The Launching of Roger Brook

"I've no wish to pry, Dan," Roger said as he joined him, "but

I'm all agog to know the reason for the exchange we've just made. Won't you tell me what lies behind it?"

The smuggler laughed. "Aye, why not. 'E'll find out for 'e's self soon enough. 'Tis this way. The Riding Officers be mighty spry these days roun' Mudeford and Bourne Heath; but the Isle o' Wight has quiet covers a plenty, so 'tis there we now run our cargoes. Then the Yarmouth lads bring 'em over piecemeal, a few kegs at a time, in the little boats that be always plyin' to an' fro from the island."

"So that's why 'tis done," murmured Roger. "But why couldn't you land your cargo on the island direct from the lugger?"

"I could, lad; an' always did in the good days. But as I've telled 'e Ollie Nixon's out to have my blood. 'Tis to fox he that we make the change o' craft. Come daylight should he sight the Sally Ann, 'tis her he'll keep his weather eye on, while she does a bit o' harmless fishin' an' we take the Albatross to France."

" 'Tis monstrous clever, that, Dan."

"Aye; 'tis a ruse that has worked twice afore, an' pray God 'twill work again."

For the best part of two hours Roger remained on deck, while the little schooner, lifting and falling gently to the swell, cleaved her way through the night; then he thought that he would turn in for a bit. The knobs and points of the jewel-filled bandage round his waist irked him somewhat but their weight was better distributed than it had been as a heavy packet in his pocket, so he decided to leave them as they were, and, adjusting them more comfortably, lay down on his bunk in his clothes. Youth can do with far more sleep than age, and, in spite of his long nap that evening, he had hardly closed his eyes before he dropped off.

When he awoke it was daylight and a strong smell of cooking assailed his nostrils. On sitting up he saw that Fred Mullins was busy cooking bacon, onions and pigs' fry in the tiny galley that formed the far end of the cabin. Tidying his hair as best he could in a cracked mirror nailed to the bulkhead, he joined the ex-naval jolly and helped lay up the table for breakfast.

The men came down for their meal in relays, Dan being last, and when he had eaten he turned in for a spell while Roger went on deck. The old fisherman, Simon Fry, was now at the wheel and the schooner was scudding along on a fine breeze. The weather promised well and on looking round the horizon Roger could see no sail except the Sally Ann, which apparently had kept them company all through the night, and now lay about a mile away on their port quarter.

There was nothing to do but laze in the sunshine and, making himself as comfortable as he could on a coil of rope Roger took his ease there all through the morning. At midday he joined the crew in another rough and ready meal and, after it, Dan took the wheel again.

As he did so he asked Roger how he was feeling, and Roger, having entirely forgotten the plea by which he had induced the smuggler to take him on the trip, replied cheerfully: "I never felt better, Dan. I'm as fit as a fiddle."

" 'Tis just as I told 'e," Dan laughed. "Tain't no different in mid-channel, here, than 'tis huggin' the coast in a bit o' a yawl. An' we's nigher to France than England now. Come six o'clock we should make a landfall."

The early hours of the afternoon drifted by uneventfully but soon after four o'clock Nick Bartlett, who was acting as lookout, called: "Sail astern, Cap'n."

Slipping a noose of rope over one of the spokes of the wheel to keep it in position Dan picked up a spy-glass and focused it on the speck that the surly longshoreman had reported.

After a few moments he lowered his telescope with a curse and added: " 'Tis the Revenue cutter Expedition; Ollie Nixon be after us again."

"Well, you've naught to fear," Roger said in an effort to reassure him. " 'Tis the Sally Ann that he'll be interested in, not us."

"Aye, let's hope so," Dan muttered, "may God rot his guts."

The captain of the Sally Ann had also evidently sighted the Revenue cutter, as she began to play her part as a decoy and draw away, while the Albatross held on her course.

All the crew had now assembled on deck and for the next half-hour they watched the Revenue cutter anxiously. She was considerably faster than either of the other ships, and soon began to overhaul them. In order to avoid arousing the Revenue men's suspicions the Sally Ann had not taken any drastic action that would have been immediately perceptible to them but only adopted a slightly divergent course a few more points to westward; so it was at first impossible to tell whether the cutter was in pursuit of the schooner or the lugger.

Then, to their dismay, the issue became certain. The Sally Ann was now a good two miles away and had dropped some distance astern; but the Expedition was ignoring her and, with all sail spread, coming up in the wake of the Albatross.

"Darn his eyes!" Dan swore. "He've smelled our red herring once too often, an' he means to board us."

"What if he does?" said Roger. "You've not loaded your contraband yet, so he can't lay a finger on you."

"Nay," Dan muttered uneasily, "To-night we've naught to fear 'cept from the Frenchies. But Ollie Nixon havin' tumbled to our ruse bodes ill for our homeward run. Once he have satisfied hisself that 'tis me an' my lads is aboard the Albatross he'll patrol these waters for days to get us."

While they had been talking the cutter had come up to within hailing distance of the schooner and a faint but clear call came to them from across the water:

"Heave-to, there! In the King's name, heave-to!"

With another curse Dan gave the wheel a spin, bringing the schooner round within six points of the wind, so that her sails emptied and began to flop idly against her stays. Her crew scattered quickly to reef them in, and while they were still busy at it the cutter drew abreast. No sooner had she checked her way than some of her people began to get out a boat. It was easy to see that they were used to the business, from the despatch they used, and five minutes later a smart gig was making fast to the schooner's stern.

A heavy, red-faced man hauled himself aboard and his sharp black eyes swept the little group of sullen-looking sailors.

"Arternoon, Mr. Nixon," said Dan, with the best grace he could muster.

"So, 'tis you, Dan Izzard," Nixon muttered, "I guessed as much. What are you and your culleys doing aboard the Albatross?"

"Cap'n Cummings giv' me the loan o' her, Sir. 'E'll allow there's naught illegal in that."

Nay, naught illegal, but 'tis monstrous fishy seeing that I know you to have sailed from Lymington last night in the Sally Ann. What cargo are you carrying; or are you in ballast?"

"In ballast, may it please your honour," replied Dan sarcastically.

Nixon turned to a petty officer who had scrambled aboard after him. "Nip down into her hold, Higgins, and take a look-see."

As the man moved to obey Dan threw up a hand to restrain him and grumbled: "Easy, easy. If 'e must stick e's nose into other folks' business 'tis a cargo o* salt we have aboard, an' we're bound for Le Havre."

"So that's the lay, is it?" Nixon's heavy face broke into a sly grin. "All right, Higgins, we'll take his word for it."

"B'ain't naught illegal in that, neither," said Dan with a scowl.

"Not if you land your salt openly at Le Havre; but I'm not in King Louis's pay, so that's not my affair."

As Nixon turned to regain his boat he suddenly caught sight of Roger who, up till then, had been standing half-concealed from him by the big wheel. Halting, he exclaimed in surprise:

"Why, 'tis Master Brook! What would you be doing here?"

"I'm shortly going into the Navy, Sir," Roger replied promptly. "And I came on this trip to try out my sea legs."

" 'Tis strange company to find a young gentleman in," Nixon frowned. "I'll make no accusations I can't prove: but if there's con­traband in the vessel next time I board her 'twill be my duty to take you, if you're among her crew, and charge you with the rest."

Roger flushed slightly as he lied: "I'm sure Dan Izzard and his men intend nothing illegal, Sir."

"I am entitled to my doubts of that, and if you're here for a lark it has lasted long enough. If 'tis no more than a sea trip you sought come with me, and I'll give you passage home."

"Thanks, Sir, but I've never been abroad and I'm all agog to see Le Havre, so, if you'll excuse me, I prefer to stay with Dan."

"Unless my wits deceive me, should you remain aboard the Albatross there's a chance of you finding yourself in a French galley instead of seeing Le Havre. Come now! Come home with me, and let me earn your mother's gratitude."

Roger did not fully take in the meaning of this allusion to a French galley and, even had he done so, it seemed to him now that so much depended on his being able to land in France, that it is doubtful if he would have allowed the warning to influence him. As it was he simply shook his head and said again: "Thanks, Sir, but I prefer to stay with Dan."

Nixon shrugged his broad shoulders. "So be it then; but I fear you'll have cause to repent of your folly before you're much older."

With a curt nod to Dan he went over the snip's side, followed by his man, and a moment later the gig's crew were giving way lustily as they pulled him back to the Expedition.

The sails of the Albatross were re-set and, leaving the Revenue cutter behind, she was soon skimming over the water towards the French coast once more.

A little belatedly, and uneasily now, Roger was thinking over Mr. Nixon's sinister remark, that he might find himself in a French galley instead of seeing Le Havre. If Dan had a cargo of Lymington salt aboard it was obviously destined for France. The French, so Roger had heard, were forced to pay an exceptionally high price for this simple commodity, owing to an exorbitant tax that their king had put upon it. The tax was called the gabelle, and was one of the French people's principle reasons for discontent against the monarchy. Since Dan had for years earned his living by smuggling illicit spirits into England it seemed most unlikely that he would willingly pay a heavy import duty in order to land a cargo of salt in France.

Having reached the conclusion that Dan contemplated making a big illegal profit at both ends of his trip, Roger was not particularly perturbed by the additional risk in which he had unwittingly involved himself, because Dan had for so many years proved himself a capable and canny smuggler, but he became extremely worried at the thought that the Albatross might both unload her cargo of salt and take on a new one of spirits in some secluded cove, and not enter the port of Le Havre at all.

Striving to conceal his new anxiety he went up to Dan and asked: "What time should we make Le Havre, Dan?"

"First light to-morrow morning, all bein' well, lad," Dan replied quite casually. "We've a rendezvous, as the Frenchies call it, wi' some friends o' mine farther down the coast to-night. Then we beats up channel to the port to pick up our nice drop o' liquor, an' sails for home at dusk."

This was highly reassuring, and Roger smothered a sigh of relief, as it now seemed clear that they were not only really going to Le Havre, but that he would have the whole day in which to go ashore and dispose of his jewels.

"Do the French Preventives give you much trouble?" he asked after a moment.

"Nay. They's nothin' nigh so smart as our chaps, nor so numerous. 'Tis good money for old rope so long as 'e don't fall foul o' one o' they's men o' war. Look, lad! Dq'st see the dark streak on the horizon, yonder? 'Tis the coast of France."

All else forgotten, Roger picked up Dan's spy-glass and, glueing his eye to it, endeavoured to make out the features of that strange land where lived England's traditional enemies, and of which he had heard so much.

Occasionally Dan glanced over his shoulder at Mr. Nixon's cutter. He had thought that after boarding him she would put back towards England, if only temporarily, but to his annoyance she continued to follow in the wake of the Albatross under three-quarter sail. Now, as he luffed and brought the schooner round on to a westward course so that she should run down the Normandy coast while still some miles distant from it, the cutter ignored his action and, somewhat to his surprise, continued on a course towards Le Havre.

Soon after this they took their evening meal, and when Roger came on deck again the cutter had disappeared from sight. But now they were considerably nearer the French coast and here and there could see small craft working their way along it.

About nine o'clock, just as the summer dusk was beginning to fall, they discerned twenty or thirty dots on the horizon astern, which Dan said were the Le Havre fishing fleet putting out to sea. Roger watched them idly through the spy-glass for a while. They too, seemed tu be on a westward course as, although they grew no larger, they did not drop from view; and one of them that seemed to be much larger than the rest even appeared to be gaining on the Albatross.

He was just about to draw Dan's attention to this bigger ship when he was distracted by the smuggler giving orders for the lowering of the main and fore sails; as they had now come opposite that part of the coast where he had his rendezvous and he intended to lay off there until full darkness would cover his landing operation.

When Roger looked through the glass again he saw that not one but two of the ships in the fishing fleet were of different build and, clearly now, much larger than the rest. Both had detached themselves from the scattered line of dots and were coming on ahead of them under full sail. Running over to Dan he pointed them out to him.

Dan took the glass and studied them for a moment. " 'Tis two traders, what have sailed out o' Le Havre on the tide, like as not," he declared. "But take the glass, lad, and keep 'e's eye upon they."

Again Roger focused the two oncoming ships for a few moments. There seemed something vaguely familiar about the rig of the smaller of the two, and suddenly he recognised her.

"The smaller one," he cried, " 'Tis Mr. Nixon's cutter."

Dan snatched the telescope from him. "Aye, lad, 'e's right!" he grunted. "What devil's work would he be up to now? And what be other craft? Hi! Fred Mullins! What make 'e of yon ship? The bigger o' the two."

The ex-naval rating took the glass and, steadying it against a stay, took a long look at the approaching ships. Identification was not easy, owing to the falling twilight and the fact that the stranger craft being dead astern only her bows and fore sails were visible.

"She's a Frenchie," he muttered. "And if I mistake not, a thirty-six gun frigate."

"God's death!" swore Dan. " 'Tis as I feared. That bastard Nixon has betrayed us. Just think on it. What sort o' Englishman is he who would bring the Frogs upon us, an' send we to a daily floggin' in they's galleys. Avast, there! Avast! Up sail an' away."

Instantly every member of the crew flung himself into feverish activity. To be caught smuggling contraband into England was one thing, except on overwhelming evidence no bench of magistrates would convict; to be captured by the French quite another—it meant a hideous and long drawn-out death, rotting in chains shackled to an oar, in one of the French war galleys. In a bare ten minutes every sail the schooner could carry was set and she was standing out to sea, their one hope now being to escape in the gathering darkness.

As the light deepened they watched their pursuers with terrible anxiety. Both ships had altered course and were now beating sea­ward on lines converging with that of the schooner in the hope of cutting her off. The frigate and the Expedition were both faster ships than their prey and it was soon perceptible that they were gaining on her.

Roger prayed for darkness as he had never prayed before, yet it seemed that the long summer twilight scarcely deepened and that night would never fall. Dan stood grimly by the wheel getting every ounce of way out of the schooner of which she was capable. His crew had wrenched aside her hatches and, working like madmen, were now jettisoning her cargo, in the hope that if they could only get all the great blocks of salt overboard before the frigate came up with her they would be able to show a hold free of contraband.

