“If I did not know positively that Count Cadillac is at this moment ashore at the club-house, I would be willing to swear that he stands before me yonder,” was the detective’s mental comment, as he gazed upon the transformation wrought by the mere removal of the hat and wig worn by the pirate chief. “As it is, there can be no doubt now that my first idea was the correct one, and that the two men are brothers—aye, twin brothers, at that.”

“Well?” asked the woman of the pirate, permitting the book to rest upon her lap and raising her eyes to his face. She spoke in French, and he replied to her in the same tongue; but it was all perfectly intelligible to Nick Carter.

“It is magnificent,” he replied, throwing himself into a chair opposite her, and selecting a cigar, which he proceeded to light with evident relish. “It is much better than I ever dared to hope, from one affair.”

“Affair!” said the woman, with cold contempt in her voice and manner. “Why dignify your thieving operations by the use of such a word? Why not call them what they are?”

Sparkle shrugged his shoulders.

“Calm yourself, Hortense,” he said, puffing lazily at his cigar. “A few more expeditions like this one to-night[91] will render us independent. Before the season is ended, if I continue as fortunate as I have been so far, we will have collected a million, at least—perhaps two millions; and dollars, too! Think of it! That seems between five and ten million francs. Why, do you know, petite, that Alexandre Dumas only gave the Count of Monte Cristo something like ten million francs, altogether?”

The woman sighed.

“But it is robbery,” she said—“robbery! There is no gentler term to apply to it. You call it making collections. You describe your piratical expeditions as ‘affairs,’ and you refer to our trips when we start out to accomplish this infamous work as ‘excursions.’ But they are not excursions, Jules!”

He waived his right hand deprecatingly.

“Whatever they may be, they are none the less necessary,” he said coolly. “I will thank you to regard them so, Hortense. Think of our estates in France. Think of the opportunities which will be afforded you over there for doing unlimited good with the wealth I shall secure for you. Think——”

“Bah! Think! I do nothing else but think! I think all the time. I remember that my family was one which no stain had touched until I married you, and you dragged me into this thievish business! I remember that, although we were poor, we were proud of an illustrious past, than which nobody in France could boast a better. I remember——”

“Enough! I will not hear you!”

“And how long, pray, must this continue before you[92] will consider that you have enough to pay your debts and to live on the income of what is left to you after that of your stolen fortune?”

“How long? Who knows! As I have said, if other affairs prosper me as well as this one to-night has done, it will not be long. Think of it! To-night—to-night alone—I have collected almost a quarter of a million, in the value of dollars! To-night I have added to my store more than a million francs!”

“Aye; but much of it you will never be able to use.”

“I shall use it all. The melting-pot is ever handy; and there are other means of disposing of——”

“What, for example, shall you do with the trophy cups you have taken from some of your victims?” she demanded.

“Ah!” he replied. “They are valuable! Very valuable! I have thought out a method by which their owners can be induced to redeem them for cash at much more than their value and without danger to me. That Monsieur Kane, for example—he would gladly give fifty thousand dollars rather than lose his cups—his petted race cups. And what is fifty thousand dollars to him? Faugh! It is nothing! He would think no more of that amount than I do of the ash of this cigar, which I throw from me—so. And Monsieur Burton—oui, oui! With him it is the same. Fifty thousand? He would give a hundred thousand, so Jean tells me. And he is not as rich as Monsieur Kane! But his trophies are dearer to him. And to-night? To-night I have collected others.[93] Ha, Hortense! It is the millennium that is at hand for us!”

“The millennium!” she exclaimed scornfully. “Say, rather, it is Cayenne, Toulon, the Château d’If, the Bastile, or the guillotine!”

The pirate shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

“You mentioned Jean,” continued the woman. “Tell me, what of him?”

“What of him? What should there be of him? He is invaluable. But for the information he gives me I could not accomplish what I do; I could have accomplished nothing of what I have already done. And he is innocent of real wrong, is he not? He tells me, merely, ‘To-morrow evening Monsieur Kane will anchor at such a place with his yacht, the Goalong. I shall be a guest.’ It is enough. He says no more than that. If I appear upon the scene and demand tribute, Jean is not to blame. Again he says to me, ‘Monsieur Burton is fond of running his yacht, the Harkaway, through the Sound by night, when the moon is full. He likes to go at half-speed. I should not be surprised if he left Newpor............