Before I could reply, Lemois, who had followed the course of the discussion with the keenest interest, interrupted with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders, his fingers widened out.

“But not another bird story, if you please, Monsieur Brierley. We want something deeper and stronger. We have touched upon a great subject to-night, and have only scraped the surface.”

Herbert leaned forward until he caught Lemois’ eye.

“Say the rest, Lemois. You have something to tell us.”

“I! No—I have nothing to tell you. My life has been too stupid. I am always either bowing to my guests or making sauces for them over Pierre’s fire. I could only tell you about things of which I have heard. You, Monsieur Herbert, can tell us of things with which you have lived. I want to listen now to something we will remember, like your story of the cannibal’s wife. Almost every night since you have been here I go to bed with a great song ringing in my ears. You, Monsieur Herbert, must yourself have seen such tragedies in men’s lives, when in the space of a lightning’s flash their souls were stripped clean and they left naked.”

Herbert played with his fork for a moment, threw it back upon the cloth, and then said in a decided tone:

“No—it is not my turn; I’ve talked enough to-night. Open up, Le Blanc, and give us something out of the old Latin Quartier—there were tragedies enough there.”

“Only what absinthe and starvation brought—and a ring now and then on the wrong girl’s finger—or none at all, as the case might have been. But you’ve got a story, Herbert, if you will tell it, which will send Lemois to bed with a whole orchestra sounding in his ears.”

Herbert looked up.

“Which one?”

“The fever camp at Bangala.”

Herbert’s face became instantly grave and an expression of intense thought settled upon it. We waited, our eyes fixed upon him.

“No—I’d rather not, Le Blanc,” he said slowly. “That belongs to the dead past, and it is best to leave it so.”

“Tell it, Herbert,” I coaxed.

“Both you and Le Blanc have heard it.”

“But Lemois and the others haven’t.”

“Got any cannibals or barbecues in it, Herbert?” inquired Louis.

“No, just plain white man all the way through, Louis. Two of them are still alive—I and another fellow. And you really want it again, Le Blanc? Well, all right. But before I begin I must ask you to pardon my referring so often to my African experiences”—and he glanced in apology around the table—“but I was there at a most impressionable age, and they still stand out in my mind—this one in particular. You may have read of the horrors that took place at Bangala in what at the time was known as the fever camp, where some of the bravest fellows who ever entered the jungles met their deaths. Both natives and white men had succumbed, one after another, in a way that wiped out all hope.

“The remedies we had, had been used without effect, and quinine had lost its power to pull down the temperature, and each fellow knew that if he were not among those carried out feet foremost to-day, and buried so deep that the hyenas could not dig him up, it was only a question if on the morrow his own turn did not come. A strange kind of fear had taken possession of us, sick or well, and a cold, deadening despair had crept into our hearts, so great was the mortality, and so quickly when once a man was stricken did the end come. We were hundreds of miles from civilization of any kind, unable to move our quarters unless we deserted our sick, and even then there was no healthier place within reach. And so, not knowing who would go next, we awaited the end.

“The only other white man in the country besides ourselves was a young English missionary who had taken up his quarters in a native village some two miles away, in the low, marshy lands, and who from the very day of his arrival had set to work to teach and care for the swarms of native children who literally infested the settlement. Many of these had been abandoned by their parents and would have perished but for his untiring watchfulness. When the fever broke out he, with the assistance of those of the natives whom he could bribe to help, had constructed a rude hospital into which the little people were placed. These he nursed with his own hands, and as children under ten years of age were less liable to the disease than those who were older, and, when stricken, easier to coax back to life, his mortality list was very much less than our own.

“With our first deaths we would send for him to come up the hill and perform the last rites over the poor fellows, but, as our lists grew, we abandoned even this. Why I escaped at the time I do not know, unless it was by sheer force of will. I have always believed that the mind has such positive influence over the body that if you can keep it working you can arrest the progress of any disease—certainly long enough for the other forces of the body to come to its aid. So when I was at last bowled over and so ill that I could not stand on my feet, or even turn on my bed, I would have some one raise me to a sitting posture and then I would deliberately shave myself. The mental effort to get the beard off without cutting the skin; the determination to leave no spot untouched; the making of the lather, balancing of the razor, and propping up of the small bit of looking-glass so as to reflect my face properly, was what I have always thought really saved my life.

“What I started to tell you, however, happened before I was finally stricken and will make you think of the tales often heard of shipwrecked men who, having given up all hope at the pumps, turn in despair and break open the captain’s lockers, drinking themselves into a state of bestiality. It is the coward’s way of meeting death, or perhaps it means the great final protest of the physical against the spiritual—a mad defiance of the inevitable—and confirms what some of our physiologists have always maintained—that only a thin stratum of self-control divides us from something lower than the beast.

“We had buried one of our bravest and best comrades, one whose name is still held in reverence by all who knew him, and after we had laid him in the ground an orgy began, which I am ashamed to say—for I was no better than the rest—was as cowardly as it was bestial. My portable india-rubber bath-tub, being the largest vessel in the camp, was the punch-bowl, and into it was dumped every liquor we had in the place: Portuguese wine, Scotch whiskey, Bass’s ale, brown stout, cognac—nothing escaped. You can imagine what followed. Those of our natives who helped themselves, after a wild outburst of savagery, soon relapsed into a state of unconsciousness. The exhilaration of the white man lasted longer, and was followed by a fighting frenzy which filled the night with horror. Men tore their clothes from their backs and, half-naked, danced in a circle, the flickering light of the camp-fire distorting their bodies into demons. It was hell let loose!

“I have got rather a strong head, but one cup of that mixture sent my brain reeling. My fear was that my will would give way and I be tempted to drink a second dipperful and so knocked completely out. With this idea firmly in my mind, I watched my chance and escaped outside the raging circle, where I found a pool into which I plunged my head. This sobered me a little and I kept on in the darkness until I reached the edge of the hill overlooking the missionary’s settlement, the shouts of the frenzied men growing fainter and fainter.

“As I sat there my brain began to clear. I noticed the dull light of the moon shrouded in a deadly fog that rose from the valley below. In its mysterious dimness the wraiths of mist and fog became processions of ghosts stealing slowly up the hill—spirits of the dead on their way to judgment. The swollen moon swimming in the drowsy vapor was an evil eye from which there was no escape—searching the souls of men—mine among them—I, who had been spared death and in return had defied all the laws of decency. The cries of the forest rang in my ears, loud and insistent. The howl of a pariah dog, the hoot of an owl, became so many questions—all directed toward me—all demanding an answer for my sins. Even the hum of myriads of insects seemed concerned with me, disputing in low tones and deciding on my punishment.

