12 
LAND & WATER 
March i, 1917 
{Continued front page 20) 
He is trying only to unite you." 
Yes, in death." 
" No, in life. You are his dearly-loved son. He always 
•<poke of you with pride." 
" He is a niifian, a monster ! " shouted the officer. 
" He is the very best man living, sir, and he is your father." 
Patrice started, stung by the insult : 
" Proofs," he roared, " proofs ! I forbid you to speak another 
word until you iiave proved the tnith in a manner admitting 
of no doubt." 
Without mo\-ing from his scat, the old man put out his 
arm towards an old mahogany escritoire, lowered the lid and, 
pressing a spring, pulled out one of the drawers. Then he 
• held out a bundle of papers : 
" Y'ou know your father's handwriting, don't you, cap- 
tain ? " he said. " You must have kept letters from him, 
since the time when you were at school in England. Well, 
read the letters which he wrote to me. You will sec your 
name repeated a hundred times, the name of his son ; and 
you will see, the name of the Coralie whom he meant you to 
marry. Your whole life- your studies, your journeys, your 
work is described in these letters. And you will also find 
your photographs, which he had taken by various corre- 
spondents, and photographs of Coralie, whom he had visited 
at Salonica. And you will see above all his hatred for 
Essarcs Bey, whose secretary he had become, and his plans 
«f revenge, his patience, his tenacity. And you will also see 
his despair when he heard of the marriage between Essares 
•and Coralie and, immediately afterwards, his joy at the 
thought that his revenge would be more cruel when he suc- 
ceeded in uniting his son Patrice with Essares' wife." 
As the old fellow spoke, he placed the letters one by one 
under the eyes of Patrice, who had at once recognised his 
lather's hand and sat greedily devouring sentences in which ]\\> 
\)wn name was constantly rejx;ated. M. \'acherot watched him. 
" Have you any more doubts, captain ? " he asked, at last. 
The officer again pressed his clenched fists to his temples ; 
" I saw his face." he said, " above the skylight, in the lodt^'e 
uito which he had locked us. . . . It was gloating over 
our death, it was a face mad with hatred. ... He hated 
us even more than Essares did. . . ." 
" A mistake ! Pure imagination ! " the old man protested. 
" Or madness," muttered Patrice. 
Then he struck the table violently, in a fit of revulsion : 
" It's not true, it's not true ! " he exclaimed. " That man 
is not my father. What, a scoundrel like that ! . . " 
He took a few steps round the httle room and, stopping in 
front of Don Luis, jerked out : 
Let's go. Else I shall go mad too. It's a nightmare, there's 
no other word for it, a nightmare in which things turn upside 
down until the brain itself capsizes. Let's go. Corahe is in 
danger. That's the only thing that matters." 
The old man shook his head : 
■'I'm very much afraid. ..." 
" What are you afraid of ? " bellowed the officer. 
" I'm afraid that my poor friend has been caught up by 
the person who was following him . . . and then how 
can he have saved Mme. Essares ? The poor thing was hardly 
able to breathe, he told me." 
Hanging on to Don Luis' arm, Patrice staggered out of the 
])ortcr's lodge like a drunken man : 
," She's done for, she must be ! " he cried. 
" Not at all," said Don Luis. " Simeon- is as feverishly 
active as yourself. He is nearing the catastrophe. He is 
ciuaking with fear and not in a condition to weigh his words. 
Believe me, your Coralie is in no immediate danger. We have 
some hours before us." 
" But Ya-Bon ? Suppose Ya-Bon has laid hands upon 
him ? " 
" I gave Ya-Bon orders not to kill him. Therefore, what- 
ever happens, Simeon is alive. That's the great thing. So 
long as Simeon is alive, there is nothing to fear. He won't 
h^i your Corahe die." 
" Why not, seeing that he hates her ? Why not ? What 
is there in that man's heart ? He devotes all his 'xistence to a 
work of lovo on our behalf ; and, from one minute to the 
next, that love turns to execration." 
He pressed Don Luis' arm and, in a hollow voice, asked : 
" Do you believe .that he is my father ? " 
" Simeon Diodokis is your father, captain," replied Don 
Luis. 
" Ah, don't, don't ! It's too horrible ! God, but we are in 
•ilic valley of. the shadow! " 
" On the contrary," said Don Luis, " the shadow is liftin,':^ 
slightly ; and I confess that our talk with M. Vacherot lias 
given me a little light." 
