suggested Taberman, genuinely sorry for the wretched-looking fellow.

Mr. Wrenmarsh interpreted, but the Italian replied in a tone of mingled despair and contempt, and went out to show the broken punch to his superior.

"What does he say?" asked Jerry.

"Says he took twenty-four grains this noon," answered Wrenmarsh, chuckling as if it were funny.

"Gad!" exclaimed Tab. "No wonder his hand shook. What a country!"

"You say that?" returned the other. "You may remember that I'm tied to it till I can get my things out."

They went out to the platform, and at the moment the train came in. Jerry took his seat in an empty compartment, and the collector stood outside the window.

"You'll surely come?" asked Mr. Wrenmarsh, in a voice almost threatening.

"I can't see that I should," Taberman returned; "but wind and weather permitting, I suppose I shall."

"I can't attempt to argue with you here," the other said; "but mind—you'll come."

"Pronto! Pronto!" called the guard in his hoarse sing-song.

"I shall come," Jerry said reassuringly. "You may bet on it."

"Partenza! Partenza!" the guard bawled, blowing his horn.

"Good-by. Don't miss it!" cried Wrenmarsh, giving Jerry's hand a farewell grip.

"To-morrow night," returned Taberman.

"I show a light," the collector vociferated, running along the platform beside the now moving train, and repeating the details he had already arranged. "A white light."

"Right-o!" shouted Taberman, as the train bore him beyond the reach of further communication.

He threw himself back into the corner of the compartment, and all the way to Naples he kept wondering over and over what there was about Mr. Wrenmarsh that had induced him to promise to have a share in a scheme so mad.