As Roger lent a hand, he kept an anxious eye on the frigate. Staggering under the weight of one of the blocks he was just about to tip it overboard when he saw a little cloud of white smoke issue from her fo'c'sle head. A moment later he heard a sharp report. He did not see the shot but guessed that their pursuer had fired a round from her long gun at some point ahead of their bows to bring them to.

The shadows had deepened now and, ignoring the warning, Dan held on his course, still hoping that night might cover their escape from French waters.

The gun boomed again and Roger saw the second shot ricochet across the waves within ten yards of the schooner's starboard quarter. Still Dan doggedly held on and gave no order to lower sail.

A third time a little white cloud issued from the frigate's fo'c'sle and the report echoed across the water, to be followed almost instantly by the crashing of woodwork in the schooner's stern. The roundshot had found a mark in her poop, and, crashing through it, bounded along her deck.

As to what happened next Roger was not quite sure. He heard the gun fire a fourth time, then there was a frightful splintering of wood. The schooner's main mast heeled over and came crashing down. Sails, ropes and spars seemed to be flying in all directions. Something hit him a terrific buffet in the back, knocking him off his feet and throw­ing him forward. Next moment he found himself in the water struggling for his life.

CHAPTER VII

THE MAN IN RED

ROGER was a good swimmer, but never before had he been plunged into the sea fully dressed; within a moment he found that his sodden clothes hampered him enormously. In addition he had coins in his boots and several pounds weight of precious metal around his waist. As he felt the pull of them dragging him down he was overtaken by panic and opened his mouth to let out a yell. His shout for help was cut short by a wave crest slapping into his face. Choked by sea water, he gulped, and went under.

The next minutes were a nightmare to him. Lack of breath caused a suffocating pain in his chest and as he sank he thought that he was done for. In a violent effort to save himself he attempted to kick off his boots; they did not come off but his frantic kicking brought him back to the surface.

Gasping in air he struck out wildly, with no thought of direction or husbanding his strength but simply with the animal instinct to keep himself from drowning. After a dozen flailing strokes he saw that he was heading towards the French frigate. Seen from low down on the water she seemed much larger now and she was still coming on under full sail.

By swimming with all his strength he found that he could keep afloat and make a little headway; but he knew that the frigate would pass him at some distance and that, in the gathering gloom, it was most unlikely that anyone on her deck would see him struggling there in the water.

Thrusting himself round he looked towards the Albatross. He was now about two hundred yards astern of her, since her way had carried her on that far before the shattered main mast, that now hung over her side, had dragged her to a standstill.

He wondered desperately if he would have the strength to gain her. Georgina's treasure now threatened to be his death; it hung like a thick belt of lead resting on his hips, and, as it was under his clothes, there was no way in which he could get rid of it. With every stroke he took its weight seemed to increase and it kept him so low in the water that every wavelet broke over his face, filling his eyes and nostrils with salty spume. Despair now gripped his heart and he felt that each moment would be his last.

His range of vision was very limited and he had only glimpsed the schooner by heaving himself up with a special effort, so he did not even see the big spar that had come adrift from her main mast until it was washed right on top of him. With a gasp of relief he threw his arms over it and hung there, panting.

Having got his breath back and shaken the water from his eyes he hoisted his head above the spar and took a quick look round. He was still a good hundred and fifty yards astern of the disabled Albatross.

The frigate was now coming up abreast of her and in the failing light he could just make out the Expedition a quarter of a mile astern of the frigate. Dropping back he remained for about five minutes swaying gently in the water while his agitated mind sought a way of getting himself rescued.

When he looked again he saw that the frigate and cutter had both hove to. Their lanterns were lit and the former was lowering a boat. It was too dark to make out any details but faintly he could hear a French officer shouting orders and then the splash of the oars as the boat was pulled towards the Albatross to take the smugglers in her prisoner.

At that thought his heart sank even lower. As long as he could cling to the heavy spar he was safe from a watery grave but rescue meant the frightful prospect of being sent as a slave to the French war galleys. For a few moments he was racked with indecision whether to hang on there, on the chance of being washed ashore or picked up by another ship, or to put all his strength into shouts for help, and accept the grim alternative.

The summer night had now closed down, and when he bobbed up he could make out the stricken Albatross only as a vague whitish blur; the positions of the frigate and cutter were indicated by their lights. For a few moments more he wavered, then he decided that he dared not ignore this chance of rescue, however frightful the future that it portended, and he began to shout.

After a minute he thought he heard an answering cry, and paused to listen, but it did not come again and he realised that an altercation was going on between Dan and his men and the Frenchmen in the boat. Panicking again at the thought that he might not be able to make him­self heard he began to yell with all the force of his lungs.

Again he paused to listen, there was silence now. The Albatross was no longer visible and the lights of the frigate and cutter seemed farther off. Grimly it came to him that the tide must be carrying him away from them, and frantically now, he called again and again; but there was no response.

After ten minutes, his throat sore and his breath coming in gasps from the effort, he gave up. Full darkness had come and as he could now see only the mast lights of the two ships in which his hope of rescue lay, he knew that he must have drifted at least half a mile away from them.

His one hope was that he would be able to cling on to the spar until he was washed ashore or daylight came with a new chance of rescue. Fortunately it was high summer and the water was quite warm but, even so, he feared that his hands would grow numb and lose their grip on the spar before many hours had passed.

With the idea of finding an easier hold he began to pull his way along the spar and soon came upon a length of rope that was trailing from it. Hanging on, first with one hand then with the other, he got the rope under his arms and managed to lash himself to the spar sufficiently firmly for only a light hold on it to be necessary to keep his head above water. Slightly relieved in mind he relaxed a little but now that he had leisure to think for the first time since he had been thrown overboard his thoughts brought him little comfort.

The thing that had made the greatest impression on him in the past hectic hour was Mr. Ollie Nixon's betrayal of his compatriots to the French. It was obvious now that the Expedition had left the Albatross's tail only to make for Le Havre, and that Nixon had tipped off the authorities there that a smuggler craft was just down the coast well inside French territorial waters. He had then followed the frigate in order to gloat over the ill fate that he had brought upon the unfor­tunate Dan and his companions. Roger would never have believed that an Englishman could be capable of such baseness and he made a mental vow that, if he lived, he would somehow get even with Nixon on Dan's account as well as his own. But, at the moment, the chances of his surviving to carry out his vow looked far from good.

The mast lights of both the ships had now disappeared below Roger's limited horizon and, although the stars had come out, there was no hint of human life whichever way he peered through the surrounding gloom.

For what seemed an eternity he hung there, submerged up to his armpits in water, his dangling legs swaying gently with the motion of the waves. Georgina's prophecy that water would always be dan­gerous to him reoccurred to his mind. He thought how surprised she would be if she knew how swiftly it had been fulfilled; as by this time she no doubt fondly imagined him to be lodged at some comfortable inn in London having safely deposited the proceeds of her jewels in Messrs. Hoare's bank. He sought such comfort as he could from the idea that her other prophecies had yet to be fulfilled, but he remembered with misgiving her once having told him that things seen in the glass would come to pass only if the subject pursued a path made natural to him through his character and environment—as indeed most people did—but that an abnormal exercise of free will might cause deviations from it, or the whole future suddenly be rendered void by a higher power decreeing death for the subject.

As he tried to weigh the pros and cons of the matter in his mind he was temporarily cheered again by the thought that he was off the coast of France, and it was in France that Georgina had seen him fight­ing a duel. Yet she had been very definite that the duel would not take place for several years, and if he was washed ashore he meant to get back to England as soon as he possibly could, so that did not get him anywhere either.

He had now been in the water for an hour and a half and with the advance of the night he was becoming chilly. As he began to jerk his limbs about to restore his circulation he turned his head, and suddenly saw a moving light no more than fifty yards distant from him. Instantly he began to shout.

A French voice answered his cries, excited shouts followed; the direction in which the light was moving changed, now coming towards him, and the bulk of a small craft, with her sails set, loomed up out of the darkness. A few minutes later he was being hauled aboard her.

Roger's French consisted only of what he had picked up at school during a year of lessons, and the handful of sailors who crowded round him as he was dragged squelching on to the deck questioned him in their Normandy patois, which he found it almost impossible to understand. But his flair for languages had enabled him to make good use of his comparatively slender instruction. He managed to convey to them that he had fallen overboard unnoticed in the darkness from an English merchantman an hour earlier, and to gather that their boat was one of the fishing fleet which he had seen after they had put out from Le Havre, just before dusk that evening.

A short, swarthy man with gorilla-like shoulders, who appeared to be the Captain, took him below to the tiny cabin. He had borne up so far, but now the reaction from the shock and strain of the last few hours set in and he practically collapsed. It was all he could do to swallow the fiery Calvados that was poured down his throat and to keep his senses while his soaking garments were peeled from his body. Within a quarter of an hour of his rescue he was wrapped up like a mummy in four thicknesses of rough blankets and sound asleep.

When he woke it was daylight and he found the swarthy Captain staring down at him. They exchanged a few more sentences with diffi­culty, from which Roger learned that the smack had had a good night's fishing and was now heading back to Le Havre. The man then gave him a basin of gruel and left him.

Roger's first thought was for his possessions, but with great relief he saw that the sausage-like bundle, containing Georgina's jewels, had been laid, still tied by the piece of hemp, beside him, and that near it in a small crockery pot were the gold and silver coins that he had had in his boots. His rescuers were evidently honest men, or, perhaps, having recognised that he was a person of quality by his clothes, had been afraid to rob him; but he felt that on discovering his wealth they must have been highly tempted and might well have thrown him back into the sea after despoiling him, so he blessed their integrity.

As he looked round the mean little cabin he thought it all the more striking from their evident poverty. That of Dan's lugger had smelt almost as evilly, but there had been an air of rough comfort about it; bits of spare clothing, worn but of good thick material, stout leather sea-boots, a flitch of bacon and a cask of rum. Here, there was nothing but the refuse of semi-destitution. Even the Captain, Roger had noticed, wore ragged trousers of some thin cotton stuff and wooden clogs, while the gruel he had been given was obviously the crew's normal fare, as there was no good English odour of liver, onions and bacon lingering about the cabin.

The blankets, too, in which he was wrapped were little better than sacking; but, since his clothes had been taken away, there seemed no alternative to lying there until they were returned to him.

For some two hours he dozed and meditated on his own miraculous preservation, the strange sequence of events that had led to his being where he was and the wretched fate which he had good reason to suppose had overtaken the crew of the Albatross. Then the Captain clattered down the ladder, bringing him his clothes.

They had been rough-dried on deck in the morning sunshine and, apart from the fact that they were sadly rumpled, appeared to be little the worse for their immersion. As he put them on he thought sadly of the fine warm greatcoat, and of the satchell with his silver-mounted pistols and other items he valued in it, all of which he had left behind in the cabin of the Albatross; but he swiftly upbraided himself for worrying about such comparative trifles when a merciful Providence had spared him his life, liberty and little fortune.

On going on deck he found that the smack and some two score of her fellow craft were running before a fair breeze towards a smudge on the horizon which must be the coast of France. The bulk of the little ship was occupied by its hold and this was now more than half-filled by a great heap of shiny silver fish, mainly haddocks, whiting and plaice. While he was looking at it one of the crew leant over and gathered a few of them into a small basket, which he took below. Then, half an hour later, the Captain came to Roger, took off his cap, bowed to him and invited him down to the cabin.

In it he saw that some food had been put ready on a rough pine table, but to his surprise the Captain did not sit down with him. Indicating a bench to Roger he tipped the fish from a saucepan out on to a large earthenware dish, cut from a loaf a great hunk of rye bread which he laid beside it, then stood back, respectfully.

Seeing that he was expected to eat with his fingers, Roger set to. The fish had been plain boiled with a clove of garlic and, owing to their freshness, Roger found them excellent. He would have much preferred them fried, but guessed that these poor fisher-folk could not afford the luxury of fat. There was a jug on the table, but no glass, and on drinking from it, Roger found that it contained still cider of an incredible sourness; and it was all he could do, in deference to his host, to prevent his face screwing up into an agonised grimace.

When he had done the Captain bowed him up on deck again and calling to two of his men they went down to eat their share of the mess of fish.

Roger now found that the coast was clearly visible and an hour later the masts of the shipping in the great port of Le Havre could be clearly made out. The fishing fleet duly put into its own harbour, which was some little way from the big naval dock and the basins in which the merchantmen were berthed.

There were no landing formalities to go through here so it remained only for Roger to thank his rescuers. Having Georgina's jewels safely round his waist again he felt that he could well afford to be at least as generous as he had been with Dan, so he gave the swarthy Captain five out of the fourteen pounds that remained to him. The Frenchman did not appear to have expected so handsome a present and with many barely understandable expressions of gratitude bowed Roger on to the wharf as though he had been a veritable Prince.

Roger had yet to learn that the poor of France were in such a sad condition of slavery to the nobility that, far from daring to lay a finger on him, they would almost certainly have executed any reasonable order that he cared to give without expecting to be rewarded in any way for their services. As it was, he walked off into the town with the happy feeling that he had satisfactorily maintained the honour of England and the belief that every English gentleman was a milor rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

The clocks of the city were dnming half-past three as he landed and it was again a pleasant sunny afternoon. Turning into the Rue Francois 1er, which, as it chanced, was the busiest and most fashionable thoroughfare of the town, he entered its turmoil, turning his head swiftly from side to side as each new sight or sound of this strange foreign town caught his attention. Although the street was com­paratively broad for the times the upper storeys of the houses that lined it projected so far above the lower that they almost met overhead. In this it differed little from the streets that he knew well in Winchester and Southampton, but its occupants seemed to him almost as if they were all got up in fancy dress.

In France, a much richer and more colourful standard of attire was still maintained among the upper classes than had of recent years become the fashion in England. Few gentlemen had as yet abandoned wigs unless their own hair was prolific and in that case they still wore it powdered. Cloth was still regarded as a bourgeois material, except for wear when travelling, and the men from the smart equipages who were shopping in the street were nearly all clad in satin or velvet, while their ladies were dressed in flowered silk skirts with bulging panniers and wore absurd little hats perched on elaborate powdered coiffures, often as much as a foot and a half in height.

Even the common people seemed more colourful than those in English provincial cities, as the grisettes aped the fashions of their betters, the postilions and footmen were all dressed in gaudy liveries, and the sober black of the countrywomen who had come into market was relieved by their picturesque local head-dresses of white lace.