“Gradually these sounds grew less insistent, and soft as a breath of air—hardly perceptible at first—there rose from the valley below, like a curl of smoke mounting into the stillness, a strain of low, sweet music, and as suddenly ceased. I bent my head, wondering whether I was dreaming. I had heard that same music, when I was a boy at home, wafted toward me from the open window of the village church. How came it here? Why sing it? Why torture me with it—who would never see home again?

“I struggled to my feet, steadied myself against a cotton-tree, and fixed my eyes on the valley below; my ears strained to catch the first recurrent note. Again it rose on the night air, this time strong and clear, as if a company of angels were singing.

“I knew now!

“It was the hymn my friend the missionary had taught the children.

“I plunged down the hill, stumbling, falling, only to drag myself to my feet again, groping my way through the dense night fog and the tangle of undergrowth, until I reached the small stockade at the foot of the incline which circled the missionary station. Crossing this ground, I followed the path and entered a small gate. Beyond it lay a flat piece of land cleared of all underbrush, and at its extreme end the rude bamboo hut of a hospital filled with sick and dying children.

“Once more on the deadly night air rose the hymn, a note of exaltation now, calling me on—to what I knew not, nor did I care, so it would ease the grinding fear under which I had lived for weeks.

“Suddenly I came to a halt. In the faint moonlight, within a dozen yards of me, knelt the figure of a man. He was praying—his hands upraised, his face lifted—the words falling from his lips distinctly audible. I moved nearer. Before him was a new-made grave—one he had dug himself—to cover the body of a child who had died at sunset.

“It was a moment I have never forgotten, and never want to forget.

“On the hill above me were the men I had left—a frenzied body of bestial cowards who had dishonored themselves, their race, and their God; here beside me, huddled together, a group of forest children—spawn of cannibal and savage—racked with fever, half-starved, many of them delirious, their souls rising to heaven on the wings of a song.

“And then the kneeling man himself!—his courage facing death every hour of the day—alone—no one to help—only his Maker as witness. I tell you, gentlemen, that when I stood beside him and looked into his eyes, caught the tones of his voice, and watched the movement of his fingers patting the last handfuls of earth over the poor little nameless body, and realized that his only recompense lay in that old line I used to hear so often when I was a boy—‘If ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me’—I could have gone down on my knees beside him and thanked my Creator that He had sent me to him.”

IX

IN WHICH MADAME LA MARQUISE BINDS UP BROKEN HEADS AND BLEEDING HEARTS

That which was less positive, because immediately smothered and sent around in whispers, were rumors of certain happenings that had taken place shortly after daybreak. Mignon, so the word ran, before seeking her little cot the night before, had caught a nod, or the lift of Leà’s brow, arched over a meaning eye, or a significant smile—some sort of wireless, anyway, with Leà as chief operator, and a private wire to Louis’ room, immediately over Gaston’s. What she had learned had kept the girl awake half the night and sent her skipping on her toes at the break of dawn to the little passageway at the far end of the court-yard, where she had cried over Gaston and kissed him good-by, Leà being deaf and dumb and blind. All this occurred before the horrible old bogie (Lemois was the bogie), who had given strict orders that everything should be done for the comfort of the boy before he left the Inn, was fairly awake; certainly before he was out of bed.

“By thunder!—I could hardly keep the tears out of my eyes I was so sorry for her,” Louis had said when he burst into my room an hour before getting-up time. “I heard the noise and thought he was suffering again and needed help, and so I hustled out and came bump up against them as they stood at the foot of the stairs. I wasn’t dressed for company and dared not go back lest they should see me, and so I flattened myself against the wall and was obliged to hear it all. I’m not going to give them away; but if any girl will love me as she does that young fellow she can have my bank account. And he was so manly and square about it all—no snivelling, no making a poor face. ‘It is nothing, Mignon—I am all right. Don’t cry,’ he kept saying. ‘Everything will come out our way in the end.’ By Jove!—I wish some girl loved me like that!”

Such an expression of happiness had settled, too, on Leà’s face as she brought our coffee, that Herbert caught up his sketch-book and made her stand still until he had transferred her dear old head in its white cap to paper. Then, the portrait finished—and it was exactly like her—what a flash of joy suffused Mignon’s face when he called to her and whispered in her ear the wonderful tale of why he had drawn it and who was to be its proud possessor; and when it was all to take place, a bit of information that sent her out of the room and skipping across the court, her tiny black kitten at her heels.

It was, indeed, a joyous day, with every one in high good humor, culminating in the wildest enthusiasm when the sound of a siren, followed by the quick “chug-chug” of the stop brake of madame’s motor, announced the arrival of that distinguished woman an hour ahead of time.

“Ah!—gentlemen!” she shouted out, rising from her seat, both hands extended before any of us could reach her car, “I have come over to crown you with laurel! Oh, what a magnificent lot of heroes!—and to think you saved my poor, miserable little mouse-trap of a villa that has been trying all its life to slide down hill into the sea and get washed and scrubbed. No, I don’t want your help—I’m going to jump!” and out she came, man’s ulster, black-velvet jockey cap, short skirt, high boots, and all, Marc following.

“And now, Monsieur Marc, give me a little help—no, not here—down below the seat. Careful, now! And the teakwood stand is there too—I steadied them both with my feet. There, you dear men!”—here she lifted the priceless treasure above her head, her eyes dancing—“what do you think of your punch-bowl? This is for your choicest mixtures whenever you meet, and not one of you shall have a drop out of it unless you promise to make me honorary member of your coterie, with full permission to stay away or come just as I please. Isn’t it a beauty?—and not a crack or scar on it—Old Ming, they tell me, of the first dynasty. There, dear Lemois, put it among your things, but never out of reach.”

She had shaken every one’s hand now and was stamping her little feet in their big men’s boots to keep up her circulation, talking to us all the while.

“Ah, Monsieur Louis, it was you who carried out my beloved piano—Liszt played on it, and so did Paderewski and Livadi, and a whole lot of others, until it gave out and I sent it down here, more for its associations than anything else. And you too, Monsieur Herbert”—and she gave him a low curtsy, as befitted his rank—“you-were-a-real-major-general, and saved the life of that poor young fisherman; and you, Lemois, rescued my darling miniatures and my books. Yes—I have heard all about it. Oh!—it was so kind of you all—and you were so good—nothing I really loved is missing. I have been all the morning feasting my eyes on them. And now let us all go in and stir up the fire—and, please, one of you bring me a thimbleful of brandy. I have rummaged over my precious things until I have worked myself into a perspiration, and then I must drive like Jehu until I get chilled to the bone. Catch cold!—my dear Monsieur Brierley—I never catch cold! I should be quite ashamed of myself if I did.”

