across the Bay. Nino, whom I wanted for a son-in-law, having no
Nino of my own. I told him. He said nothing, but followed me to
the quay and we got the boat out. In half an hour I was at the
office of the Chief of the Police at Gibraltar. We sat there all
night, Nino and I. By ten o'clock the next morning we knew that it
was not one of the English officers--nor any civilian living on the
Rock. 'It may,' said the Chief of Police, who seemed to know every
one in his little district, 'be a passing stranger or--or a
Scorpion. We do not know so much about them. We cannot penetrate
to their houses.' I gave him a description of Lorenza; he undertook
to communicate with England and with the Spanish police. And Nino
and I went back to our work. It is thus with us poor people. Our
hearts break--all that is worth having goes from our lives, and the
end of it is the same; we go back to our work."

The old man paused. His cigarette had gone out long ago. He
relighted it and smoked fiercely in silence for some moments.
Cartoner made a sign to the waiter, who, with the intelligence of
his race, brought a decanter of the wine which he knew the Spaniard
preferred.

During all the above relation Cartoner had never uttered a syllable.
At the more violent points he had given a sympathetic little nod of
the head--nothing more.

"It was from that moment that I began to learn the difference
between Englishmen and Scorpions," Pedro Roldos went on. "Up to
then I had not known that it made a difference being born on the
Rock or in England. I did not know what a Scorpion was--with all
the vices of England and Spain in one undersized body. I haunted