The goods of the shopkeepers in this busy centre were displayed not only in the bow windows but also on trestles outside their shops and the wealth of articles they offered struck Roger as in strange contrast to the dire poverty of the fishermen he had just left.

The street was so crowded with vehicles and its sides so cluttered with stalls that half-a-dozen times Roger had to dodge beneath the heads of horses, or swerve to avoid the wheel of a coach, in order to escape being run over. But at every opportunity he paused to sniff up the spicy scent that came from an epicene or to stare into a shop window in which, to him, unusual goods were displayed.

Behind the narrow panes of one halfway down the street he saw an array of swords, and stopped to look at them. In England, civilians no longer wore swords habitually, but he had been quick to notice that here in France, every man who, from his raiment, had any pretension to quality carried a sword at his side: in fact it was obviously the hallmark by which the gentry distinguished themselves from their inferiors.

His delight in arms had often led him to regret that the fashion of carrying a sword had gone out at home; and the next day or two, until he could get a passage back to England, offered an excellent opportunity to indulge himself in such a foible. For a moment he hesitated, the carefulness inherited with his Scots' blood causing him to wonder if the expense was really justified for a few hours' amusement, but he found a ready pretext in the thought that nothing could make a more satisfactory and lasting souvenir of both his first day alone in the world and of his visit to France; so he entered the shop and, in a carefully chosen phrase, asked to look at some of the swords.

The armourer at first produced several court swords suitable to Roger's height, but as he would have to put his purchase away on his return to England he decided to buy a proper duelling weapon of a man's length which he could use when fully grown if ever he was called out.

The man hid a smile and laid a number on a long strip of velvet for Roger's inspection. They varied in price from a pistol to six louis, according to their condition and the ornamentation of their hilts, so most of them were beyond Roger's pocket. After testing several he selected one that had been marked down to a louis and a half, on account of its plain old-fashioned hilt, but had a blade of fine Toledo steel.

On his taking out his money to pay for it he explained that he had only just landed in France and the armourer readily agreed to send one of his apprentices along the street to have it changed at the nearest bank, so Roger asked for three of his remaining guineas to be changed.

While the lad was gone Roger chose a frog, which cost a crown, for attaching the sword to his belt, and buckled it on. The change arrived as twenty-four crowns and at first Roger was a little puzzled by it. He knew that a French louis was the equivalent of an English pound, but a crown in England meant five shillings so it looked as if his three guineas had miraculously turned into six louis. The armourer smilingly explained to him. A louis was worth twenty-four litres, or francs as they were now beginning to be called; a pistol twenty and a French crown only three, or half the value of an English one; so he had been given the French equivalent for his money less a shilling in the guinea, which had been deducted for the exchange.

Having paid thirteen crowns for his purchases he pocketed the remaining eleven three franc pieces, thanked the armourer and left the shop with a little swagger at the thought of the fine figure he must now cut with the point of his long sword sticking out behind him.

A few doors farther down he noticed a hat shop and suddenly realised that, having lost his own, he probably did not cut such a fine figure after all. The defect was soon remedied by the purchase of a smart high-brimmed tricorne with a ruching of marabout which cost him another three crowns. It was somewhat elaborate by contrast with his plain blue cloth coat but definitely in the fashion of the French gentlemen who were passing up and down the crowded street.

It next occurred to him that he would need a few toilet articles for the night and a change of linen, so he turned back towards the quay and visited several other shops he had noticed, including a tanner's where he bought himself a leather bag, and a mercer's, at which, amongst other things, he selected a fine lace jabot that he put on there and then in place of his own crumpled linen neck-band.

His purchases completed, he suddenly realised that he was very hungry so he turned into a patisserie. On looking round he was astonished at the wonderful variety of cakes and sweets displayed, most of which he had never seen in England. Seating himself at a little marble-topped, gilt-edged table, he ordered hot chocolate and soon made heavy inroads into a big dish of cakes, sending in due course for more chocolate Eclairs, as he found this admirable invention of Louis XIV's most famous chef particularly delightful.

To his relief he had found on his shopping expedition that, whereas the Normandy patois of his rescuers had been almost incomprehensible to him, he had little difficulty in understanding the French spoken by the townsfolk. By asking them to speak slowly he could usually get their meaning, anyhow at a second attempt, and by thinking out carefully what he wished to say himself before speaking he had succeeded quite well in making himself understood.

On paying his score he asked the white-coated pastrycook behind the counter if he could recommend a good clean inn which was not too expensive.

"Monsieur," declared the man with a smiling bow, "You could have asked no one better than myself. Go to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys. down on the Quai Colbert. There your lordship will find soft beds and excellent fare for the modest sum of a crown a day; also a cellar renowned and company of the most distinguished. The host, Maitre Picard, is an honest man and will serve you well. He is my uncle by marriage, so I can vouch for him. Please to mention me and you will lack for nothing."

The recommendation sounded so good that Roger did not hesitate to accept it and, having secured directions from the pastry-cook, he set off to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys.

When he reached it he was a little disappointed. The inn was a small one in an old and poor part of the town, and its exterior had long lacked paint, but it overlooked the Bassin Vauban where much interesting shipping activity was in progress and Roger felt that he could not expect to lodge in a palace for three francs a day; so he went in and asked for the host.

Maitre Picard proved to be a fat, oily-looking man of lethargic habits, but he was quick enough to smell money in Roger's smart feathered hat and fine lace jabot. Washing his hands with invisible soap and bowing at every sentence with the servility of his tribe he confirmed the terms that Roger had been given and took him up to an attic room. As he saw his prospective guest's look of distaste at such poor accommodation he hastened to explain that there were rooms more suitable to a gentleman of his quality on the lower floors, but they ran from six francs to a half pistol a day.

Having turned down the bed and seen that the cotton sheets were clean, Roger decided that even small economies now would help him to make a better show when he got to London; so he told the landlord that as he would not be staying for more than a few nights the room would serve.

Mattre Picard then inquired about supper. A pot-au-feu followed by a dish of vegetables and petit coeurs a la Reine—the cream cheese of the locality—were in with the price of the room. But the English milor would not find such simple bourgeois fare at all to his taste. No doubt he would wish a turbot and a chicken cooked to supplement them?

Full as he was with cream-filled chocolate eclairs, Roger felt that at the moment there was nothing he would wish less, and he said so; adding that when supper-time came he felt sure that a bowl of soup and some cheese would prove ample for his needs.

Resentful now that he should have been deceived into believing his customer a man of wealth by the feathers and lace he wore, the landlord gave a surly nod and shuffled from the room.

Roger unpacked his few belongings, then, bolting the door, undid his clothes and took the knobbly sausage of gold trinkets from round his waist. It had chafed him considerably so he was much relieved to be free of it, but he wondered now what to do with his treasure. As he knew, its bulk and weight made it awkward to carry done up in a packet in one of the pockets of his coat yet if he distributed it about his person he felt that here, in this crowded city, he would run a considerable risk of losing some of it through having his pockets picked. After a little thought he decided that if he could find a safe place his best course would be to hide it for the night somewhere in the room.

A careful inspection of the floor revealed a loose board under the deal washstand, so he prized it up and thrust his hoard as far under it as he could reach. He had hardly got the board back into place when there came a knock on the door.

Swiftly adjusting his clothes he opened it to find outside a spotty, depressed-looking little chambermaid who had come up to ask if he required anything.

Taking off his crumpled blue coat he asked her if she could press it for him and let him have it back as soon as possible.

When she had gone he re-examined his business-like-looking sword with the keenest pleasure and made a few passes with it; but he soon wearied of this and began to wonder how best to amuse himself. The window of the attic did not look out on the Bassin Vauban but on to the narrow, dirty stableyard of the inn. The dinner hour was long since past and that of supper, even if he had wanted it, not yet come. So he decided to take a turn along the quays and look at the shipping, while it was still light. As soon as the chambermaid brought back his coat he put it on and, going downstairs, went out on to the wharf.

After an hour's walk he returned to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys and went into its parlour. The "company of the most distinguished" promised by the pastry-cook turned out to consist of two men engaged in a game of backgammon, who looked like ill-paid sea captains, an old man in a blue cloth suit, with a shock of white hair, a fine forehead and watery blue eyes, and a lanky fellow of about thirty dressed in a red velvet coat that looked somewhat the worse for wear. The old man was staring vacantly in front of him while he toyed with a tot of spirits and Roger decided that he was either dotty or three-parts drunk; the man in the red velvet was reading a badly-printed news-sheet through a quizzing glass, but he lowered it as Roger came in, gave him a sharp glance, and, bowing slightly, said: "Good evening to you, Monsieur."

As Roger returned the bow and the greeting, the man went on in an amiable tone: "Pray, pardon my apparent curiosity, but are you a casual visitor here? Or have you, perchance, taken a room in this pestiferous hostelry?"

Roger admitted to the latter and asked: "And you, Monsieur?"

"For my sins I have been lying here some ten days," came the prompt reply. "And I am near dying of boredom; so 'tis a most welcome diversion to see a new face."

"If you dislike it here, why do you remain?" Roger inquired with a smile.

"I am forced to it," the lanky individual answered, his long face breaking into a wry grin. "I owe the plaguey landlord a trifling sum— a mere bagatelle of eighty crowns or so—and he has had the impudence to seize my baggage as surety for its payment. So I must needs remain here till the funds that I am expecting daily, reach me."

Roger had to ask for parts of this to be repeated more slowly, explaining that he was an Englishman who had only that day arrived in France.

"You astound me," exclaimed his new acquaintance. "The little French you have spoken is so excellent that I had no idea you were a foreigner."

"You flatter me, Monsieur," said Roger, a flush of pleasure mount­ing to his face. "But 'tis the fact."

The man in red stood up and bowed: "Permit me to introduce myself. I am the Chevalier Etienne de Roubec. Your servant, Monsieur. I am charmed to welcome you to my country. My only regret is that this temporary lack of funds deprives me of the happiness of doing its honours towards you in a fitting fashion."

Standing up Roger bowed and introduced himself in turn, then as they sat down again he said: "You were telling me, Monsieur le Chevalier, why it is that you remain on at Les Trois Fleur de-Lys?"

"Ah, yes," the Chevalier smiled and using simple phrases he went into a somewhat longer explanation, including an account of how he had had his pocket picked of a purse containing a hundred and twenty Louis, this being the original cause of his present embarrassment.

As Roger listened, striving to get the meaning of the less usual words through their context, he had ample opportunity to study the Chevalier's face. His brown eyes were quick and intelligent; a small scar on his left cheek ran up to the corner of one of them pulling it down a little and giving him a faintly humorous expression. His mouth was full and sensual, his chin slightly receding and his teeth bad, but he had a cheerful, vivacious manner and, as Roger had been feeling distinctly lonely during his hour's walk, he was glad to have someone with whom he could talk as a friend.

De Roubec, was, it transpired, the younger son of the Marquis of that name, and he obviously expected Roger, even though an English­man, to have heard of this rich and powerful Seigneur. The family had great estates in Languedoc but his father was, of course, at Versailles, where he held a high appointment near the person of the King. On being robbed of his money the Chevalier had at once written to his parent and expected any day now to receive a considerable remittance from him. In the meantime his principal worries were, that he was ashamed to appear in the clothes he was wearing, since he had had on his oldest things and been out on a fishing expedition when the pestiferous landlord had confiscated all his better garments; and that lack of cash made it impossible for him to buy Roger a drink.

Roger obligingly stepped into the breach, and, on the Chevalier declaring that Malaga was his favourite tipple, ordered a couple of glasses. He then gave a somewhat fictitious account of himself; saying that he had come to Le Havre, only to transact some business for his father, who was an English Admiral, and that having arrived by the packet boat from Southampton that morning he hoped to com­plete his business next day and return to England the following night.

After they had been talking for about half an hour supper was announced by a wizened little fellow who did duty, both as waiter and barman. The old man in the blue suit, who, in the meantime, had been drinking steadily, remained where he was; but the two seafarers, De Roubec and Roger, crossed the narrow hallway of the inn to the coffee room, and the two latter agreed to share a table.

Having by this time digested his surfeit of cream cakes Roger was agreeably surprised by the meal that was now served to them. In England, where few people except the poorest considered that a meal was not a meal at all unless it included an ample portion of red meat, the repast would normally have given rise to aggrieved complaint. But the soup had an excellent flavour, the dish of vegetables cooked in fresh butter proved a revelation as to how good vegetables could be when not swamped in water, and the cream cheeses were delicious. For the modest sum of a franc Roger found that he was able to buy a bottle of Bordeaux, and by the time it was empty the two new acquaintances were in splendid spirits, laughing together as though they had known each other for years.

De Roubec set down his glass with a little sigh. '"Tis now," he said, "that I find my lack of funds provoking almost beyond endurance. 'Twould have been such a pleasure this evening to take you forth and show you something of the town. Le Havre is a poor place compared to Paris or Lyons but, even so, it has a few passably diverting establish­ments and 'tis a sad pity that as you are leaving for England again so soon you should not see them while you are here."

" 'Tis monstrous good of you to suggest it," Roger replied "Un­fortunately I'm plaguey short of cash myself for the moment. I'll have ample when I've completed my business to-morrow, but I brought over only some twenty louis for my immediate expenses and I laid out considerably more than half of that on my passage and in purchases this afternoon."

The Chevalier shrugged his lean shoulders. "For twenty or thirty crowns we could have quite a good evening's sport. That is if you care to act as banker? But it must be on the firm understanding that I am host and will repay you any sum we expend when my money arrives. If you are already gone I will send it to you to England by a safe hand."

Roger barely hesitated. His native caution warned him that it would be tempting providence to run himself right out of cash before he had sold Georgina's jewels; but he reflected that he still had over six pounds so would have an ample safety margin if he blew three of them, and the idea of celebrating his first night as a free, grown man by going on the spree in this strange, foreign city, was tremendously exciting.

"If twenty crowns will serve, I'm your man, and mighty obliged to you into the bargain," he declared with a laugh.

So they left the table and collecting their hats and swords, went out on to the dark quay.