We were inside the Marmouset now, Marc unbuttoning her outer garments, revealing her plump, penguin-shaped body clothed in a blouse of mouse-colored corduroy with a short skirt to match, her customary red silk scarf about her throat; the silver watch with its leather strap, which hung from the pocket of her blouse, her only ornament.

“Take my cap, please,” and she handed it to the ever-obsequious Marc, who always seemed to have lost his wits and identity in her presence. This done, she ran her fingers through her fluff of gray hair, caught it in a twist with her hand, skewered it with a tortoise-shell pin, and, with a “So! that’s all over,” drew up a chair to the blaze and settled herself in it, talking all the time, the men crowding about her to catch her every word.

“And now how about that young fisherman? Thank you, Monsieur Herbert. No, that is quite enough; a thimbleful of cognac is just what I need—more than that I have given up these many years. Come!—the young fisherman, Lemois. Is he badly hurt? Has he a doctor? How long before he gets well? Can I go to see him as soon as I get warm? Such a brave lad—and all to save my miserable jim-cracks.”

Both of Lemois’ hands were outstretched in a low bow. “We could do no less than rescue your curios, madame. Our only fear is that we may have left behind something more precious than anything we saved.”

“No, I have not missed a single thing; and it wouldn’t make any difference if I had; we love too many things, anyway, for our good. As to the house—it is too funny to see it. I laughed until I quite lost my breath. Everything is sticking out like the quills on a mad hedgehog, and the porch steps are smashed flat up against the ceiling. Oh!—it is too ridiculous! Just fancy, only the shelf in my boudoir is left where it used to be, and the plants are still blooming away up in the air as if nothing had happened. But not a word more of all this!” and she rose from her seat. “Take me to see the poor fellow at once!”

Again Lemois bowed, this time with the greatest deference. The exalted rank of his guest was a fact he never lost sight of.

“He is not here, madame,” he said in an apologetic tone; “I have sent him home to his mother.”

“Home!—to his mother?—and after my despatch. Oh!—but I could take so much better care of him here! Why did you do it?”

“For the best of reasons—first, because the doctor said he might go, and then because I”—and he lowered his voice and glanced around to see if Mignon had by any chance slipped into the room—“because,” he added with a knowing smile, “it is sometimes dangerous to have so good-looking a fellow about.”

“So good of you, Lemois,” she flashed back; “so thoughtful and considerate. Twenty years ago I might have lost my heart, but——”

“Oh, but, madame—I never for an instant—” He was really frightened.

“Oh, it was not me, then!” and one of her ringing, silvery laughs gladdened the room. “Who, then, pray?—certainly not that dear old woman with the white cap who—Oh!—I see!—it is that pretty little Norman maid. Such a winning creature, and so modest. Yes, I remember her distinctly. But why should not these two people love each other? He is brave, and you say he is handsome—what better can the girl have?”

Lemois shrugged his shoulders in a helpless way, but with an expression on his obstinate face that showed his entire satisfaction with his own course.

Madame read his thoughts and turned upon him, a dominating ring in her voice. “And you really mean, Lemois, that you are playing jailer, and shutting up two hearts in different cells?”

Lemois, suddenly nonplussed, hesitated and looked away. We held our breaths for his answer.

“Ah, madame,” he replied at last slowly, all the fight knocked out of him, “it is not best that we discuss it. Better let me know what madame la marquise will have for dinner—we have waited all day until your wishes were known.”

“Nothing—not a crumb of anything until I find out about these lovers. Did you ever know anything like it, gentlemen? Here on one side are broken heads and broken hearts—on the other, a charming old gentleman whom I have known for years, and whom I love dearly, playing bear and ready to eat up both of these young turtle doves. When I remonstrate he wants to know whether I will have my chicken roasted on a spit or en casserole! Oh, you are too silly, Lemois!”

“But she is like my daughter, madame,” replied Lemois humbly, and yet with a certain dignity.

“And, therefore, she mustn’t marry an honest young fisherman. Is that what you mean?”

Lemois merely inclined his head.

“And pray what would you make of her—a countess?”

A grim baffled smile ruffled the edges of the old man’s lips as he tried again to turn the conversation, but she would not listen.

“No, I see it all! You want some flat-chested apothecary, or some fat clerk, or a notary, or a grocer, or—Oh, I know all about it! Now do you go and get your dinner ready—anything will suit me—and when it is over and Monsieur Herbert is firmly settled in his big chair, with the funny heads listening to everything we say, I am going to tell you a story about one of your mismated marriages, and I want you to listen, Monsieur Bear, with your terrible growl and your great claws and your ugly teeth. No, I won’t take any apologies,” and another laugh—a whole chime of silver bells this time—rang through the room.

“What a pity it is,” she continued after her opponent had left the room, “that people who get old forget so soon what their own youth has meant to them. He takes this child, puts a soul into her by his kindness, and then, when she becomes a woman, builds a fence around her—not for her protection but for his own pride. It will be so much more honorable, he says to himself, for the great house of Lemois to have one of his distinguished waifs honorably settled in an honorable home,” and she lifted her shoulders ever so slightly. “Not a word, you will please note, about the girl or what she wants—nothing whatever of that kind. And he is such a dear too. But I won’t have it, and I’m going to tell him so!” she added, her brown eyes blazing as her heart went out once more to the girl.

All through the dinner the marquise made no further reference to the love affair, although I could see that it was still on her mind, for when Mignon entered and began moving about the room in her demure, gentle way, her lids lowered, her pretty head and throat aglow in the softened light, I saw that she was following her every gesture. Once, when the girl replenished her plate, the woman of birth, as if by accident, laid her fingers on the serving-woman’s wrist, and then there flashed out of her eyes one of those sympathetic glances which only a tender-hearted woman can give, and which only another woman, no matter how humble her station, can fully understand. It was all done so quickly and so deftly that I alone noticed it, as well as the answering look in Mignon’s eyes: full of such gratitude and reverence that I started lest she should betray herself and thus spoil it all.

With the coffee and cigarettes—madame refusing any brand but her own—“I dry every bit of my tobacco myself,” she offered in explanation, “and roll every cigarette I smoke”—we settled ourselves in pleased expectation, Herbert, as usual, in the Florentine; our guest of honor beside a small table which Lemois had moved up for her comfort, and on which he had placed a box of matches and an ashtray; Brierley stretched out on the sofa with a cushion at his back; Lemois on a low stool by the fire; Louis and I with chairs drawn close. Even the big back log, which had been crooning a song of the woods all the evening, ceased its hum as if to listen, while overhead long wraiths of tobacco smoke drifted silently, dimming the glint and sparkle of copper, brass, and silver that looked down at us from the walls.

