184 FOR THE FLAG

the product of the pillage reconverted into gold and silver.
But the pirates still lacked a secret place. where they
might store these treasures until the days of their dis-
tribution.

Chance came to their aid. When they were exploring
the submarine depths of the approaches to the Bermudas,
Serké and Gibson discovered the tunnel which gave access
to. the interior of Backcup, at the base of the island.
Nowhere could Ker Karraje have hoped to find a zeinge
so completely beyond all danger of discovery !

Thus did one of the Bermudas, that group which had in
former times been the resort of pirates, become the haunt
of a band far more formidable.

This hiding-place being adopted, the new life of Count
d’ Artigas and his companions was organized under its. vast
roof, Serk6é the engineer set up electricity works without
having recourse to machines whose construction in foreign
lands might attract attention, and with nothing but coils,
which were easily arranged and required only the use of
metal plates and chemicals which the 44a conveyed from
the United States.

. There is now no difficulty in understanding what

had happened in the night of the 19th-20oth. The three-
master, which could make no way for want of wind, was not
in sight at daybreak because it had been disabled by the
tug, then boarded by the crew of the £dda,. plundered and
sunk, and it was a portion of its cargo that I found on
board the 4d after it had disappeared into the abysses
of the Atlantic’!