Turning westwards along it De Roubec led Roger past the Arsenal into the narrow Rue de Paris and there knocked loudly on the door of a tall, shuttered house. The door was opened by a pock-marked manservant in a grey and silver slivery. He evidently knew the Chevalier and ushering them into the hall asked them to wait a moment while he fetched his master.

A dapper little man clad in white breeches and a sky-blue silk coat then appeared.

"Ah, my dear Chevalier!" he exclaimed with an elegant bow and a quick glance at Roger. "What a pleasure to see you again. You are, I take it, once more in funds and come to challenge Dame Fortune at my tables?"

"Your servant, Monsieur Tricot. We intend only a mild flutter," De Roubec replied nonchalantly. "But permit me to present milord Brook, the son of the distinguished English Admiral. It is my privilege to show him the few amenities of Le Havre, and your establishment being one of them I have brought him to see it; but we'll risk a louis or two for the good of the house."

Roger thought it pointless to repudiate the sudden elevation he had been given and he much admired the skilful way in which De Roubec had disguised the fact that their purses were so ill-lined.

The gaming-house keeper begged him to consider the house as his own whenever he was in Le Havre and led them upstairs.

The whole of the first floor consisted of one big salon. In it about thirty people were assembled, all of them men, grouped round four large baize-covered tables. The room was lit adequately, but not brightly, by two-score of shaded candles set on the tables, or held by sconces centred in the gilt-outlined panels of the white painted walls. The floor was covered with a thick Aubusson carpet and at the far end from its tall, heavily curtained windows there was a buffet for food and drinks, and a small separate table with neat piles of gold and silver coins on it, behind which sat a dark-browed man. The atmosphere was orderly and subdued, the only sounds being the clink of coins, the quick flutter of cards and an occasional murmur from one of the players.

De Roubec led the way over to the cashier and Roger produced two of his guineas. The black-browed man gave only seven crowns and two francs each for them, but at a sharp word from the Chevalier he shrugged his shoulders and pushed across another crown; which made Roger feel that he had been very lucky to find such a worldly wise friend to protect his interests. As they walked over to the tables he slipped eight of the crowns into De Roubec's hand, retaining the rest for himself.

For ten minutes or so they moved quietly about watching the play. There were two tables of Vingt-et-un and two of Trente-et-quarante; those nearest the window being in each case for higher play with a gold demi-pistol as the minimum stake, whereas at the other two, players could stake anything from a franc upwards. Roger was fas­cinated by the sight of the little piles of double Louis, Louis and pistols - on the high-play tables, as he had never seen so much gold in his life, but he was not a gambler by nature and, even had he had the money, he would have played at one of the lower tables from choice.

Both the games were entirely strange to him so on De Roubec's asking him which he wished to play he chose the Trente-et-quarante, since it seemed much the simpler of the two, and they took two of the gilt chairs at the lower table.

Quickly picking up the idea of the game Roger began to punt a franc a time on each hand, and for a quarter of an hour won and lost more or less alternately, but the Chevalier refrained from playing and appeared content to watch his protdge, having quickly realised that the young Englishman was new to the game and feeling that he might in due course be blessed with beginner's luck.

De Roubec's hunch proved correct. For some minutes Roger's little pile of silver steadily increased, then the Chevalier came in, following his lead but staking crowns, and later, double-crowns, instead of francs. For the best part of an hour their run of luck continued, then fortune seemed to turn against them and their gains began to dwindle; but after twenty minutes and while they were still well in hand the luck came back. They played for another half-hour then De Roubec suddenly sat back, swept up his winnings and poured them into his pocket.

Roger looked at him in surprise but he smiled, and said: "Continue if you wish, mon ami. But I shall not tempt fortune further, and I would advise you, too, to withdraw before the fickle jade ceases to smile upon you."

The advice was sound and again Roger congratulated himself on having found so pleasant and wise a mentor. On counting his money he found that he had made fifty-five francs and he wished now that he had been playing in crowns as De Roubec must have cleared at least three times that sum; but he felt that he certainly had no cause to grumble.

Leaving the table they went over to the buffet for a drink and the Chevalier, now in tremendous good humour, ordered and paid for two goblets of champagne. Roger had heard of the wine but never drunk it, as it was still a great luxury in England and rarely seen except at private supper parties given in London by the richer members of the fashionable world. He found it rather too thin for his taste but the effervescence intrigued his palate and when he had drunk it a warm glow ran through him.

"This is no place to celebrate our good fortune," remarked De Roubec, as he finished his champagne. "What say you now to paying our respects to the ladies?"

The generous wine and his luck at the tables had made Roger feel that this was the best of all possible worlds and ripe for anything, so, without a thought as to what he might be letting himself in for, he readily agreed.

Following De Roubec's example he made a generous contribution to a box "for destitute gamblers"—which was actually one of Monsieur Tricot's sources of income—before leaving, and tipped both the cashier and the doorman who let them out, thereby relinquishing fourteen of his francs, but that seemed a small price to pay for two hours of such profitable entertainment.

Out in the ill-lit street once more, they took a side turning, which led off from the Rue de Paris past the Church of Notre Dame and brought them back to the water-front. A hundred yards along it, De Roubec halted in front of a house where bright lights showed through the chinks of nearly all the shutters and from which came the sound of fiddles and laughter.

On knocking, they were let in by a coal-black negro, but De Roubec seemed to know the place well and waving the grinning black aside led the way upstairs. The whole of the first floor here was also one big salon, but it had none of the subdued elegance of Monsieur Tricot's apartment. Its decorations were both gaudy and tawdry and instead of quiet decorum a spirit of dissolute abandon pervaded the place.

As a hugely fat woman, who appeared to be bursting out of her black satin dress, came forward to greet them Roger took in the scene, his eyes almost popping from his head. He had, of course, heard that such houses existed in London and other great cities but none of his friends had ever been to one and he had never imagined them to be like this.

In one corner three fiddlers on a low dais were sawing away at their violins; the other corners and sides of the room were occupied by small tables at most of which sat men with girls in varying states of semi-nudity, while in the centre of the floor, eight or ten others, mostly women, were executing a wild version of a country dance; in which, every time the partners met, instead of simply taking hands they embraced, kissed and mauled each other.

The Chevalier tapped Roger on the arm, drawing his attention back to the fat woman and said, "This is the Widow Scarron," but he did not give Roger's name, and added with a sly grin: "She is called so, after the puritanical mistress of Louis XIV's old age, in ironical jest."

"The Madame" had little black eyes half hidden in rolls of fat, her cheeks were white sacks heavily daubed .with rouge and her fleshy mouth was painted a violent red. She gave a hideous leer at Roger then said to the Chevalier

"What a handsome young man! Why, my girls will claw one another's eyes out to get at him," and, as she led them to a corner table, she added, sotto voce, some lewd jest that Roger did not catch but which caused De Roubec to burst out laughing.

They were no sooner seated at the table than a hunchbacked waiter hurried over to them bringing an ice bucket in which was thrust a bottle of champagne.

" 'Tis indifferent stuff," remarked De Roubec, "and the price charged for it exorbitant; but custom demands that we should buy it by way of entrance fee to this Temple of Venus." As the Chevalier had paid for the drinks at the gaming-house Roger felt that it was up to him to pay for the bottle and with a tip to the waiter it cost him twelve francs.

He was already half regretting that he had accepted De Roubec's suggestion that they should pay "their respects to the ladies"; as he had had a vague idea that the Chevalier simply meant to take him to some public assembly rooms where they could join in the dancing, and this water-front brothel was much stronger meat than he had bargained for. The place held for him all the excitement of something new and wicked but at the same time it was vaguely frightening. It reminded him of some of Mr. Hogarth's pictures, and might well have been one of them brought to raucous and sordid life.

But he was given little time to decide whether he was glad or sorry that this experience had, willy-nilly, been thrust upon him. Having seen them to their table, madame had at once left them to whip up the disengaged among her team, and the waiter had scarcely opened the champagne before the table was surrounded by a dozen young women immodestly displaying their charms and loudly vying with one another for the patronage of the newcomers.

They all looked young by candlelight but close inspection showed most of them to have left their teens far behind and all of them had hard, tired eyes. Some wore voluminous but tatty dresses, from beneath which they skittishly kicked up bare legs to show that they had nothing on underneath, while others wore only draperies of gauze that left nothing whatever to the imagination. AH of them were heavily painted and in several cases Roger noticed that the paint had not been laid on quite heavily enough to hide old pock marks on their cheeks and foreheads. But as far as he was concerned the "Widow Scarron" proved a true prophet. In his youth and freshness, even more than his good looks, they all saw something to excite their jaded appetites and entered into a violent contest to secure his favour.

"Voila!" said De Roubec, eyeing him quizzically. "I'll wager there's little to choose for naughtiness between them, but take your pick."

As Roger hesitated the Chevalier leaned forward and catching a short, dark, plump girl by the wrist drew her towards him. With a laugh she fell into his lap and putting her arms round his neck kissed him, leaving the red imprint of her lower lip just below his mouth.

"And what is your name, my pretty?" he asked.

"Fifi," she replied gaily. "And yours?"

"Etienne," he smiled. "Come now, a glass of wine, and you shall tell me your life's history. I doubt not that you are the daughter of a Marquis, or a Count at the least, and ran away from home with some handsome young buck who betrayed you?"

Roger still hesitated while the other girls clamoured round him. He did not particularly fancy any of them, but he saw that he must choose one if only to be rid of the rest, so he smiled and beckoned to a slim, fair-haired girl who looked a little more refined than her companions and attracted him on account of her colouring and figure.

She saw that he was nervous so did not embarrass him by kissing him at once, but quietly took the chair next to his and poured herself some wine. The others instantly stopped laughing and posturing before the table and with sullen looks at not having been chosen moved away.

Fifi was saying to De Roubec: "You are wrong, cheri, I am just one of the people—the people who will rule France one day. I am a Marseillaise and my father was a fisherman. I was brought up in a hovel and when I was thirteen, times were so bad that he sold me to a brothel-keeper."

Roger turned his attention to his own companion and asked her name.

"They call me Mou-Mou here," she replied, "and it serves as well as any other. By what name would you like me to call you?" "My name is Roger," he said at once.

"Rojé," she repeated, "that is a nice name. Monsieur is a foreigner, is he not?"

"Yes, English. And you, mam'selle? You are French, of course, but are you a native of these parts?"

She shook her fair head. "No, monsieur, I am a Flamande. My husband brought me here from Antwerp in his ship; but he left again without doing me the courtesy of saying good-bye. I had no money and here I am."

"What a monstrous thing to do," Roger exclaimed in quick sympathy.

The corners of her hard mouth turned down in a cynical little smile. "He was not really my husband; but I had had a child by him and hoped that he might make me his wife one day. But why should I bore you with my past misfortunes? Drink up your wine and tell me some naughty stories."

Roger had never told a dirty story to a woman in his life and he would have felt embarrassed about doing so now, even if his French had been up to it, and he excused himself on that account.

Fifi was continuing her story for De Roubec's benefit, and both the others turned to listen to her.

"A young journalist bought me out of the brothel. He gave me a good home and taught me about politics. Ah, he was clever; but too clever for our happiness in the end. He wrote a lampoon on the Queen, and the seventy thousand louis of the people's money that she had frittered away in a single year by gambling. The agents of Monsieur de Crosne seized him and carried him off to one of the dungeons in the Chateau D'If. Poor wretch, he is there still for all I know. As for myself, I took up with a bos'un in the Navy, and he brought me here as a stowaway; but the officers found us out. They had him tied to a grating and gave him two-hundred lashes—the brutes, and put me ashore. Then a pimp got hold of me and sold me to madame, here, for a hundred francs"

"Perchance someone else may take a fancy to you and buy you out," remarked De Roubec.

She shrugged. "Who would want me for a keep after five years of this? I've little doubt now but that I'll die as I was born—in a ditch. But the good God may grow tired of Queens so mayhap Marie Antoinette will die in a ditch, too. In the meantime, I have no complaints. Madame is no more greedy and harsh than others of her kind, and I console myself for my lot by enjoying myself when I am fancied by a handsome gentleman like you. Come, Monsieur Etienne, now you have heard my story let us join the dance."

As they stood up Mou-Mou laid her hand on Roger's and said: 'Would you not like to dance, too?"

The big room was stifling hot and heavy with the reek of cheap perfume, mingled with even less pleasant odours. Her fingers were slightly clammy yet he did not like to offend her by disengaging his hand; but he shook his head. The last thing he desired was to enter the bacchanalian melee in the middle of the floor and be kissed and mauled by the painted harridans dancing there.

"What lovely eyes thou hast, Rojé," she said suddenly, and adopting the tu-toi towards him. "They would be worth a fortune to any woman."

He gave an embarrassed grin. "You have very nice eyes yourself."

"Merci," she smiled. "I am so glad thou chosest me. So many of the men who come here are middle-aged and horrid; and a girl can give so much more of herself to a young man like thyself. Tell me, hast thou loved many girls? But no, I do not think thou can'st have, as yet."

He was spared a reply by the arrival of the hunch-backed waiter at their table. The man picked up the bottle which was now empty and looked at Roger interrogatively: "Encore, Monsieur?"

Mou-Mou nodded for him and a few minutes later the waiter put a second bottle on the table for which, as De Roubec was still dancing, Roger had to pay.

As it was being opened a little girl aged about twelve came up to them. She was dressed as Cupid and suspended by blue ribbons from her shoulders carried a tray of sweets.

Roger was shocked by the sight of a child in such surroundings and repelled by the wicked knowing look in her prematurely-aged face, but Mou-Mou said at once: "Please, Rojé, buy me some bon-bons."

He obliged and bought her a box for the outrageous price of five francs; upon which she put her arm round his neck and kissed him on his cheek. Her breath smelt faintly of garlic, but he did not like to draw away from her.

After a moment, she said: "Thou dos't not like it here? Am I not right? Come up to my room with me; or if thou preferrest we will command a salon privi where we can sup together."

"No, not—not yet," he stammered, "Let us wait until my friend comes back." But when he looked again at the dancers he saw that De Roubec and Fifi had already left the room.

Mou-Mou had also noticed that De Roubec was no longer among the whirling, stamping crowd, and she said: "Thy friend has gone upstairs with Fifi. Come, Rojé, or Madame will give me a beating for wasting my time. Which would'st thou prefer, my room or supper first in a salon privi?"