“And now, madame,” said Herbert with a smile, when both Leà and Mignon had at last left the room, “you were good enough to say you had a story for us.”

“No,” she answered gayly. “It is not for you. It is for our dear Lemois here,” and she shook her head at him in mock reproval. “You are all too fine and splendid, every one of you. You keep houses from tumbling to pieces and rescue lovers and do no end of beauteous things. He goes about cutting and slashing heads and hearts, and never cares whom he hurts.”

Lemois rose from his seat, put his hand on his shirt-front—a favorite gesture of his—bowed humbly, and sat down again.

“Yes, I mean it,” she cried with a toss of her head, “and I have just been telling these gentlemen that I am going to put a stop to it just as soon as I can find out whether this young hero with the broken head is worth the saving, and that I shall decide the moment I get my eyes on him. Pass me my coffee, Lemois, and give me my full share of sugar—three lumps if you please—and put four into your own to sweeten your temper, for you will need them all before I get through.

“The story I promised you is one of sheer stupidity, and always enrages me when I think of it. I have all my life set my face against this idiotic custom of my country of choosing wives and husbands for other people. In any walk of life it is a mistake; in some walks of life it is a crime. This particular instance occurred some twenty years ago in a little village near Beaumont, where I lived as a girl. Outside our far gate, leading to the best fields, was the house of a peasant who had made some thousands of francs by buying calves when they were very small, fattening them, and driving them to the great markets. He was big and coarse, with a red face, small, shrewd eyes, and a bull neck that showed puffy above his collar. He was loud, too, in his talk and could be heard above every one else in the crowd when the auction sales were being held in the market. But for his blue blouse, which reached to his feet, he might have been taken for one of his own steers.

“The wife was different. Although she was of the same peasant stock, a strain of gentleness and refinement had somehow crept in. In everything she was his opposite—a short woman with narrow shoulders and small waist; a low, soft voice, and a temper so kindly and even that her neighbors loved her as much as they hated her husband. And then there was a daughter—no sons—just one daughter. With her my acquaintance with the family began, and but for this girl I should have known nothing of what I am going to tell you.

“It all came about through a little fête my father gave to which the neighbors and some of the land-owners were invited. You know all about these festivities, of course. Something of the kind must be done every year, and my dear father never forgot what he owed his people, and always did his best to make them happy. On this occasion the idea came into my head that it would be something of a novelty if I arranged a dance of the young people with a May-pole and garlands, after one of the Watteau paintings in our home; something that had never been done before, but which, if done at all, must be carried out properly. So I sent to Paris to get the costumes, the wide hats, petticoats, and all—with the small clothes for the men—and started out to find my characters. One of my maids had told me of this girl and, as she lived nearest, I stopped at her house first. Well, the father came in and blustered out a welcome; then the mother, with a curtsy and a smile, wiped out the man’s odious impression, thanking me for coming, and then the girl appeared—the living counterpart of her mother except that the fine strain of gentle blood had so softened and strengthened the daughter’s personality that she had blossomed into a lovely young person without a trace of the peasant about her—just as any new grafting improves both flower and fruit. I could not take my eyes from her, she was so gentle and modest—her glance reaching mine timidly, the lids trembling like a butterfly afraid to alight; oh, a very charming and lovely creature—an astonishing creature, really, to be the daughter of such a man. Before the visit was over I had determined to make her my prima donna: she should lead the procession, and open the dance with some gallant of her choice—a promise received with delight by the family; the girl being particularly pleased, especially with the last part of it, and so I left them, and kept on my rounds through the village and outlying district.

“It was a lovely summer day—in June, if I remember—too late for May-poles, but I didn’t care—and long before the hour arrived our lawn was thronged with peasants and their sons and daughters, and our stables and paddocks crowded with their carts and vehicles. My father had provided a tent where the young people should change their clothes, but I took my little maid up into my own room, and my femme de chambre and I dressed her at our leisure.

“It is astonishing what you find underneath the rough garments worn by some of our peasants. I have often heard one of my friends—a figure painter—express the same surprise over his models. What appears in coarse cloth to be an ill-shaped arm turns out to be beautifully modelled when bared to the overhead light of a studio. So it was with this girl. She had the dearest, trimmest little figure, her shoulders temptingly dimpled, her throat and neck with that exquisite modelling only seen in a beautifully formed girl just bursting into womanhood. And then, too, her hair—what a lot of it there was when it was all combed out, and of so rich a brown, with a thread of gold here and there where the light struck it; and, more than all, her deep sapphire-blue eyes. Oh!—you cannot think how lovely they were; eyes that drank you all in until you were lost in their depths—like a well holding and refreshing you.

“So we dressed her up—leghorn hat, petticoats, tiny slippers on her tiny feet—and they were tiny—even to her shepherdess crook—until she looked as if she had just stepped out of one of Watteau’s canvases.

“And you may be sure she had her innings! The young fellows went wild over her, as well as the older ones—and even some of our own gentry tried to make love to her—so I heard next day. When all was ready she picked out her own partner, as I had promised she should, a straight, well-built, honest-faced young peasant whom she called ‘Henri’—a year or two her senior, and whom I learned was the son of a poor farmer whose land adjoined her father’s, but whose flocks and herds consisted of but one cow and a few pigs. In his pearl-gray short clothes and jacket, slashed sleeves, and low-cut shoes he looked amazingly well, and I did not blame her for her choice. Indeed she could not have done better, perfectly matched as they were in their borrowed plumes.

“And now comes a curious thing: so puffed up was that big animal of a father over the impression the girl had made, and so proud was he over the offers he received shortly after for her hand—among them a fellow herdsman twenty years her senior—that he immediately began to put on airs of distinction. A man with such a daughter, he said to himself, was also a man of weight and prominence in the community; he, therefore, had certain duties to perform. This was his only child; moreover, was he not rich, being the owner of more than a hundred head of cattle, and did he not have money in the banks? Loyette—have I told you her name was Loyette?—Loyette should marry no one of the young fellows about her—he had other and higher views for her. What these views were nobody knew, but one thing was certain, and that was that Henri, whom she loved with all her heart, and who had danced with her around the May-pole, was forbidden the house. The excuse was that his people were not of her class; that they were poor, his father being.... Oh, the same stupid story which has been told thousands of times and will continue to be told as long as there are big, thick-necked fathers who lay down the law with their sledge-hammer fists, and ambitious old gentlemen”—here she cut her eye at Lemois—“who try to wheedle you with their flimsy arguments—arguments which they would have thrown in your face had you tried it on them when they themselves were young. The father forgot, of course—just as they all forget—that she was precisely the same young girl with precisely the same heart before the fête as she was after it; that every rag on her back I had given her; that her triumph was purely a matter of chance—my going first to his house and thus finding her—and that on the very next day she had milked the cows and polished the tins just as she had done since she was old enough to help her mother.