" Do you mean it ? " 
Gut, in Patrice Belval's fevered brain, one idea jostled 
;... other. He suddenly stopped : 
" Simf^on may have gone back to the porter's lodge ! . . 
And we shan't be there ! . . . Perhaps he will bring 
Coralig back ! " 
" No," Don Luis declared, " he would have done that 
before now, if it could be done. No, it's for us to go to him. " 
" But where ? " 
" Well, of course, where all the fighting has been 
where the gold lies. All the enemy's operations are centred 
in that gold ; and you may be sure that, even in retreat, he 
can't get away from it. Besides, we know that he is not far 
from Berthou's Wharf." 
Patrice allowed himself to be led along without a word. But 
suddenly Don Luis cried : 
" Did you hear ? " 
" Yes, a shot." 
' At that moment they were on the point of turning into the 
Rue Raynouard. The height of the houses prevented them 
from perceiving the exact spot from which the shot had been 
fired, but it came approximately from the Essares' house or 
the immediate precincts. Patrice was filled with alarm : 
" Can it be Ya-Bon ? " 
" I'm afraid so," said Don Luis, " and, as Ya-Bon wouldn t 
fire, some one must have fired a shot at him. . . . Oh, by 
Jove, if my poor Y'a-Bon were to be killed. . . . ! " 
" And suppose it was at her, at Coralie ? " whispered 
Patrice. 
Don Luis began to laugh ; 
" Oh, my dear captain, I'm almost sorry that I ever mixed 
myself up in this business ! You were much cleverer before 
I came and a good deal clearer-sighted. Why the, devil 
should Simeon attack your Coralie, considering that she's 
already in his pwwer ? " 
They hurried their steps. As they pa.ssed the Essares' 
house, they saw that everything was quiet and they went on 
until they came to the lane, down which they turned. 
Patrice had the key, but the httle door which opened on to 
the garden of the lodge was bolted inside. 
" Aha ! " said Don Luis. " That shows that we're warm. 
Meet me on the quay captain. I shall run down to Berthou's 
Wharf to have a look round." 
During the past few minutes, a pale dawn had begun to 
mingle with the shapes of night. The embankment was 
still deserted, however. 
Don Luis observed nothing in particular at Bertl.ou's 
Wharf; but, when he returned to the quay above, Patri{e 
showed him a ladder lying right at the end of the pavement 
which skirted the garden of the lodge ; and Don Luis recog- 
nised the ladder as one whose absence he had noticevl 
from the recess in the yard. With that quick vision which 
was one of his greatest assets, he at once furnished the ex- 
planation : 
" As Simeon had the key of the garden, it was obviously 
Ya-Bon who used the ladder to make his way in. Therefore 
he saw Simeon take refuge there on returning from his visit 
to old Vacherot and after coming to fetch little Mother 
Coralie. Now the question is, did Simton succeed in fetching 
Coralie, or did he run away before fetching her ? That 1 
can't say. But, in any case. . . ." 
Bending low down, he examined the pavement and con- 
tinued : 
" In any case, what is certain is that Ya-Bon knows the 
hiding-place where the bags of gold are stacked, and that it 
is there most Ukely that your Coralie was and perhaps still 
is, worse luck, if the enemy, giving his first thought to his 
personal safety, has not had time to remove her." 
" Are you sure ? " 
" Look here, captain, Ya-Bon always carries a piece of 
chalk in his pocket. As he doesn't "know how to write, 
except just the letters forming my name, he has drawn these 
two straight lines which, with the fine of the wall, makes a 
triangle. ' . . . the golden triangle." 
Don Luis drew himself up : 
" The clue is rather meagre. But Ya-Bon looks upon me 
as a wizard. He never doubted that I sliould manage to find 
this spot and that those three lines would be enough for me. 
Poor' Ya-Bon ! " 
" But," objected Patrice, " all this, according to you, took 
place before our return to Paris, between twelve and one 
o'clock, therefore."' 
" Yes." 
" Then what about the shot which we have just heard, four 
or five hours later " ? 
" As to that, I'm not so positive. We may assume that 
Sim(?on squatted somewhere in the dark. Possibly at the 
first break of day, feeling ea.sier and hearing nothing of Ya- 
Bon, he risked taking a step or two. Then Ya-Bon, keeping 
watch in silence, would have leaped upon him." 
" So you think. ..." 
( Continued on page 24) 
