Miriam loved him as though he had been her own. Where Long Robin
went there went this other Robin, too. He was as the shadow of the
other. And a day came when they went forth together to roam in
foreign lands, and Miriam with them. They were gone for full three
years. We gave up the hope of seeing them more. But suddenly they
came amongst us again--two of them, not three. They said the
younger Robin had died of the plague in foreign lands, and all men
gave heed to the tale. But from the first I noted that Long Robin's
step was firmer than when he went forth, that there was more power
in his voice, more strength in his arm. True, he goes about with
bowed back; but I have seen him lift himself up when he thought
there was none to see him, and stretch his long arms with a
strength and ease that are seldom seen in the very aged. He can
accomplish long rides and rambles, strange in one so old; and our
people begin to regard him with awe, as a man whom death has passed
by. But I verily believe that it was old Robin who passed away, and
that this man is none other but young Robin; and that in him and
him alone is reposed the secret of the lost treasure, that he may
one day have it for his own."

"And why to him?" questioned Cuthbert, drawing his brows together
in the effort to understand; "why to him rather than to Miriam or
any other of the tribe?"

"Verily because he was the one being in the world beloved of Long
Robin. Miriam he trusted not, for that she was a woman, and he held
that no woman, however faithful, might be trusted with a secret. I
have heard him say so a hundred times, and have seen her flinch
beneath the words, whilst her eyes flashed fire. Methinks that Long
Robin loved gold with the miser's greed--loved to hoard and not to