“Again that old story was repeated: the mother begged and pleaded; the girl drowned herself in tears, but the father stormed on. Poor Henri continued to peep over the fence at Loyette when she went milking, or met her clandestinely on the path behind the cow sheds, and everybody was wretched for months trying to make water run uphill.

“Then Loyette confided in me. I had started to walk to the village and she had seen me cross the broad road and had followed. Poor child!—I can see her now, the tears streaming down her cheeks as she poured out her heart: how she and Henri had always loved each other; how fine and brave and truthful he was, and how kind and noble: she emptying her heart of her most precious secret—the story of her first love—a story, gentlemen”—here the marquise’s voice dropped into tones of infinite sweetness—“which the angels bend their ears to catch, for there is nothing more holy nor more sublime.

“I listened, her hand in mine—we were about the same age and I could, therefore, the better understand—her pretty blue eyes like wet violets searching for my own—and when her story was all told, I comforted her as best I could, telling her what I firmly believed—that no father with a spark of tenderness in his heart could be obdurate for long and not to worry—true love like hers always winning its way—whereupon she dried her eyes, kissed my hand, and I left her.

“What happened I do not know, for I went to Paris shortly after and was married myself, and did not return to my old home for some years. Then one day, in the effort to pick up once more the threads of my old life, there suddenly popped into my mind Loyette’s love story. I sent at once for one of the old servants who had lived with us since before I was born.

“‘And Loyette—the girl with the big ugly father—did he relent and did she marry the young fellow she was in love with?’

“‘No, madame,’ she answered sadly, with a shake of the head; ‘she married the cattleman, Marceaux, and a sad mess they made of it, for he was old enough then to be her father, and he is now half paralyzed, and goes around in a chair on wheels, and there are no children—and Loyette, who was so pretty and so happy, must follow him about like a dog tied to a blind man, and she never laughs the whole livelong day. That was her father’s work—he made her do it, and now she must pay the price.’

“‘And what became of the pig of a father?’ I had hated him before; I loathed him now.

“‘Dead; so is her mother.’

“‘And the young fellow?’

“‘He had to do his service, and was gone three years, and when he came back it was too late.’

“‘Well, but why did she give in?’

“‘Don’t they all have to give in at last? Did the husband not settle the farm on her, and fifty head of cattle, and the pasturage and barns? Is not that better for an only daughter than digging in the fields bending over washing-boards all day and breaking your back hanging out the clothes? How did she know he would be only a sick child in a chair on wheels—and this a year after marriage?’

“‘And what did the young fellow do?’

“‘What could he do? It was all over when he came back. And now he never laughs any more, and will look at none of the women—and it is a pity, for he is prosperous and can well take care of a wife.’

“I had it all now, just as plain as day; they had tricked the girl into a marriage; had maligned the young fellow in the same cowardly way, and had embittered them both for life. It was the same old game; I had seen it played a hundred times in different parts of the world. Often the cards are stacked. Sometimes it is a jewel—or a handful of them—or lands—or rank—or some other such make-believe. This trick is to be expected in the great world where success in life is a game, and where each gambler must look to the cards—but not here among our peasantry”—and again she shot her glance at Lemois—“where a girl grows up as innocent as a heifer, her nature expanding, her only ambition being to find a true mate who will help her bear the burdens her station lays upon her.

“I resolved to see her for myself. If I had been wrong in my surmises—and it were true that so sweet and innocent a creature had of her own free will married a man twenty years her senior when her heart was wholly another’s—I should lose faith in girl nature: and I have looked into many young hearts in my time. That her father—big brute as he was—would have dared force her into such an alliance without her consent I did not believe, for the mother would then have risen up. These Norman peasants fight for their children as a bear fights for her cubs—women of the right kind—and she was one.

“My own father shrugged his shoulders when I sought his counsel, and uttered the customary man-like remark: ‘Better for her, I expect, than hoeing beets. All she has to do now is to see him comfortably fixed in his chair—a great blessing, come to think of it, for she can always find him when she wants him.’

“This view of the case brought me no relief, and so the next day I mounted my horse, took my groom, and learning that her cripple of a husband had bought another and a larger farm a few kilometres away, rode over to see her.

“I shall never forget what I found. Life presents some curious spectacles, and the ironies of fate work out the unexpected. In front of the low door of a Norman farm-house of the better class sat a gray-haired, shrivelled man with a blanket across his knees—his face of that dirty, ash-colored hue which denotes disease and constant pain. My coming made some stir, for he had seen me making my way through the orchard and had recognized my groom, and at his call the wife ran out to welcome me. My young beauty was now a thin, utterly disheartened, and worn-out woman who looked twice her age, and on whose face was stamped the hall-mark of suffering and sorrow. The brown-gold hair, the white teeth, and deep-blue eyes were there, but everything else was a wreck.

“When the horses were led away, and I had expressed my sympathy for the cripple, I drew her inside the house, shut the door, and took a chair beside her.

“‘Now tell me the whole story—not your suffering, nor his—I see that in your faces—but how it could all happen. The last time you talked to me we were girls together—we are girls now.’

“‘Madame la marquise,’ she began, ‘I——’

“‘No, not madame la marquise,’ I interrupted, taking her hand in mine; ‘just one woman talking to another. Whose fault was it—yours or Henri’s?’

“‘Neither. They lied about him; they said he would never come back; then, when he did not write and no news came of him and I was wild and crazy with grief, they told me more things of which I won’t speak; and one of the old women in the village, who wanted him for her granddaughter, laughed and said the things were true and that she didn’t mind, and nobody else should; and then all the time my father was saying I must marry the other’—and she pointed in the direction of the cripple—‘and he kept coming every day, and was kind and sympathetic, and good to me I must say, and is now, and at last my heart was worn out—and they took me to the church, and it was all over. And then the next month Henri came back from Algiers, where he had been ill in the hospital, and came straight here and sat down in that chair over there, and looked about him, and then he said: “I would not have come home if I had known how things were; I would rather have been shot. I cannot give you all this”—and he pointed to the furniture—“and you did not want them when we first loved each other.”

“‘And then he told me how many times he had written, and we hunted through my father’s chest which I had brought here with me—he had died that year, and so had my dear mother—and there we found all Henri’s letters tied together with a string, and not one of them opened.’

“‘What did you do?’ I asked.

“‘I went at once to my husband and told him everything. He burst into a great rage; and the two had hard words, and then the next day he was out in the field and the sun was very hot, and he was brought home, and has been as you see him ever since.’

“‘And where is Henri?’