CHAPTER VIII

THE DISPOSAL OF THE JEWELS

ROGER felt desperately ill at ease. He thought Mou-Mou a kind girl and was deeply sorry for her. The last thing he wished to do was to put a slight upon her and get her into trouble with Madame, yet he had no inclination to make love to her. In other surroundings and less heavily painted she might have passed in a crowd as quite attractive. But closer inspection showed that her fair hair was coarse and brittle; it was really mousey, as showed near the roots where it had grown since she had last dyed it. Her hands, though small, were fat and the nails had been bitten down. The garlic on her breath seemed to increase in pungency each time she leaned towards him. There were deep shadows under her eyes and her cheeks had a flaccid, unhealthy look. Her pleasant manner, soft voice and youth saved her from being actually repugnant to him but she was a little moulting water-hen compared to a beautiful white swan by contrast with Georgina, and the whole business seemed to him forced and sordid.

He wished now that he had pleaded tiredness and said that he wanted to go home, while De Roubec was still with them, but now that he had gone off with Fifi he might be away for an hour, and Roger had not the courage to walk out on his own from fear of pre­cipitating a row. Seeking to put off the unpleasant decision that he knew he would soon be forced to take, he said:

"Before we go up let's finish our wine."

Mou-Mou shrugged and poured him another glass. "As thou wilst. 'Tis not very good, though, and too much of it is apt to give one the wind, so I beg thee to excuse me."

They sat silent for a few moments, then she said quietly:

"At least, Rojd, thou mightest make up thy mind if thou would'st sup or no, as if so I will order it."

It was on the tip of his tongue to say "Yes," as supping with her would gain him another postponement, but he remembered in time that the cost of a meal would prove too severe a strain on his slender resources. If a box of bon-bons cost five francs supper might easily run him into a couple of louis.

"No," he blurted out. "Thank you, but I'm not hungry. I'd rather go up to your room."

Now that the decision was taken he felt somewhat better about it, and endeavoured to get as much enjoyment as possible out of his wine which, although sweet and insipid, he did not find unpalatable. But directly he set down his glass she stood up and, instinctively, he stood up with her.

Having skirted the dancers they went out into the passage and she led the way upstairs. The salon had been shoddy enough but the upper part of the house seemed like a decayed tenement. Above the first floor the staircase was not carpeted and each of the three flights they ascended grew narrower and more rickety. As he followed her up he saw by the faint light coming from under the ill-fitting doors of the rooms they passed that her shoes were worn down and turned over, and he caught glimpses of rat-holes in the bottom of the wains­coting.

At last, as he paused breathless behind her on a dark and narrow landing, she threw open a door, fumbled for a tinder box, lit two candles and called over her shoulder. "Come in, cheri."

On entering he saw that her bedroom was an attic in a state of repellent filth and disorder. The shaded candles, which were on a small dressing-table before a low window, shone on a jumble of rouge pots, hares' feet and soiled face-cloths. The bed was a divan on which the coverings were already rumpled and a half-filled chamber-pot stood unconcealed in one corner. The room looked larger than it actually was owing to a huge mirror that occupied the whole of its one unbroken wall, but it smelt abominably of stale scent and seemed the very antithesis of the sort of place that anyone would have chosen in which to make love.

"Please forgive the untidiness," Mou-Mou said, on seeing the look of repugnance on his face. "I have to share this chamber with another girl. We use it turn and turn about, and she is a veritable slut; but I will soon make thee forget all about that."

As she spoke she undid a single hook at the top of her bodice and her striped blue and white frock slid to the ground, revealing her stark naked.

There was a big bluish bruise on one of her hips and a vivid scar disfigured her stomach. She held out her arms to Roger but he knew now that he could not go through with it. His whole soul revolted at the very thought of touching her.

Swiftly turning his back he pulled out his purse and by the light of the candles fished a guinea from it. Tossing the coin down on the bed he turned, wrenched open the door and fled from the room.

He had hardly gained the stairs before she had sprung out on to the landing after him.

"Come back!" she cried. "Of what are you afraid? How dare you treat me thus! Ce n'est pas geniil!"

Then, as he did not heed her, she began to shrill in louder tones: "A moi! A moi! We have a rat in the house! Stop him! Bar the door!"

Blindly Roger crashed his way down the rickety stairs as though all the devils in hell were behind him. By the time he reached the second landing doors were opening on every side and heads poking out to sec what all the commotion was about. Mou-Mou's cries, now mingled with the foulest abuse, had roused the house. The doors of the salon were flung wide and the "Widow Scarron" came lumbering through it followed by half a score of her girls and patrons.

As Roger made to dive past her she grabbed him by the arm and with surprising strength jerked him towards her whilst screaming obscenities in his ear.

"Let me gol" he yelled. "Damn you! Let me go!" and wrenching himself free he bounded towards the last flight of stairs.

"Zadig!" she shouted over his shoulder. "En garde! Don't let him go until he has paid! A louis, and no less! Do you hear?" And Roger saw that he now had to get past the big negro down in the hall.

For an instant he thought of drawing his sword and attempting to fight his way out into the street, but he realised at once that in such confined quarters he would have little space to use it. Zadig was half crouching there below him with a stout cudgel held ready in his hand, and with bitter fury Roger realised that unless he wanted a smashed pate he must pay up. Pulling forth his purse again he counted out eight crowns and thrust them into the hand of the negro.

"And one for me, Monsieur," Said Zadig, now grinning from ear to ear once more.

Hastily Roger paid the toll, and the big black unbarred the door.

Out in the street he gulped in the fresh air with indescribable relief; but he had not yet either felt or smelt the last results of his unpremeditated visit to this house of ill-fame. Mou-Mou, whom he had thought so kindhearted and of better instincts than her companions, was waiting for him at her attic window. Immediately he appeared in the street below, with a gutter-bred yell of derision, she emptied the contents of her chamber-pot out on to his head.

The main douche missed him by a couple of feet but he was splashed by the disgusting mess from head to foot and took to his heels with rage and hatred in his heart. The length of his sword proved his final undoing as he had covered only a hundred yards down the nearest side-turning when it got between his legs and sent him a cropper into the gutter.

Picking himself up with a curse he went on more slowly, but his night's adventures were far from over as, having walked the length of two short streets which he thought would bring him to the Arsenal, he then discovered that he was hopelessly lost and had not the faintest idea how to get back to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys.

In those times the civic authorities had not yet taken upon them­selves the responsibility for either maintaining a proper street-lighting system or for clearing away refuse. The only light came from dimly burning lanterns on occasional street corners or over the porches of the richer private houses, and most of the latter were extinguished when their inmates went to bed. At this hour long canyons of pitch blackness separated the widely-dispersed little pools of yellow light; so the midnight wayfarer had to grope his way from one to another, as best he could, through pavementless streets often so narrow as to permit the passage of one coach only at a time and all Uttered by the accumulation of household rubbish that had been thrown out into the gutters.

Few honest citizens ever ventured out at night, unless compelled to do so, and Roger knew that the only people he was likely to meet were drunken roisterers or lurking thieves, so it would be an added peril to show himself unnecessarily and there would be a certain risk in asking his way of anyone he might come upon.

The cool night air had at first refreshed him after the sickly heat of the brothel, but it now began to affect him unexpectedly, and he realised that owing to his having consumed the best part of a bottle of indifferent champagne he was now a little drunk.

Pulling himself together on the corner of the street which he had believed would bring him to the Arsenal he decided that, although it had already been dark when he left the inn with De Roubec, if he could regain the waterfront he should be able to find his way back. After trying two streets he came out on a quay and turned in what he believed to be the right direction. The faint sound of violins caught his ear and soon guided him back to the "Widow Scarron's." Giving the house a wide berth he continued onward but, having visited Monsieur Tricot's gaming-rooms before going to the brothel had confused him in his bearings, so he was now actually walking away from the inn instead of towards it.

The docks and quays of Le Havre are very extensive so he went on quite confidently for some twenty minutes before he began to suspect that he had somehow gone wrong. Now and then he had heard footsteps in the distance or seen a lurking figure momentarily emerge from the shadows, but nobody had attempted to molest him as, in the gloom, with his long sword sticking out from under the skirts of his coat he had the appearance of a well-armed, if somewhat short, man. But now he felt that he simply must chance an encounter to find out where he was and, some five minutes later, coming on a party of sailors belatedly returning to their ship, he hailed them in as gruff a voice as he could manage. To his relief, though hilariously tipsy, they proved friendly enough and gave him verbose directions how to find the Bassin Vauban.

The moon was now rising above the masts of the shipping so his long tramp back was made somewhat easier from his being able to avoid the frequent potholes among the cobbles and the heaps of stink­ing garbage with which the wharfs were Uttered.

At length, fairly sober again now, but tired and still seething with anger at his night's misadventures, he recognised the sign of Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys. Then, with the cessation of his own footsteps as he paused before the door he heard others, and realised that someone must have been walking along behind him. Turning, he looked in the direction from which he had come and saw a lanky figure approaching. With a fresh wave of anger he recognised De Roubec, the author of all his troubles.

After a moment the Chevalier saw him too, and his greeting showed that he was in an equally ill humour. "So 'tis you, my little cock without spurs," he remarked acidly. "Methought that failing a mother to tuck you up in bed you would have gone to spend the night in a convent."

"What the devil d'you mean?" Roger exclaimed, flushing hotly, although he knew perfectly well at what De Roubec was driving.

"You know what I mean," declared the Chevalier, mouthing his words thickly. "And a fine return you made for my interest in you. Not only do you insult a poor girl and upset a well-conducted house to which I introduced you; but by going there as my friend and be­having as you did you put a shame upon me publicly."

"If you consider that thieving rabble a public worthy of con­sideration, God pity you," flared Roger.

"So now you have the impudence to call in question the company I keep?"

"Yes, when 'tis composed of whores, bawds and lechers. And what blame to me if, having no stomach for such scum, I choose to leave it?" Roger was now speaking in mangled French and English but anger sent enough scarce-remembered French words to his tongue for his meaning to be clear.

"Well enough, my little anchorite," came the swift retort. "But no gentleman occupies a wench's time, then leaves his friend to pay for the dish he leaves untasted."

"I did no such thing. I gave the girl a guinea before I left her room, and that old bitch of a Madame made me disburse a further louis before they would let me out of the house."

"I find it difficult to believe that, since I am an old habitue of the place and they made me pay up on your behalf."

"D'you call me a liar?"

"What of it, if I did? You are but a tom-tit dressed in the fine feathers of a peacock, and have not the guts to tumble a woman, let alone fight a man."

"I'll not suffer being called a liar, though," Roger stormed, "I tell you I paid that trollop."

"And I tell you I did."

"Why should you have done so? 'Twas not your affair."

" 'Tis you who are calling me a liar now," cried the Chevalier furiously. "If you carried that long sword of yours as anything but an ornament, Corbleau, I'd compel you to use it I"

" 'Tis not an ornament," yelled Roger, half-mad with rage.

"In that case apologise or draw it, you ill-mannered brat!"

As De Roubec placed his hand upon the hilt of his own sword Roger's impulse to continue the violent altercation suffered a sharp check. He felt certain that the Chevalier, like himself on leaving the brothel was a little drunk, and that his own brain was still somewhat heated by the fumes of the bad wine.. It was fair enough to maintain one's own view-point in a heated argument, particularly when one felt oneself to be in the right, but very different to risk a sword-thrust through the body. De Roubec was a head taller than himself and, for all he knew, an expert swordsman; so, although he was loath to retreat absolutely he was scared enough to attempt a postponement of the issue.

"Hold!" he exclaimed. "Take thought, I beg. We cannot fight like this. If one of us were killed the other would be taken for murder. If fight we must at least proceed like gentlemen and arrange a proper duel with seconds as witnesses, in the morning."

"Who spoke of a duel," sneered De Roubec. "I'll not make myself the laughing stock of Le Havre by challenging a puppy such as you. As for killing, dismiss the thought. I mean but to cut your ears off and send them to Mou-Mou as a salve to her wounded pride. Come, draw, or I'll slice them from your head as you stand there."

Roger was aghast and realised that the Chevalier must be much drunker than he had at first thought him. Street brawls in which drunk­en rakes quarrelled and drew their swords upon one another without seconds, while staggering home in the small hours of the morning, were still quite common in all large cities; but De Roubec's cause for offence seemed absurdly trivial and his proposal about sending Mou-Mou her recent visitor's ears positively fantastic.

"Stop!" cried Roger, "you can't be serious. You must be drunk to talk like this of making yourself the champion of a harlot!"

"Drunk, am I?" De Roubec roared. "We'll soon see if I'm drunk or not. And if for naught else I'll slit your ears to teach you manners." Upon which he lurched forward and wrenched his blade from its scabbard.

Roger was frightened now. An exciting bout with foils in the fencing school was one thing; to fight in deadly earnest with naked steel quite another. But there was no escape. Springing back a pace he drew his sword and threw himself on guard.

The blades came together with a clash and circling round each other shimmered in the moonlight. For a moment, with added appre­hension, Roger felt that the unaccustomed length of his weapon would tell against him, but he suddenly realised that not only was the fine Toledo blade much more resilient and easier to wield than he supposed, but its length cancelled out the natural advantage that De Roubec would otherwise have had from his longer reach.

In a formal duel both of them would have spent a few cautious moments in getting the feel of the other's steel before going in to the attack; but the Chevalier was in no mood to waste time trifling with his young antagonist. Within a minute he had delivered three swift lunges and advancing with each strove to force down Roger's guard by the sheer weight of his stronger arm.

Roger knew that if he allowed these tactics to continue he would never be able to stay the course. If he remained on the defensive his more powerful opponent would soon tire him out and have him at his mercy.

He was dead sober now and fighting skilfully. Almost to his amaze­ment he found that he could hold his own, at least for a limited period, but he knew that he must attempt to end the fight before he felt the first signs of exhaustion.

How to do so was now his problem. They had twice circled round one another, their blades close-knit and flashing like living fire. Roger side-stepped twice in order to get the moon behind him and in the Chevalier's eyes. He was almost as afraid of killing his antagonist, for fear of what might befall him later if he did, as of being killed him­self; so he essayed a pass that the old Master-of-Arms at Sherborne had taught him.

