20 
LAND & WATER 
February 15, 1917 
{Continued from fa^s i8) 
trollies ; and they were loading up. What with I don't 
know. And then, early ir) the morning, they unmoored." 
" Where did they go ? " 
" Down stream, Mantes way." 
■' Thanks, mate. Tiiat's what I wanted to know." 
Ten minutes later when they reached the house Patrice 
and Don Luis found the driver of the cab which Simeon 
Diodokis had taken after meeting Don Luis. As Don Luis 
expected, Simeon had told the man to go to a railway- 
station, the Gare Saint-Lazare, and there bought his ticket. 
" Where to ? " 
" To Mantes ! " 
TI 
CHAPTER XV 
The "Belle Helent" 
^HERE'S no mistake about it," said Patrice. " The 
information conveyed to M. Masseron that the gold 
had been sent away ; the speed with which the 
work was carried out, at night, mechanically, by the 
people belonging to the boat ; their ahen nationality ; the 
direction which they took ; it all agrees. The probability 
is that, between the cellar into which the gold was shot and 
the place where it finished its journey, there was some spot 
where it used to remain concealed . . . unless the 
eighteen hundred bags cm have awaited their despatch, slung 
one behind the othir, along tlie wire. But that doesn't 
matter much. The great thing is to know- that the Belle 
Helene, hiding somewhere in the outskirts, laj waiting for the 
favourable opportunity. • In the old days, Essares Bey 
by way of precaution, used to send her a signal with the aid 
01 that shower of sparks which I saw. This, time, old Simeon, 
who is continuing Essares' woik, no doubt on his own account, 
gave the crew notice ; -and the bags of gold are on their way 
to Rouen and Havre, where some steamer will take them 
over and carry them . . . eastwards. After all, forty 
or fifty tons, hidden in the hold under a layer of coal, is nothing. 
What do you say ? That's it, isn't it ? I feel positive about 
it. . . . Then we have Mantes, to which he took his 
ticket and for which the Belle He'ene is bound. Could 
anything be clearer ? Mantes, where he'll pick up his cargo 
of gold and go on board in some seafaring disguise, unknown 
and unseen. . . , Loot and looter disappearing together. 
It's as clear as dayhght. Don't you agree ? 
Once again Don Luis did not answer. However, he must 
have acquiesced in Patrice's theories, for, after a minute, he 
declared : 
" Very weU. I'll go to Mantes." And, turning to the 
chauffeur, " Hurry off to the garage," he said, " and come 
back in the si.x^cylinder. 1 want to be at Mantes in less than 
an hour. You, captain. . . ." 
" I shall come with you." 
" And who will look after . . . ? " 
" Coralie ? She's in no danger ! Who can attack her now ? 
Simeon has failed in his attempt and is thinking only of saving 
liis own skin . . . and his bags of gold." 
" You insist, do you ? " 
" Absolutely." 
" I dort't know that you're wise. However, that's your 
ail'air. Let's go. By the way, though, one precaution." 
He raised his voice. " Ya-Bon ! " 
The Senegalese came hastening up. While Ya-Bon felt 
for Patrice all the affection of a faithful dog, he seemed to pro- 
fess towards Don Luis sometliing more nearly approaching 
rchgious devotion. The adventurer's sUghtest action roused 
him to ecstasy. He never stopped laughing in the great 
chief's presence. 
" Ya-Bon, are you all right now ? Is your wound healed ? 
\ovl don't feel tired ? Good. In that case, come with me." 
He led him to the quay, a short distance from Berthou's 
Wharf : 
" .\t nine o'clock this evening," he said, " you're to be on 
guard here, on this bench. Bring your food and drink with 
you ; and keep a particular look-out for anything that happens 
over there, down stream. Perhaps nothing will happen at 
all ; but never mind : you're not to move until I come 
back . . . unless . . . unless something does happen 
in which case you will act accordingly." 
He paused and then continued : 
" Above all, Ya-Bon, beware of Simc'on. It was he who 
gave you that wound. If you catch sight of him, leap at 
his throat and bring him here. But mind you don't kill bim ! 
No nonsense now. I don't want you to hand me over a 
corpse, but a Hve man. EKj you understand, Ya-Bon ? " 
Patrice began to feel uneasy : 
" Do you fear anything from that side ? " he asked. " Look 
iicre, it's out of the question, as Simeon has gone. . . ." 
" Captain," said Don Luis, " when a good general goes in 
pursuit of the enemy, that does not prevent him from con- 
solidating his hold on the conquered ground and leavuiL; 
garrisons in the fortresses. Berthou's Wharf is evident 1\ 
one of our adversary's rallying points. I'm keepmg it undei 
observation." 