“‘He is here on the farm. When the doctor gave my husband no hope of ever being well again, my husband sent for him and begged Henri’s pardon for what he had said, saying he wanted no one to hate him now that he could not live; that all Henri had done was to love me as a man should love a woman, and that, if I would be willing, Henri should take care of the farm and keep it for me. This was four years ago, and Henri is still here and my husband has never changed. When the weather is good, Henri puts him in his chair, the one we bought in Rouen, and wheels him about under the apple-trees, and every night he comes in and sits beside him and goes over the accounts and tells him of the day’s work. Then he goes back home, six kilometres away, to his mother’s, where he lives.’”

Madame la marquise paused and shook the ashes from her cigarette, her head on one side, her eyes half-closed, a thoughtful, wholly absorbed expression on her face. Lemois, who had listened to every word of the strange narrative, his gaze fastened upon her, made no sound, nor did he move.

“And now listen to the rest: Two years later the poor cripple passed away and the next spring the two were married. The last time she came to me she brought her child with her—a baby in arms—but the dazzling light of young motherhood did not shine in her eyes—the baby had come, and she was glad, but that was all. They are both alive to-day, sitting in the twilight—their youth gone; robbed of the joy of making the first nest, together—meeting life second-hand, as it were—content to be alive and to be left alone.

“As for me, knowing the whole story, I had only a deep, bitter, intense sense of outrage. I still have it whenever I think of her wrongs. God is over all and pardons us almost every sin we commit—even without our asking, I sometimes think—but the men and women who for pride’s sake rob a young girl of a true and honorable love have shut themselves out of heaven.”

X

IN WHICH WE ENTERTAIN A JAIL-BIRD

What effect madame’s story had made upon Lemois became at once an absorbing question. He had listened intently with deferential inclination of the head, and when she had finished had risen from his seat and thanked her calmly with evident sincerity, but whether he was merely paying a tribute to her rare skill—and she told her story extremely well, and with such rapid changes of tones and gestures that every situation and character stood out in relief—or because he was grateful for a new point of view in Mignon’s case, was still a mystery to us. While she was being bundled up by Herbert and Louis for her ride home, Marc had delivered himself of the opinion that Mignon would have her lover in the end; that nothing madame had ever tried to do had failed when once she set her heart and mind to work, and that the banns might as well be published at once. But, then, Marc would have begun to set nets for larks and bought both toaster and broiler had the same idol of his imagination predicted an immediate fall of the skies. That his inamorata was twenty years his senior made no difference to the distinguished impressionist; that Marc was twenty years her junior made not the slightest difference to madame—nor did Marc himself, for that matter. All good men were comrades to her—and Marc was one: further she never went. Her rule of life was freedom of thought and action, and absolute deference to her whims, however daring and foolish.

Nor did the marquise herself enlighten us further as to what she thought of Mignon’s love affairs or Lemois’ narrow matrimonial views. She had become suddenly intent on having the smashed villa pulled uphill and set on its legs again, with Marc as adviser and Le Blanc’s friend, The Architect, as director-in-chief—an appointment which blew into thin air that gentleman’s determination to put into dramatic form the new Robinson Crusoe of which Herbert had told us, with Goringe, the explorer, as star, the lady remarking sententiously that she had definite reasons for the restoration and wanted the work to begin at once and to continue with all possible speed.

This last Le Blanc told us the next day when he returned in madame’s motor, bringing with him an old friend of his—a tall, sunburned, grizzly bearded man of fifty, with overhanging eyebrows shading piercing brown eyes, firm, well-buttressed nose, a mouth like a ruled line—so straight was it—and a jaw which used up one-third of his face. When they entered Herbert was standing with his back to the room. An instant later the stranger had him firmly by the hand.

“I heard you were here, Herbert,” he cried joyously, “but could hardly believe it. By Jove! It’s good to see you again! When was the last time, old man?—Borneo, wasn’t it?—in that old shack outside the town, and those devils howling for all they were worth.”

Introductions over, he dropped into a chair, took a pipe from his pocket, and in a few minutes was as much a part of the coterie as if we had known him all his life: his credentials of accomplishment, of pluck, of self-sacrifice, of endurance and skill were accepted at sight; the hearty welcome he gave Herbert, and the way his eyes shone with the joy of meeting him, completing the last and most important requirement on our list—good-fellowship. That he had lived outside the restrictions of civilization was noticeable in his clothes, which were of an ancient cut and looked as if they had just been pulled out of a trunk where they had lain in creases for years, which was true, for during the past decade he had been acting Engineer-in-Chief of one section of the great dam on the Nile, and was now home on leave. He had, he told us, left London the week before, had crossed with his car at Dieppe, and was making a run down the coast by way of Trouville when he bumped into Le Blanc and, hearing Herbert was within reach, had made bold to drop in upon us.

When Mignon and Leà had cleared the table, dinner being over, and the coffee had been served—and somehow the real talk always began after the coffee—for then Lemois was with us—Herbert looked at The Engineer long and searchingly, a covetous light growing in his eyes—the look of a housed sailor sniffing the brine on a comrade’s reefer just in from the sea—and said dryly:

“Are you glad to get home?”

“Yes and no. My liver had begun to give out and they sent me to England for a few months, but I shall have to go back, I’m afraid, before my time is up. Gets on my nerves here—too much sand on the axles—too much friction and noise—such a lot of people, too, chasing bubbles. Seems queer when you’ve been away from it as long as I have. How do you stand it, old man?”

Herbert tapped the table-cloth absently with the handle of his knife and remarked slowly:

“I don’t stand it. I lie down and let it roll over me. If I ever thought about it at all I’d lose my grip. Sometimes a longing to be again in the jungle sweeps over me—to feel its dangers—its security—its genuineness and freedom from all shams, if you will”—and a strange haunting look settled in his eyes.

“But you always used to dream of getting home; I’ve lain awake by the hour and heard you talk.”

“Yes, I know,” he answered rousing himself, “it was a battle even in those days. I would think about it and then decide to stay a year or two longer; and then the hunger for home would come upon me again and I’d begin to shape things so I could get back to England. Sometimes it took a year to decide—sometimes two or three—for you can’t get rid of that kind of a nightmare in a minute.”

“You were different from me, Herbert,” remarked Le Blanc. “You went to the wilds because you loved them; I went because they locked the front and back gates on me. I suppose I deserved it, for nobody got much sleep when I was twenty. But it sounds funny to have you say it would take you two years to make up your mind whether you’d come home or not. It wouldn’t have taken me five seconds.”