With a sudden spring forward he ran his sword up De Roubec's until the hilts met with a clash; he then gave a violent twist. The Chevalier let out a gasp of pain and his sword flew from his hand as the result of a half-sprained wrist.

It somersaulted through the air to fall with a clatter on the cobbles twenty feet away. As Roger had been taught that a disarmed man might run after his weapon, pick it up and renew the fight, he dashed over to the fallen sword himself and put his foot upon it. Then, seeing that the Chevalier had made no move, he picked it up and walked slowly back.

De Roubec seemed momentarily stunned by his defeat and when he spoke his voice no longer carried any hint of the liquor he had consumed.

"Monsieur Brook," he said soberly, "my service to you. Believe me I had no real intent to do you harm; but I was a little in wine, and a stupid impulse urged me to give a young man, whom I felt had been guilty of some rudeness towards me, a lesson. As it is I have been taught one myself."

The apology was so handsome that Roger could not but accept it, and it was not in his nature to bear malice. So, with a bow, he handed the Chevalier back his sword, and said:

"Pray, think no more of it, Monsieur le Chevalier. I admit now that I was much at fault myself. You had, I am sure, the best intentions in taking me to these places of entertainment and 'twas kind of you to seek to provide amusement for a stranger. That I could raise no zest for little Mou-Mou was no fault of yours, and I should have made my­self clear on that head much earlier. But I give you my word that I paid not once but twice for the dubious privilege of spending an hour in her company."

"And I willingly accept it, as I feel sure you will accept mine that I also paid the young harpy."

"Indeed, I do; so let us both thank God that we have no cause for more serious regrets on the matter than are occasioned by a few squandered guineas."

De Roubec took Roger's arm. "I swear to you, mon ami, that even in a drunken temper I would never have harmed you seriously. Indeed I vow I drew upon you only with the intent of scaring you into running away."

He spoke with such earnestness that Roger found it difficult to doubt his sincerity and he flushed with pleasure as the Chevalier went on:

"But what address you showed, and what courage! Having scratched a Chinaman I found a Tartar, and I was hard put to it to defend myself. Come now, my mouth is as dry as a bin of sawdust from that villainous champagne, and I am sobered up entirely. To show that there is no ill-feeling left between us let's drink a bottle of good Burgundy together before we go to bed."

Roger's throat now also felt dry and parched so he readily assented, and they began to hammer with their sword hilts on the nail-studded door of the inn.

After a while it was opened by the wizened little serving-man who, having been aroused from his sleep in a cubby-hole under the stairs, grumblingly admitted them.

De Roubec pulled out a fistful of crowns and showed them to the man, as he said, "Stir your stumps, knave, and get us up a bottle of Burgundy from the cellar. And a good one, mind; a Chambertin or a Hospice de Beaune, if you have it."

Having lit the lantern in the parlour for them the man disappeared, to return a few minutes later with a dust-encrusted bottle and glasses. After uncorking the wine and taking the money for it he shambled off back to his cubby-hole out in the hall.

The two recent antagonists now toasted one another with most friendly phrases and both felt considerably better after a good drink of the clean, generous Burgundy. The sight of the Chevalier's pocket full of crowns had recalled to Roger that even if the later form of entertainment to which his companion had introduced him had proved a fiasco the earlier had been an unqualified success, and he remarked:

"You must have made a pretty sum at Monsieur Tricot's, since towards the end you were staking double crowns."

" 'Tis but indifferent sport playing at a low table," shrugged De Roubec grandly. "But 'twas none too bad a haul, and 'twill serve to keep me in wine for a day or two; with luck until my funds arrive. My sole regret is that you plan to leave Le Havre so soon, otherwise 'twould have been a pleasure to afford you some entertainment of your own choosing out of my winnings."

"I hope to complete my business to-morrow," said Roger, "but it may be a day or two before I can secure a passage home, and if so I will certainly avail myself of your kind invitation."

De Roubec nodded. "Pray do not think that I have any desire to pry into your affairs, but I know Le Havre well, and if you feel that I might be of any assistance to you in this business of yours, do not hesitate to command me."

Roger was now feeling in great fettle. The fact that he had actually fought in earnest for the first time and emerged victorious from the encounter filled him with elation; and, since the cause of the affray now appeared to have been no more than a stupid misunderstanding brought about by the fumes of dubious liquor, he was, not un­naturally, drawn towards his late antagonist. The Chevalier had, he felt, gone out of his way to take an interest in him as a young and lone­ly stranger, had seen to it that he got a good exchange for his English money and had enabled him to win a nice little sum. Moreover, it now seemed to him that the expedition to the "Widow Scarron" should not be held against his new friend, since it might have appealed to many young men as the high-spot in an evening out. The Chavalier had, too taken his defeat like a gentleman and was at the moment playing the generous host.

None of the excitements of the past twenty-four hours had caused Roger to forget for long that his sole purpose in coming to France was the satisfactory disposal of Georgina's jewels, and this had yet to be accomplished. It struck him now that instead of seeking out a gold­smith for himself and dealing with one who might or might not give him a good price, he could both save himself time in the morning and make certain of securing a fair deal by consulting De Roubec, so he asked:

"Do you perchance know of an honest goldsmith here in Le Havre?"

"Why, yes," replied the Chevalier, after only a moment's hesitation. "I know of several. Do you wish to make a purchase or have you some­thing to sell?"

"I wish to dispose of some trinkets, mainly gold items, but a few with gems set in them and a number of cameos. To do so was, in fact, my reason for coming to France."

De Roubec's eyes narrowed slightly, and Roger, seeing this, did not wonder, as the bare statement might have put all sorts of ideas into anyone's head. With his usual quick inventiveness he went on to offer an entirely false explanation.

"These jewels belonged to my mother's twin sister, who died recently. The two were prodigiously devoted to one another and my father felt that should my mother perchance see any of them being worn by one of her neighbours the shock would affect her most severely. Yet he has need of the money they will bring; so, not wishing to dispose of them locally, he decided that the best course would be to send them abroad. As he was recalled to his ship unexpectedly and could not cross to France himself he charged me with this mission. Unfor­tunately I have little experience in such matters and if you could assist me in it I'd be mighty obliged to you."

Having listened attentively to Roger's somewhat mangled French, De Roubec nodded. " 'Twill be a pleasure. I know the very man and will take you to him in the morning."

Roger thanked him and they talked for a while on other topics, the Chevalier having apparently dismissed the matter of the jewels from his mind; but both, of them were now feeling tired so as soon as they had finished their wine they went upstairs to bed.

After looking under the loose board in the floor to make certain that his treasure was still there, Roger undressed to his shirt and slipping between the coarse cotton sheets was soon asleep.

He woke late in the morning, as he judged from the angle of the sun that it must be near nine o'clock, and after a hurried toilet transferred the jewels from their hiding-place to his pockets, then went downstairs.

The coffee room was deserted and to his surprise he found that rolls, butter and confiture were the only food provided for breakfast. Not being accustomed to such meagre fare he asked for something more substantial, and after a wait of ten minutes he was brought an omelette fines herbes; a dish entirely new to him but one which he thoroughly enjoyed.

On finishing his meal he went in search of De Roubec, and found that lanky gentleman lazily sunning himself on the front porch.

"Ah, there you are!" said the Chevalier, displaying his bad teeth in a friendly smile, "I trust you had a good night?"

"Excellent, I thank you," Roger smiled back. "Except that I fear I slept over late, and I am naturally anxious to get my business settled as soon as possible. Would it be troubling you too much to take me this forenoon to the goldsmith you spoke of?"

"Willingly; but I have been giving some little thought to the matter, and an idea upon it has occurred to me. I take it you are not so pressed for time as to be unable to afford me a few moments' private converse in the parlour. There is no one about,- so we shall have it to ourselves."

"By all means," Rogers agreed. So they went into the parlour together and, having closed the door carefully behind him, De Roubec fastened the latch so that they should not be interrupted.

Wondering a little what these mysterious precautions portended, Roger sat down at one of the tables, but the Chevalier reassured him by saying: "There is no cause for alarm, yet one cannot be too careful when discussing transactions in which large sums of money are involved."

Seating himself on the settee at Roger's side he went on in a low voice: "May I ask if you have mentioned this matter to anyone else?"

"No," said Roger. "Not a soul in France knows of it other than yourself. I thought it unwise to noise it about that I was carrying upon me anything of such value."

De Roubec nodded approvingly. "I am relieved to hear it, and 'twas fortunate that in myself you chose an honest man to confide in. After all, you know little enough about me as it is, and great seaports such as tins abound in rogues who would not scruple to cut your throat for a handful of louis."

"If one both drinks and fights with a man yet remains friends with him afterwards, one has fair reason to trust him," Roger laughed. "And I certainly trust you."

The Chevalier bowed. "I am sensible of it, and should be prodigious distressed if it were not so. Have you the jewels perchance upon you now, or did you deposit them yesterday with a banker?"

"No, at the moment I have them spread about in pockets all over my person, as together they make quite a bulky bundle." May I have a sight of them?"

"Certainly, if you wish."

As Roger began to produce the trinkets and lay them out on the table the Chevalier added: "I ask only that I may get some idea as to their value, as it would be well if we fixed aj price in our own minds before offering them to a goldsmith; and, although you are doubtless aware of their worth, I may be able to assist you in assessing what they are likely to fetch in France."

One by one he picked up the items of the collection and examined them through his quizzing glass then, as Roger began to stow them back in his pockets again, he asked: "What price had you in mind?"

"Five hundred guineas," said Roger, thinking it best not to show his ignorance by naming too small a sum.

De Roubec shook his head. "They may be worth that in England, where everyone is very rich; but I doubt if you will get that for them in France. I am no expert in such trifles, but if they were mine I should be glad to accept three hundred and eighty louis for the lot. They are mostly old-fashioned pieces and of little value apart from their weight as gold."

Roger was far from disappointed, as he had been quite prepared to let them go for two hundred and fifty if he could get no better offer; and he congratulated himself again on having consulted the Chevalier, as, by having done so, he felt that he had as good as made himself an additional hundred and thirty pounds.

"So be it," he said, endeavouring to appear a little crestfallen, "I'll take three-eighty for them, since you advise it."

"Nay, we will ask four-fifty for them as our opening shot and only come down gradually. 'Tis all against a gentleman's inclination to quibble over money, but one needs must for one's own protection in a case like this; and by so doing we might screw the knave up to parting with four-hundred louis. But I have yet to tell you my disturbing thought."

"What is it?" inquired Roger anxiously.

De Roubec hesitated a moment, then he said: "You will not take offence, I trust, at anything I may say?"

"Nay, why should I do so if 'tis for my benefit."

" Tis this, then. Your age is your own affair, but when I first set eyes on you last night I put you down as scarce seventeen. The fact that you handle your sword as well as a man makes no difference to the youthfulness of your appearance. Your account of how you came by these trinkets is fair enough, and 'twould not enter my head to cast doubt upon your word. Yet others, who have not had the happiness of your acquaintance, may not prove so credulous. For so young a man to be offering for sale ail these women's gewgaws would strike any goldsmith as strange, to say the least; and, God forbid that such a thing should occur, but he might even think that you had stolen them and are being hunted in England by the agents of the Minister of Police. 'Twill be obvious to him at a glance that the stuff is of English make and I gather that you know no one in Le Havre who could vouch for your honesty. Perhaps my forebodings are no more than moonshine, but I felt it my duty as your friend to warn you of what may befall. Since 'twould be monstrous unpleasant to find yourself clapped into prison on suspicion, for a month or more while inquiries were being made."

Roger's face fell in earnest now. It had never occurred to him that he might be faced with the same difficulties in disposing of Georgina's jewels in France as he would have been in England. He had taken it for granted that a French goldsmith would be prepared to buy without asking questions; but now it seemed that in offering them for sale here he would be running a far greater risk than he would have in some county town at home. There, the worst that could have befallen him would have been to pass a night in the lock-up and be ignominiously returned to his irate parent next day, whereas here he might be held a prisoner for weeks on end before tedious official inquiries led to his identity being fully established and his family in England securing his release.

"I am much indebted to you," he said in a rather small voice, "I had not thought of that, and there is much in what you say."

"Of course, if you care to risk it," hazarded the Chevalier, "I will accompany you to a goldsmith's with pleasure. But, willing as I am to help, I could not honestly say that I had independent knowledge as so how you came by these jewels, or swear to it that I had known you for more than a day; since if further inquiry were made I should soon be in a trouble myself for perjury."

"Yes, I fully appreciate that," said Roger thoughtfully, but a new idea had come to him and he went on with some diffidence: "My father needs this money with some urgency, though, and I am most loath to return to England without it. Would you—would it be asking too much of you to sell the stuff for me? I give you my solemn word of honour that it was come by honestly, and is mine to dispose of as I think fit. You are a grown man and well known in Le Havre, so the goldsmith would never question your right to dispose of such goods."

The Chevalier considered for a moment. "Yes, it could be done that way," he said slowly. "Maitre Blasieur knows me well, and we have oft done far larger deals together."

"Please!" Roger urged. "Please help me in this and I'll be eternally grateful to you."

De Roubec smiled at him. "I believe you have a greater interest in this matter than you pretend?"

Roger coloured slightly. "Well, as a fact, my father promised me a portion of the proceeds of the deal if I showed my capabilities by handling it with credit. 'Tis in a way a test, too, as to if he will or no henceforth regard me as an equal and allow me to manage his affairs While he is away at sea."

"In that case I can scarce bring myself to disoblige you."

"This is stupendous!" Roger laughed again, now once more confident of success. "Let us lose no time but start at once and get the matter over."

"A moment, I beg." De Roubec raised his hand. " 'Twill not appear to Maitre Blasieur that 'tis I who am the seller if the goods for sale are produced by you, one by one, out of your pockets. I fear you will have to trust me with them for a short time at the least."

Roger's hesitation was barely perceptible. He was most strongly averse to parting with his treasure, and he had not known De Roubec long enough to place complete faith in him. Yet it seemed clear that he must accept this risk or offend the Chevalier and say goodbye to any hope of this deal on account of which he had been to such pains in getting to France.

