CHAPTER XXVI

IN WHICH A BLACK BOX PLAYS A DECISIVE PART A smear of smoke on the horizon was all that was left to denote the presence of the _Naomi_ when John Bard came to me as I sat in the shade of the after-deck of the _Cristobal_, going through the mail he had brought me from Rodriguez. He dropped into a chair at my side. "Captain Lawless and that Scots engineer of his," he said, "spent the greater part of the night ashore grubbing for gold round the image. But they didn't find as much as a dollar. And then to discover the…