“Sometimes it didn’t take that long,” and a quick laugh escaped Herbert’s lips as if to conceal his serious mood. “Those things depend on how you feel and what has started your thinking apparatus to working. I walked out of a kraal in Australia one summer’s night when the home-hunger was on me and never stopped until I reached Sydney—the last hundred miles barefoot. You must have known about it, for I met you right after”—and he turned to The Engineer, who nodded in an amused way. “That was before we struck Borneo, if I remember?”

“Why barefooted, Herbert?” asked Louis, hitching his chair the closer.

“Because the soles and heels were gone and the uppers were all that were left.”

“Tell them about it, Herbert,” remarked The Engineer with a smile, pulling away at his pipe.

“Oh, if you would, Monsieur Herbert! I tried to tell Monsieur High-Muck about it the night you arrived, but Monsieur Louis’ horn put it out of my head. It is better that he hears it from you”—and the old man’s lip quivered, his face lighting up with admiration. Herbert was his high-priest in matters of this kind.

“There is really nothing to tell,” returned Herbert. “I was tending cattle for a herdsman at the time up in the hills—I and a friend of mine. We had both run away from our ships and were trying the rolling country for a change, when one of those irresistible, overwhelming attacks of homesickness seized me, and without caring a picayune what became of me, I turned short on my tracks and struck out for the coast. A man does that sort of thing sometimes. I had no money and only the clothes on my back, but I knew the railroad was some forty miles away, and that when I reached it I could work my passage into civilization and from there on to London.

“The weather was warm and I slept in a cow shack when I found one, and in the bushes when they got scarce. Finally I reached the railroad. I had never tried stealing a ride, sleeping on the trucks, hiding in freight cars, and being put off time and again until the next town was reached—I had never tried it because it had never been necessary, and then I hated that sort of thing. But I had no objection to asking for a lift, telling the agent or conductor the whole story, and I did it regularly at every station I passed on foot, only to get the customary oath or jeering laugh. After I had walked about sixty miles I came upon a water station known as Merton, with a goods train standing by. This time I asked for a ride on the tender. The engineer met my request with a vacant stare—never taking his pipe from his mouth. The fireman was a different sort of man. He not only listened to my story, but handed me part of the contents of his dinner pail wrapped up in a newspaper—which I was glad to get, and told him so. Before the train had gone fifty yards she was side-tracked for orders—which gave me another chance to get at the fireman. ‘I may lose my job if I do,’ he said, ‘but I’ve been up against it myself; come around a little later; it’ll be dark soon and something may turn up.’

“Something did turn up. While the engineer was oiling under his engine I got a wink from the fireman, climbed on the tender, crept beneath a tarpaulin, and rooted down in the coal. There, tired out, I fell asleep. I was awakened by the whistle of the locomotive, and then came the slow wheeze of the cylinder head, and we were off. Sleeping on a hard plank under a car going thirty miles an hour is a spring mattress to lying in a pile of coal with lumps as big as your head grinding into your back. Now and then the fireman—not my particular friend, but a man who had replaced him as I discovered when we whizzed past the light of a station—would ram his shovel within reach of my ribs—just missing me. But I didn’t mind—every mile meant that much nearer home and less tramping in the heat and dust to get there. If I could manage to keep hidden until we reached Sydney I should gain one hundred—maybe two hundred—miles before morning.

“About midnight we came to a halt, followed by a lot of backing and filling—shunting here and there. The safety-valve was thrown wide open, or the exhaust, or something else, and suddenly the steam went out of her. Then came a dead silence—not a sound of any kind. Sore as I was—and every bone in my body ached—I wrenched myself loose, lifted the edge of the tarpaulin, and peeped out. The engine and tender were backed up against a building which looked like a round-house; not a soul was in sight. I slid to the ground and began to peer around. After a moment I caught the swing of a lantern and heard the steps of a man. It was a watchman going his rounds.

“‘Warm night,’ he hollered when he came abreast of me. He evidently took me for a fireman, and I didn’t blame him, for I was black as soot—clothes, face, hands, and hair.

“‘Yes,’ I said, and stopped. It wouldn’t do to undeceive him. Then I remembered the name of the station where I had boarded the tender. ‘Been hot all the way from Merton. How far is that from Sydney?’

“‘Oh, a devil of a way!’ He lifted his lantern and held it to my face. ‘Say, you ain’t no fireman—you’re a hobo, ain’t ye?’

“I nodded.

“‘And you’re p’inted for Sydney? Well, it serves ye right for stealin’ a ride; you’re eighty-two miles further away than when ye started. That locomotive is a special and got return orders.’”

The Engineer threw back his head and roared.

“Yes, that’s it, Herbert. I remember just how you looked when we ran against each other in Sydney.”

“Not barefooted, were you, old fellow?” remarked Louis in a sympathetic tone. “That was tough.”

“Barefooted? Not much!” exclaimed The Engineer. “He was quite a nob. That’s why I made up to him; he was so much better dressed than I. And do you know, Herbert, I never heard a word of you from that time on until I struck one of your statues in the Royal Academy the other day. I never thought you’d turn out sculptor with medals and things. Thought you wanted more room to swing around in. This is something new, isn’t it?”

Herbert took his freshly lighted cigar from his mouth long enough to say, “About as new as your building dams. You were trying to get into the real-estate business when I bid you good-by in Sydney. Did it work?”

“No, I got into jail instead.”

Everybody stared.

“What was it all about?” asked Herbert, unperturbed.

“Stealing!”

“Stealing!” exclaimed Le Blanc.

“Yes. That was about it,” he answered. “Only this time I tried to bag a government and got locked up for my pains. One of your countrymen”—and he nodded toward me—“was mixed up in it. By the way”—and he rose from his chair—“you don’t mind my taking this candle, do you?—I’ve been looking at something in that cabinet over there all the evening and I can’t stand it any longer. I may be wrong, but they look awfully like it.”

He had reached the carved triptych, and was holding the flame of the candle within a few inches of a group of tiny figures—some of Lemois’ most precious carvings—one the figure of a man with a gun.

“Just as I thought. Prison work, isn’t it, Monsieur Lemois? Yes—of course it is—I see the tool marks. Made of soup bones. Oh, very good indeed—best I have ever seen. Where did you get this?”

“They were made by the French prisoners in Moscow,” answered Lemois, who had also risen from his seat and was now standing beside him. “But how did you know?” he asked in astonishment. “Most of my visitors, if they look at them at all, think they are Chinese.”

“Because no one, if he can get ivory, makes a thing like this of bone”—and he held it up to our gaze—“and everybody out of jail who has this skill can get ivory. I’ve made a lot myself—never as fine as these—this man must have been an expert. I used to keep from going crazy by doing this sort of thing—that and the old dodge of taming fleas so they’d eat out of my hand. What a pile of good stuff you have here—regular museum”—and with a searching, comprehensive glance he replaced the candle and regained his chair.