"I fully appreciate that," he agreed, wondering at the same time how he could manage to keep a safety line on his property. "How would you suggest that we arrange the matter?"

"Any way that suits yourself," replied the Chevalier casually. "But to start with I am sure you will see the advantage of making the jewels up into one convenient packet, so that they can be handed to Maitre Blasieur without your hunting about your person as though you were seeking fleas in the coat of a dog."

Seeing the sense of this Roger began to get out his collection again while De Roubec sought for something suitable in which to put it. On the lower shelf of a cupboard he came across a long, flat bon-bon box, and, finding it to be empty, threw it on the table with a muttered: "This will serve."

Having packed all the chains, brooches, bangles and rings into the box, Roger looked up at him and inquired: "What now?"

"Why, put it in the big pocket of your coat, mon ami," laughed the Chevalier, "I have no desire to be responsible for your property for a moment longer than the occasion demands; and we will now go together to the goldsmith's."

His last lingering doubts of the Chevalier's probity thus being dispelled, Roger got to his feet and, unlatching the door, they left the room.

Outside, the hot August sunshine glared upon the quay and as Roger walked along beside his companion his heart was high. Four-hundred pounds would be a nice little fortune on which to start life in London. For five pounds a week a young man could live in considerable comfort at a modest yet respectable hostelry and have half that sum over to spend on getting about. At that rate Georgina's present would keep him for over a year and a half, but long before that he expected to have some profitable employment, so he could well afford to cut a good figure and take more expensive lodging in the meantime if, having acquired well-to-do friends, it seemed advisable to do so.

On reaching the Rue Francois 1er they walked some way along it, then De Roubec halted and pointed with his cane to a corner shop with a low bow window.

"That is Maitre Blasieur's," he said. "‘T'would be best, I think, if I go in while you wait outside for me, otherwise he may suspect that I am acting only as an intermediary, and that the goods are really yours, which might lead to his asking embarrassing questions."

"You foresee everything," Roger smiled and wriggling the long heavy box out of his pocket he handed it to De Roubec, as he added: "I am indeed grateful to you. I will wait here and pray meanwhile that you may have good fortune on my behalf."

"Be sure I will do my best for you," laughed the Chevalier, "and I will be as speedy as I can. But do not be too impatient, as for a gold­smith to weigh and assess so many articles is certain to take not less than twenty minutes."

He was about to turn away when he paused and added:

" 'Tis understood that I am authorised by you to accept three hundred and eighty louis, or at the worst a close offer to that, is it not?"

Roger nodded and the Chevalier disappeared into the shop.

For a time Roger amused himself by watching the smart equipages with which this fashionable street was as crowded as it had been on the previous afternoon. A clock above the mercer's at which he had bought a change of linen and his smart lace jabot had shown it to be just on a quarter to eleven when De Roubec had left him, and every few minutes he glanced impatiently at its dial.

The hands of the clock seemed to crawl but at last they reached the eleven and the bells in the steeples of the town rang out the hour. Roger was standing no more than a couple of yards from the doorway of Maitre Blasieur's shop and his glance now rarely left it although he told himself that after the gold had been weighed De Roubec would require at least a further ten minutes to drive a good bargain.

He was wondering now if the Chevalier would manage to get for him four hundred louis or only three hundred and eighty. Perhaps he might even be driven to accept three-seventy? On the other hand he seemed a shrewd fellow and might persuade the goldsmith into parting with four-hundred and ten. In any case, Roger felt, he must give him a handsome present for all the trouble he had taken, and as the hands of the clock over the mercer's crawled on from eleven to ten past he turned over in his mind various gifts that he might make his friend.

He thought of lace ruffles, a more elegant cane, and a new sword-belt but decided that none of these were good enough, and finally settled on a pair of silver-mounted pistols, similar to those he had lost himself in the Albatross, and would have liked to possess again.

A clock chimed the quarter and still De Roubec had not emerged from the goldsmith's. Roger began to fret now at his friend being so long, and endeavoured to peer into the shop, but the door was of stout wood and behind the window hung a plain black velvet curtain which cut off all view of the interior.

Striving to muster such further patience as he could he began to walk agitatedly up and down. That De Roubec could not yet have come out was certain as the place had one entrance only and no second door round the corner of the street.

For a further ten minutes Roger waited with ever-mounting impatience, then he could smother his half-formed fears no longer, and turning the handle of the shop door pushed it a little open. The shop was empty except for a man in a grey wig who stood behind the counter examining some gems.

Thrusting the door wide, Roger almost fell inside, exclaiming breathlessly: "The Chevalier de Roubec! Where is he? Where has be gone?"

The man in the wig stared at him stupidly for a moment then he said: "What do you mean, Monsieur? The Chevalier De Roubec. I know no one of that name."

"But you must!" insisted Roger wildly. "He came into your shop half an hour, nay, nearly three-quarters of an hour ago, with some gold ornaments that he wished to sell."

"Ah, Monsieur means a tall gentleman, no doubt. A gentleman in a red velvet coat having a scar on his cheek that dragged down the corner of his left eye a little?"

"Yes, yes! That is he!" Roger panted. "Where has he gone to?"

The shopman spread out his hands. "I have no idea, Monsieur. He offered no gold ornaments for sale, but bought a cheap scarf pin for three crowns. Then he asked if he might use the privy out in the yard at the back, and said that when he had done he would leave by the alley on to which the yard abuts. But why is Monsieur so excited? Has he been robbed?"

"No," stammered Roger with sudden visions of a police inquiry which he felt would do him little good and might even land him in further trouble. "No, but I wanted to speak with him most urgently, and he said—he said if I'd wait outside he would attend to my business as soon as he had done with you. How long has he been gone?"

"Half an hour, at least, Monsieur; more by now. He spent but a few moments choosing his pin, then left at once."

"Perchance he was suddenly taken ill and is still out there," Roger suggested, snatching at a wild hope.

"If Monsieur wishes we will go and see," replied the man in the wig, moving out from behind the counter. "But I can hardly think that it is likely to be so."

Together they visited the back of the premises. The earth closet was empty and the gate in the yard which gave on to a narrow alley slightly open. With a heart as heavy as lead Roger realised that it would be futile to attempt a chase. The purchase of the scarf pin alone was enough to convince him that he had been deliberately tricked, and by now the Chevalier might be a mile or more away.

Thanking the jeweller in a subdued voice he accompanied him back to the shop and walked out into the street. The sun was still shining and the gay equipages of the local French nobility still edging past each other in the congested thoroughfare, but he no longer had any eyes for their elegantly clad occupants.

His little fortune was gone, just as surely as if it had dropped overboard when he had been flung from the Albatross into the sea. He was alone and friendless in France. His winnings of the previous night had been eaten up by the money he had been forced to disburse in the brothel, and more with them. With added bitterness he recalled that De Roubec had not paid him back the louis he had lent him to finance his play at Monsieur Tricot's. In one way and another his cash capital had dwindled to only a little over four pounds, and he still had his bill at the inn to settle. Near panic seized him at the sudden, awful thought that he was now stranded in this strange foreign city, and had not even enough, money left to pay for a passage back to England.

CHAPTER IX

THE MAN IN BLUE

SLOWLY and sadly Roger made his way back to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys. If there had been the faintest hope of catching the Chevalier there, anger and the acute anxiety he was feeling as to his future would have lent wings to his feet, but he knew there was none. De Roubec had now a clear three-quarters of an hour's start and, even if he had returned to the inn to pick up a few belongings, assuming that the irate Roger was certain to make for it as soon as he discovered the fraud that had been put upon him, would have left it again by this time.

As it was it seemed unlikely that the Chevalier had gone back to the inn even for a few moments, or would ever show his face there again. Knowing the man now for the plausible rogue that he was Roger began to see him in an entirely new light. His shoddy finery consorted ill with the tale that he really possessed a handsome wardrobe which had been impounded by a distrustful landlord. His story that he was a scion of a great and wealthy family who had had his pocket picked and was waiting for a lavish remittance was, no doubt, all moonshine. No real gentleman, Roger realised all too late, would be a regular habitue of a low waterside brothel such as the "Widow Scarron's." His anxiety that morning, too, to know if anyone else in Le Havre was aware that Roger was in possession of a hoard of valuable trinkets showed that he had premeditated and deliberately planned the theft.

Yet, badly as he had been taken in, Roger felt that a more ex­perienced person than himself might equally have fallen a victim to the Chevalier's wiles. His face had been a weak rather than vicious one, and he had shown great vivacity, sympathy and apparent generosity; in fact, all the characteristics calculated to win the interest and friendship of a stranger quickly. But that anyone else might have been fooled as easily as himself was little consolation to Roger now.

As he walked on he wondered desperately how he could possibly get back to England, then, swiftly on top of that came the even more distressing question as to what would happen to him if he did succeed in securing a passage across the Channel. Gone were the bright dreams of comfortable lodgings and cutting a fine figure in London. If he got back at all it would be to land there near penniless. It would be a choice then between hedgerows and hard manual labour or going home to eat humble pie before his father; and the thought of being forced to the latter made him almost sob with rage.

On reaching the inn he met the oily Maitre Picard on the doorstep and inquired at once if he had seen the Chevalier during the past hour.

The landlord shook his head. "I've not set eyes on him since he went out with you this morning, Monsieur."

"Has he any other address, or have you any idea where I could find him?" asked Roger.

"No, none, Monsieur. He comes and goes as he lists, that one. He said nothing this morning of leaving, but 'twould not be the first time that he has walked out on me. He is, as you may know, a pro­fessional gambler, and often in low water. If I may offer a word of advice. Monsieur, he is not a good companion for a young gentleman like yourself."

"Would that you had said as much before," Roger muttered ruefully.

"Why so," asked Maitre Picard. "Has he then robbed you of something? I have heard tell that he can be light-fingered on occasion."

Visions of a police inquiry with himself held for weeks as a material witness, again flashed before Roger's mind, so he said hastily, "No— at least nothing of great value. Only a pair of shoe buckles that he promised to get valued for me; but they were not of sufficient con­sequence to make a fuss over. Is it true that you hold his wardrobe as surety for his reckoning?"

"Nay, Monsieur," the landlord smirked, "that is an idle tale. Sometimes he pays before he leaves, at others he settles his old score on the next occasion that he asks for a room. He has worn naught but that old red velvet coat of his since he first came here last Hallowe'en and I'd have thought anyone would have spotted him for a slippery customer."

"Why do you suffer such rogues to lodge at your inn, and mingle with your other guests?" snapped Roger, his temper getting the better of him.

Maitre Picard bridled. "I am a poor man, Monsieur, and cannot afford to turn away a patron without proof that he has actually been dishonest. As for the others, 'tis for them, not me, to mind their purses. And had you been more circumspect in your choice of a companion, doubtless you would still be in possession of your buckles." Upon which he turned huffily away and slouched off through the hall to his quarters at the back of the premises.

Swallowing this rebuff, which he felt that he had asked for, Roger went into the parlour and sat down. It was empty except for the old man in the blue suit with the shock of white hair and watery blue eyes, who had been there the night before. He was no longer drunk or drinking, but was sitting with a woebegone expression on his face staring at his boots.

Roger gave him only a glance, then fell once more to seeking a way out of the frightful mess in which he had landed himself. It was true that Georgina had made no great sacrifice in giving him a lot of old-fashioned jewellery for which she had no use; yet she had given it to him for a definite purpose and the theft now made that purpose impossible of achievement, so by allowing himself to be robbed he felt that he had let her down badly.

He was not old enough or strong enough to get himself taken on as a hand in a ship sailing for England; but it occurred to him that for his few remaining pounds he might induce some freighter captain to take him aboard and let him work off the balance of the fare by serving as cabin boy on the trip. But such a proceeding would still leave him face to face with the far higher fence of what to do when he landed. On one thing he was determined; he would not go home and ask pardon of his father since, if he did so, he would never be able to look Georgina in the face again. The alternative now seemed grim in the extreme yet having lost the means to a fine start she had given him he felt that by hook or by crook he must, somehow, make good without it.

Suddenly the voice of the old man broke in upon his thoughts.

" 'Twould be a most courteous gesture, Monsieur, if, with the generosity that I see in that fine open face of yours, you cared to buy a dram for an old and ailing fellow human."

Realising that, since they were alone in the room, the appeal must be addressed to him Roger's first reaction was one of angry withdrawal. He had suffered enough at the hands of a chance acquaintance met with in that very room to teach him a lesson for a lifetime. With all too recent memories of De Roubec having expressed such nattering amazement at his French, and Mou-Mou's compliment upon his blue eyes, this old codger's reference to his handsome face struck him instantly as a most suitable opening gambit for a further attack on his now all too slender resources; but the old fellow went on:

"When you reach my age, Monsieur, you will have learned how to read men's thoughts from their faces. To me yours is an open book of misfortune and distress. I, too, am sad because I have been weak and foolish. I am far from being a worthy son of the Church, and have not been to confession now for many years; yet there is much truth in the priestly doctrine that 'a sorrow shared is but half a trouble'. Why, then, should we not confess the reasons for our sadness to one another and, if you would be so kind, seek the cheer, however, temporary, that lies at the bottom of every glass of Marc, Calvados or Cognac?"

The old man spoke clearly, slowly, and with a certain dignity, so Roger got the drift of all he had said quite easily. The expenditure of another few francs could make little difference to his depleted fortunes now, and he felt a strong urge to unburden himself to someone. Getting up, he called the serving man and, moving over to the old man's table, he bowed before sitting down at it, and said:

"You are right, Monsieur. Fortune has served me a scurvy trick, and I regret to hear that she has also turned her back on you. My name is Brook—Roger Brook; and I am happy to offer you the refresh­ment you desire. What will you take?"

"A Cognac, I thank you, and er—a double portion would not come amiss if 'tis not trespassing too far upon your generosity. As to the kind I am not particular. The potent spirit that they term 'fine maison' in this dubious caravanserai is good enough for such as me."

