der the deck-beams, was an old, double-barreled elephant gun which shot explosive bullets that ran six to the pound. It was a clumsy and obsolete weapon which I kept only for the sake of the man who gave it to

me.

"It is a Witch Rifle," that man had said with a perverse, unmeaning fancifulness he had, as he looked down at the gun lying across his knees. He was sitting propped up in a long cane chair. "It will take you into many places where you'll wish you had not gone. But you will have to follow it, as I have done. I'm getting too tired now," he added whimsically he had been sitting in the chair and dying for a month-"so I give the gun to you."

Then, fondling it a little, he told me bits of its history, and of the succession of dead hands from which it had been taken. "As you were taking it," he said smilingly.

And now, as I looked down from the window, in my thoughts a picture of the old Witch Rifle, belching explosive bullets, connected itself in my mind with a picture of a cayman called the King, floating feet upward, his unwinking eyes shut at last, never to look again with cold avidity on tender and deceptive maids along the shore or to be cocked up in cold amusement at myself.

The announcement that I meant to shoot the King evoked intense enthusiasm in Felicidad. Such an act, my audience assured me,—all but Don Feliciano, who scrutinized my

tion. The King is very wary. When he discovers that he is pursued, he will avoid the shore. It will be necessary to seek him with a canoe. Not many would venture to do that, he is so very old and wise. Eighteen times since I was born he has hit a canoe with his tail, very unexpectedly, and eaten the much-astonished canoeists. "Mira Señores!" Mateo cried, his face on fire with the creative impulse. "Mirad! The King floats himself upon the river. The canoe draws near. Unseen he sinks himself. Unwatched he swims beneath the river. Unexpectedly he wags his tail. Unexpectedly the canoe!" Mateo concluded with a gesture of real eloquence.

"You have been there?" I asked, impressed in spite of myself by the realism of Besa's acting. For the moment he might have been a joyous crocodile himself.

"But

"Several times," said Besa. only looking on, as always, from a great distance. great distance. I hope," he added, bowing to me, "so to have the honor of being present at that dramatic moment when-" he left the sentence for me to finish as I chose.

This conversation was held in the forenoon of that same day, in Mateo's big go-down. Don Feliciano and I had made our way there, and several of the Pillars of Happiness were present, besides a crowd of lesser folk.

Something about Mateo's vivid words and gestures failed to encourage me excessively. But, as I

always found a bit uncomfortable,such an act would be heroic, venturesome, bold bevond words. I could not but expand to such approval, and as I listened, I forgot the unpleasantness of the morning. The town, at least, generously appreciated those who tried to serve it.

Mateo Besa, beyond all the rest, encouraged me in the enterprise.

"It will be a great honor," he murmured, "to watch you with admira

cision. And this decision had been confided to the public ear.

"The King may be old and wise," said I, "but nevertheless-if," I qualified, "I succeeded in finding a boatman-"

"A dozen," cried Mateo enthusiastically, slamming that door of hope. "You shall have a dozen."

"Of course one hesitates to ask a boatman to risk his life-"

"Oh, that is nothing," cried Mateo

generously. "It will be an honor they can never forget. Come," he said, taking his hat, "we will get a canoe now. You can shoot him this afternoon-perhaps." I had to follow Mateo.

But his humbler townsmen were not athirst for honor.

"It is not good," they remarked conservatively, when Mateo, on the river-bank behind the go-down, explained his mission. "The King is a very old cayman and very wise. Well he knows that trick of floating under the water and hitting the canoe with his tail before he is seen. Two went to hunt him once, and two did not come back. Nothing can hurt him. He is the King of Caymans. He will stay here till God needs him somewhere else. On that account alone we will not go. We are not afraid, but it is a matter of conscience."

They spoke so till I grew stubborn. Pedro had appeared at my elbow, much interested, but no more thirsty than the rest.

"Pedro," I bade him, "run to the prau-I suppose the prau is still there?" I asked, suddenly remembering that I had forgotten all about it.

"Yes, indeed," said Pedro in his literal way. "It is all there. Shall I haul-"

"Fetch me the very big, twiceshooting boom-boom from under the deck of it," said I.

The rifle looked very squat and solid and deadly when I had unrolled its wrappings. And the plump little shells, with their fat curves and stubby noses, were very wicked and attractive. I shoved a pair of them into the barrels.

"Now give me a canoe," I said.

But no one stirred. "The boomboom will only make him angry," they objected. "Then he will hurt us. It is not good to try to kill the King. Surely, if God did not want him here, He would send him somewhere else."

I was not going to discuss theology with them. I turned to Besa, who was

divided between admiration for the rifle and its owner and indignation at the cowardice of his townsmen. I asked him if he happened to have in the go-down an empty oil-tin with the top still on it.

"Certainly," said Besa, and sent for one.

It was a big, square tin from Baku, in the Caucasus, which his messenger brought. I filled it with water, hammered a wooden plug into the hole in the top, and had Pedro set it on the bank down-stream.

"Now," said I, "I am going to show you all what a very strong boom-boom like this will do."

"Now we will show them," Mateo murmured behind me.

I put the rifle to my shoulder and pulled the trigger. The Witch often set off both her barrels at once, from concussion. She did it this time, and I fell to rubbing my shoulder, while the people ran to look for the can. They came running back with their eyes very big and round. "There is no can!" they cried all together, as if they had been drilled for a chorus. "It is gone!"

"Of course it is gone," said I. "Where is the can, then?" cried the chorus.

"A boom-boom like this," said I, "makes things go away and never come back. It will make the King go where the can went. Who will paddle me?"

But still they were conservative.

Then, tugging at my sleeve, I found my own familiar Pedro. There was that excitement in his eyes which comes at each new revelation of his master's possibilities.

"Master," he cried, "I will paddle you myself. With that boom-boom I would paddle you into the purgatory of caymans. It is a strong one." "Very strong," I murmured, rubbing my shoulder.

"The heroism!" Mateo Besa breathed ecstatically behind me.

"Come, Master," said Pedro. "Lose no time."