Don Luis also took ^erious "precautions with regard m 
Coralie. She was very much overstrained and needed rest 
and attention. They put her into the car and, after making 
a dash at full speed towards the centre of Paris, so as to throw 
any spies off the scent, took her to the home on the Boule- 
vard Maillot^ where Patrice handed her over to the matron 
and recommended her to the doctor's care. The staff re- 
ceived strict orders to admit no strangers to see her. She 
was to answer no letter, unless the letter was signed, " Captain 
Patrice." 
At nine o'clock, the cat sped down the Saint-Germain and 
Mantes road. Sitting inside with Don Luis, Patrice felt all 
the enthusiasm of victory and indulged freely in theories-, 
every one of which possessed for him the value of an un- 
impeachable certainty. A few doubts Mngered in his mind, 
however, points which remained obscure and on which Ik- 
would have been glad to have Don Luis' opiniouj 
" There are two things," he said, " which I simply cannot 
understand. In the first place, who was the man miirdcrcd 
by Essares, at nineteen minutes past seven in the mornin,' 
on the fourth of April ? I heard his dying cries. Who was 
killed ? And what became of the body ? " 
Don Luis was silent ; and Patrice went on : 
" The second point is stranger still. I mean Simeon's 
behaviour. Here's a man who -devotes his whole hfe to a 
single object, that of revenging his friend Belval's murder 
and at the same time ensuring my happiness and Coralie 's. 
This is his one aim in life ; and nothing can make him swerve 
from his obsession. And then, on the day when his enemy. 
Essares Bey, is put out of the way, suddenly he turns round 
completely and persecutes Coralie and me, going to the 
length of using against us the horrible contrivance which 
Essares Bey had employed so successfully against our 
parents ! You really must admit that it's an amazing change ! 
Can it be the thought of the gold that has hypnotized him ? 
Are his crimes to be explained by the huge treasure placed 
at his disposal on the day when he discovered the secret ? 
Has a decent man transformed himself into a bandit to satisfy 
a sudden instinct ? What do you think ? 
Don Luis persisted in his silence. Patrice, who expected 
to see every riddle solved by the famous adventurer in a 
twinkling, felt peevish and surprised. H€ made a last attempt : 
" And the Golden Triangle ? Another mystery! For, after 
all. there's not a trace of a triangle in anything we've seen '. 
Wliere is this Golden Triangle ? Have you any idea what it 
jiiems ? " 
, Don Luis allowed a moment to pass and then said : 
" Captain, I have the most thorough liking for you, and 
I take the liveliest interest in all that concerns you, but 1 
confess that there is one problem which excludes all others 
and one object towards which all my efforts are now directed. 
That is the pursuit of the gold of which we have been robbed ; 
and I don't want this gold to escape us. I have succeeded 
on your side, but not yet on the other. You are both of you 
safe and found, but I haven't the eighteen hundred bags ; and 
I want them, I wan- them." 
" You'll have them, since we know where they are." - 
"1 shall have tl e n," said Don Luis, "when they lie 
spread before my eyes. Until then, I can tell you nothing.' 
At Mantes the enquiries did not take long. They al nost 
immediately had the satisfaction of learning that a traxeller, 
whose description corresponded witli old Simeon's had gone 
to the Hotel Trois-Empereurs and was now asleep in a room 
on the third floor. 
Don Luis took a ground-floor room, while Patrice, who 
would have attracted the enemy's attention more easily, 
because of his lame leg, went to the Grand Hotel. 
He woke late the next morning. Don Luis rang him up 
and told him that Simeon, after caUing at the post-oflice, had 
gone down to the river and then to the station, where he met 
a fashionably dressed woman, with her face hidden by a thick 
veil, and brought her back to the hotel. The two were 
lunching together in the room on the third floor. 
At four o'clock, Don Luis rang up again, to ask Patrice 
to join him at once in a little cafe at the end of the town, 
facing the Seine. Here Patrice saw Simeon on the quay- 
He was walking with his hands behind his back, like a man 
strolling without any definite object. 
" Comforter, spectacles, the same get-up as uuuil," 
said Patrice. " Not a thing about him changed. Watch 
him. He's putting on an air of indifference, but you can 
bet that his eyes are looking up stream, in the Erection 
from which the Belle Helene is coming." 
" Yes, yes," said Don Luis. " Here's the lady." 
" Oh, that's the one, is it ? " said Patrice. " I've met hei 
(Continued on page 22) 