I bent forward and touched his elbow.

“We’ve entertained all sorts of people here,” I said with a laugh, “but I think this is the first time we have ever had an out-and-out ticket-of-leave man. Do you mind telling us how it happened?”

“No; but it wouldn’t interest you. Just one of those fool scrapes a fellow gets into when he is chucked out neck and heels into the world.”

Brierley drew his chair closer—so did Louis and Le Blanc.

Herbert glanced toward his friend. “Let them have it, old man. We promise not to set the dogs on you.”

“Thanks. But it wouldn’t be the first time. Well, all right if it won’t bore you. Now let me think”—and he lifted his weather-bronzed face, made richer by the glow of the candles overhead, and began scratching his grizzly beard with his forefinger.

“It was after you left Borneo, Herbert, that I came across two fellows—Englishmen—who told me of some new gold diggings on the west coast, and I was fool enough to join them, working my passage on one of the home-going tramp steamers. Well, we thrashed about for six months and landed on one of the small islands in the Caribbean Sea—the name of which I forget—where we left the ship and hid until she disappeared. The gold fever was well out of us by that time, and, besides, I had gotten tired of scrubbing decks and my two fellow tramps of washing dishes. The port was a regular coaling station and some other craft would come along; if not, we could stay where we were. The climate was warm, bananas were cheap and plenty; we were entirely fit, and—like many another lot of young chaps out for a lark—did not care a tinker’s continental what happened. That, if you think about it, is the high-water mark of happiness—to be perfectly well, strong, twenty-five years of age, and ready for anything that bobs up.

“This time it was a small schooner with a crew of about one hundred men, instead of the customary ten or twelve. A third of them came ashore, bought provisions and water, and were about to shove off to the vessel again, when one of my comrades recognized the mate as an old friend. He offered to take us with them, and in half an hour we had gathered together our duds and had pushed off with the others. The following week we ran into a sheltered cove, where we began landing our cargo. Then it all came out: we were loaded to the scuppers with old muskets in cases, some thousand rounds of ammunition, and two small, muzzle-loading field-guns. There was a revolution in Boccador—one of the small South American republics—they have them every year or so—and we were part of the insurgent navy! If we were caught we were shot; if we got a new flag on top of Government House in the capital of San Josepho, we would have a plantation apiece and negroes enough to run it. It sounded pleasant, didn’t it?

“I’m not going into all the details—it’s the story of the jail you want, not the revolution. Well, we had two weeks of tramping up to our waists in the swamps; three days of fighting, in which one of the field-guns blew off its nose, killing the mate; and the next thing I knew, my two companions and I were looking down the muzzles of a dozen rifles held within three feet of our heads. That ended it and we were marched into town and locked up in the common jail—and rightly named, I tell you, for a filthier or more deadly hole I never got into. It was a square, two-story building—all four sides to the town—with a patio, or court, in the centre. Outside was a line of sentries and inside were more sentries and a couple of big dogs.

“They put us on the ground floor with a murderous-looking chap for guard. As the place was packed with prisoners, we three were shoved into one cell. Every morning at daylight one or two—once six—poor devils were led out; the big gate was opened, and then there would come a rattling of rifle-shots, and when the six came back they were on planks with sheets over them. All this we could see by standing on each other’s shoulders and looking over the grating.

“Our turn came the morning of the seventh day. The door was unlocked and we were ordered to fall in. But we didn’t go through the big outer gate; we were led to a door across the yard and into a bare room where another murderous-looking chap, in a dirty uniform with shoulder-straps and a sword, sat at a table. On either side of him were two more ruffians, one with an inkstand. Not a man Friday of them spoke anything but Spanish. When we were pushed in front of his highness in shoulder-straps, he looked us over keenly and began whispering to the man with the ink. Then to my surprise—and before either I or my two friends—one of whom spoke a little Spanish—could utter a protest—right-about-face, and we were hustled back into our cell and locked up again.

“For three days and nights the usual jail things happened: We had two meals a day—bone soup and a hunk of mouldy bread; the guard tramped in the dust outside our cell, while at night another took his place—the dogs prowling or sniffing at the crack of our door; at daylight the rifle-shots!

“We had started to work for our release by that time, and by persistent begging got a sheet of paper, and, with the help of my companion, I wrote a letter to ‘his Excellenza,’ as the guard called his nibs, informing him that we were English tourists who had taken passage for sheer love of adventure, and demanding that our case be brought to the attention of the English consul.

“One week passed and then a second before we were informed by the head jailer that there was no English consul, and that if there had been it would have made no difference, as we had been taken with arms in our hands, and that but for some inquiries put on foot by his Excellenza we would have been shot long ago.

“So the hours and days dragged on and we had about started in to make our wills when, one morning after our slop coffee had been pushed in to us, the bolts were slid back and the nattiest-looking young fellow you ever laid your eyes on stepped inside. He was about twenty-four, was dressed from head to foot in a suit of white duck, and looked as if he had just cleared the deck of the royal yacht. With him were two slovenly looking functionaries, one of whom carried a note-book. The young fellow eyed us all three, sizing us up with the air of a man accustomed to that sort of thing, and said with an air of authority:

“‘I am the American consul. Your communication was brought to me because your government is not represented here. You’re in a bad fix, but I’ll help you out if I can. Now tell me all about it.’

“Tell him about it! Why, we nearly fell on his neck, and before he left he had our whole story in his head and a lot of our letters and cards in his clothes. They might be of use, he said, in proving that we had not, by any means, started out to undermine his Supreme Highness’s government. But that under fear of death—and he winked meaningly—we had been compelled to take up arms against the most illustrious republic of Boccador.

“Nine long, weary months passed after this and not another human being crossed our threshold except the head jailer. When we bombarded him with questions about the fellow who had passed himself off as the American consul, and who had stolen our letters and had never shown up since—damn him!—we had all learned to speak a little Spanish by this time—he pretended not to hear and, his inspection over, locked the door behind him. Pretty soon we fell into the ways of all disheartened prisoners—each man following the bent of his nature. I warded off sickening despair by carving with my pocket-knife—which they let me keep as being too small to do them any harm—little figures out of the beef bones I found in my soup. That’s how I came to recognize those in Monsieur Lemois’ cabinet. When I was lucky enough to get hold of a knuckle bone with a rounded knob at the end, I made a friar with a bald head, the smooth knob answering for his pate. Other bones were turned into grotesque figures of men, women, and animals. These I gave to the sentry, who sent them to his children. Often he brought me small pieces of calico and I made dresses and trousers for them. When I got tired of that I trained two fleas—and they were plenty—to play leap-frog up my arm.