Roger ordered a glass of Malaga for himself, and as the servant disappeared to fetch the drinks the old man went on:

"My name is Aristotle Fenelon and for business reasons I style myself Doctor. I will not tell you, as I tell many others, that I have taken the highest degrees at the most famous universities; but simply that I am a student of mankind. I make a living and, when fortune smiles upon me, a tolerably good one by pandering to the vanity of women and the credulence of men. In his wisdom the good God has so designed nature that every part of it is sustained by some other part; and by inspiring large numbers of men and women with the wish to improve upon His handiwork by making themselves more vigorous or more beautiful than they are, He provided me with an adequate means of support."

The drinks arrived at that moment and when Roger had settled for them, the "Doctor" lifted his glass with a hand that trembled a little, as he said:

"To your health, O kind and generous young man. And, believe me, 'tis the best toast I could drink to you. Given a healthy body there are few distempers of the mind that cannot be overcome, and given a healthy mind laughter cannot long remain absent from the lips."

"To your health too, then!" Roger replied, and as he set down his glass he added: "I fear my French is far from good. Am I right in assuming you to be a dealer in cosmetics?"

"Aye, and more than that." Aristotle Fenelon shook back his mop of white hair, "I can provide a panacea for a thousand ills. I can draw teeth, set sprains and cure malignant eruptions of every variety. The penalties which Venus inflicts upon her incautious votaries are my especial province, and I can brew a potion that will make any maid look fondly on her lover. But enough about myself for now. The aged are accustomed to sorrow and can philosophically await the turning of its tide; whereas youth is ever impatient for the solacing of its troubles. Tell me now the reason for that angry cast-down look that I saw upon your face when first I had the temerity to address you."

"You are perhaps acquainted with the Chevalier de Roubec?" Roger began. "He was the man in red, who was in here yestere'en."

The Doctor nodded. "I have had no speech with him, but have seen him about here in these past few days. A merry-looking fellow enough but one in whom, from his physiognomy, I would put little trust."

Roger made a grimace. "Alas, I lack your capacity for judging faces, Monsieur le Docteur. I put my faith in him at sad cost to myself." He then went on to describe his previous night's adventures and the manner in which he had been robbed that morning. Warming to the tale as he told it he realised that there was no longer any point in concealing the manner in which he had obtained the jewels, and that if the Doctor's advice was to be of any value to him he would be wise to give a complete picture of his circumstances; so he told him the reason for his leaving home and that he was now stranded in France with very little money.

When he had done, old Aristotle assessed the position shrewdly. "I fear, my young friend, that you have little prospect of recovering your property unless you go to the police, and your reasons for not wishing to do so are soundly conceived. As to your future, it should not be impossible for you to find a Captain who would let you work your passage across the Channel, more especially if you can offer him a pourboire of a louis or two for allowing you to do so. But once in England you will indeed be between Scylla and Charybdis. Life is a hard taskmaster for those who, having no trade by which to make a livelihood, must beg or earn their bread as best they can. My earnest advice to you is to sink your pride and make your peace with your father."

"Nay, that I'll not do," said Roger stubbornly. "Few fates that could befall me would be worse than being sent to sea. Moreover, my honour is involved in this. I set too much store by the opinion of the lady who gave me the jewels to return home with my tail between my legs after an absence of a bare four days, even if I could find anyone to give me passage this very evening."

"While I admire your spirit I deplore your reasoning," replied the Doctor. "Would that I could propose a further alternative, but alas! I see none."

For a few moments they sat in silence, then Roger said: "But tell me now in what way fortune has done you a mischief?"

"I am, alas! the author of my own misfortunes," Aristotle Fenelon held up his now half-empty glass of brandy. "Youth has many pleasures, age but few; and it has become my habit at certain seasons to indulge myself with this amber fluid which removes all care. More, I must confess it or the tale lacks point, at such times one dram begets the desire for another dram, and that for yet another. My virtuous resolutions gradually become things of little consequence. I remain addlepated for sometimes days at a stretch, and at last woefully regain full consciousness of my circumstances to realise that I have drunk away my last sou."

"I take it," put in Roger, "that this morning is such a day, since you are beyond question sober now?"

"You are right, my young friend," the Doctor acknowledged. "Yet this morning finds me in a far worse pass than is usual on such occasions."

"How so?"

"As you may have already assumed, I am a journeyman doctor. Few men know France better than myself, since I have tramped its length and breadth many times in the past two-score years. I go from village to village selling my simples and my remedies to all whom I can induce to buy. I'll not deny that many of them are drastic in their effects. They needs must be, or the poor folk who buy them would feel that they had been cheated of their money. Often one must put gunpowder in their stomachs quite unnecessarily to persuade them that they have been treated at all. It is on occasion a question of kill or cure, and sometimes their last case is worse than their first. Yet, as God is my witness, I rarely make mistakes, and bring much relief from suffering to the less fortunate of our fellow-creatures who could not afford a treatment at all were it not for such wayside physicians as myself."

There was nothing new to Roger in all this, since quack doctors who stumped the countryside and put up their booths at fairs were then as common in England as in France, and for some little time past he had guessed the way in which Dr. Aristotle Fenelon earned his living. So he said:

"Why, then, having come to the end of your profits do you not set out again to earn some more?"

"Ah, that is just the trouble, Monsieur." The doctor's watery blue eyes held his for a moment. "At the end of every month or so, on reaching a large town, it is my custom to give myself a little holiday. Of the pleasant but profitless way in which I spend these brief seasons of leisure I have already told you. But each time before I set out again I must buy drugs, greases and potent waters, pots, bottles and vials wherewith to make up the stock in trade that I carry with me. It has always been my practice to put aside a few louis from my last journey especially for this purpose. But now I am undone, for in a tipsy moment I raided my reserve and have' drunk that away, too."

" 'Twas a most unfortunate impulse. Did some special circumstance lead to it? Or was it an urge that at times has overcome you before?"

" 'Tis only on rare occasions that I have been so far lost to all good sense; but not the first time, I confess."

"It seems then, that your remedy lies in proceeding as you have done on similar awkward occasions in the past?"

Doctor Aristotle sighed. "A sound if uninspired judgment, my young friend, and one that brings me little comfort. It condemns me to fall back on straightforward surgery for a while, and sometimes one can visit half-a-dozen hamlets without finding a tooth to draw, or a broken bone to set. In the meantime I must eke out a most miserable existence until I can build up a small capital wherewith to buy drugs and oint­ments once more."

Again there fell a short silence and it seemed that neither of these companions in misfortune had been able to benefit the other, except in the slight comfort gained from the relation of their woes.

At length the Doctor twiddled his now empty glass and coughed. "Would you. Monsieur? I hesitate to ask. But no; it 'Would be ungenerous in me to take advantage of the good nature of one to whom every franc must now be a matter of concern."

Roger had taken a liking to the old man, instinctively feeling him to be kind and wise, if weak; and the price of another couple of drinks could make little difference to his prospects of getting back to England; so he went out of the room and ordered them.

When he returned the Doctor thanked him gravely and added, as if on a sudden thought, "Would it be indiscreet, Monsieur, to inquire how much money you have left?"

Seeing no harm in disclosing his resources, Roger replied: "Something over four louis—about thirty-seven crowns to be exact."

" 'Twould be enough," the Doctor murmured.

"Enough for what,. Monsieur?"

"Why, to purchase a new stock of medicines and unguents."

Roger smiled. "Much as I would like to relieve you of your cares, you must see that it is out of the question for me to lend you any money at the moment."

"Nay, I had no thought of begging a loan," the Doctor hastened to reassure him. " 'Twas a very different project that I had in mind. You say you are fully resolved that, come what may, you will not throw yourself upon the mercy of your father, and the only alternative that you can suggest is to seek a precarious livelihood tramping the English countryside. Yet living is far cheaper and more agreeable in France. Moreover, I could at least guarantee you a roof over your head, victuals of fair quality and an occupation which never lacks for interest and variety. I have the knowledge, you have enough capital to set us on the road. Why should we not form a partnership?"

For a moment Roger did not reply. Nothing could have been further from his own vague imaginings about his future, and such a course could certainly not lead to securing an influential position in London.

"Come now!" Doctor Aristotle went on more eagerly, "I would not seek to persuade you against your better judgment, but surely this is the solution to both our difficulties. The moment I set eyes on you I had a feeling that you were a young man with quick wits and of good address. It is not only your capital that I crave, but also your company. When your French is improved, you can harangue the little crowds that gather round my stand in curiosity, and you will find it most fascinating sport to talk even the most sceptical among them into buying one of our remedies for some, oft-imagined, complaint. And the women, too, why I would more than double my sales of skin creams and eye lotions were I able to point to that handsome counten­ance of yours as proof of their efficacy. 'Tis not winter either, so we'll not have to tramp through mud and rain, but 'tis a good season of the year; and by autumn we'll have made enough to take our journeys easily, lying up for the day at a warm fireside whene'er the weather proves inclement."

It was the last argument that decided Roger. By autumn his father would almost certainly have gone to sea again, and if he could then return home with a pocket full of louis honour would be satisfied. England offered no such prospect of a face-saving return, and during August and September what could really be more pleasant than a walking tour through France with its stimulating newness to him, its exciting foods and its volatile people?

"So be it," he said with a smile. "I'll come with you, but I make one stipulation."

"What is it?"

"That I keep the purse."

The Doctor gave him a rueful look. "Do'st grudge me my dram of Cognac?"

"Nay, not in reason; but for your sake as well as my own I wish to ensure that by autumn our pockets are tolerably well lined."

" 'Tis said that old heads do not grow upon young shoulders, but methinks yours will serve you well enough."

"Maybe I have aged somewhat swiftly overnight," commented Roger drily. "Is it agreed?"

"Yes; and in truth I should be grateful to you, since you propose to do for me that which I doubt my having the strength of will to do for myself."

"When do we set out?"

"To-morrow morning, if you will. After dejeuner we will go forth into the town to purchase our requirements. This evening we will make some of them up in Maitre Pi card's brewhouse, which he has on numerous previous occasions lent me for the purpose, and will no doubt again."

It was now a little after midday and, at that moment, the serving man put his head round the door to say that dejeuner was ready; so Roger and Dr. Aristotle went through to the coffee room and sat down to it together.

Being accustomed to the English fashion of making a hearty breakfast then taking the main meal of the day at four o'clock, Roger was somewhat surprised to find this midday repast more substantial than that he had been given the previous evening; but he was quick to realise that as the French eat only rolls and confiture on rising they must sadly need something more filling before mid-afternoon; so their so-called "breakfast" was really their dinner, and the evening meal considered by them to be of secondary importance.

When they had finished Dr. Aristotle took Roger out to the stable and presented him to Monsieur de Montaigne, a quiet and elderly mule, so named, the Doctor explained, on account of his wisdom and sagacity. It was Monsieur de Montaigne's function to transport from place to place, in a pair of capacious panniers, his master's few personal posses­sions and stock-in-trade, and to carry strapped lengthwise on top of them a contraption made of wood and canvas which could swiftly be erected into a street pulpit. Saddling the mule with his panniers they led him out on to the quay and bent their steps towards the centre of the city.

Roger had no intention of laying himself open to being tricked twice in one day, so when the Doctor halted in a side street before an apothecary's, he made no move to produce his money, but the old man did not even suggest it; he simply tied his mule to a ring in the wall and beckoned Roger to follow him inside.

Half an hour went by while the apothecary weighed and measured a score of ingredients ranging from great jars of iat to little phials of crude but pungent scent. After some haggling on the Doctor's part Roger parted with one louis seven crowns and a franc, then they carried their purchases outside and loaded them on to Monsieur de Montaigne.

Their next visit was to an epicerie where the Doctor added to then-store a quantity of soap, sugar, cheap sweets and spices, including a good supply of peppercorns, for an outlay of three crowns six sous. After this they went to the warehouse of a wholesale china and glass dealer from whom they purchased several score of containers for their wares; bottles of various sizes, jars, pots and little hand-painted vases, which cost a further five crowns.

Roger thought that their business was now completed, but he proved mistaken. Instead of turning back towards Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys Doctor Aristotle led the way farther into the city, and they walked on for the best part of a mile until they had passed through it and were in a leafy Faubourg leading up to the Bastion de Tourneville. Some way along it the Doctor halted opposite a squat, ivy-covered cottage with a thatched roof, and said:

"I have to make another purchase here and I shall require a louis."

"But we have only some thirteen crowns left," expostulated Roger, "and if I give you eight of them, after we've settled up at the inn, we'll have next to nothing left for emergencies."

The Doctor shrugged. "My score is already settled; since, knowing my sad habits, Mattre Picard makes me pay always in advance; and having been there but a day yours cannot be a heavy one. Give me the money, I beg. 'Tis to acquire a drug which is ever one of my most profitable lines and at nowhere else do I know a place to obtain it nearer than Rouen."

Roger half suspected that the old man wanted to obtain the louis for some purpose of his own, but he had so far had no grounds for doubting his honesty and felt that as long as the mule, with its now valuable cargo, remained in his charge he had ample security; so with some reluctance he counted out the money.

The door of the cottage was opened by a repulsive old crone with a bent back, hairs upon her bony chin and a black cat perched upon her shoulder. Roger felt sure she was a witch, and hastily averted his gaze as the Doctor went inside with her.

The thought that his partner was about to purchase some rare and expensive decoction from this sinister old woman gave Roger furiously to think. What kind of drug could the Doctor possibly require that was not obtainable at an apothecary's? Could it be that he was not merely an old quack whose worst fault lay in selling remedies, many of which he knew to be worthless?

In the time of Louis XIV all Europe had been horrified by the disclosures at the trials of the infamous La Voisin and the Marquise de Brinvilliers. A vast conspiracy had been uncovered in which hundreds of people had been involved, including the King's favourite, Madame de Montespan. Her young rival, Mademoiselle de Fontanges, had died in agonised convulsions after drinking a cup of fruit juice on her return from hunting with the King. The inquiry, on which her family had insisted, had revealed the existence of a great organisation fostering the practice of Satanism and willing to ensure the death of unwanted husbands, parents and rivals for a price, in many cases as low as ten Louis. Although the King had refused to allow a case to be brought against his old favourite, on account of the children he had had by her, it had led to her downfall, and a number of her associates had been broken on the wheel. Hundreds of mysterious deaths had been traced to their evil machinations and, as a result, France had not even yet lived down the reputation of being a land where poisoning was rife. Could it be that Doctor Aristotle Fenelon made the more remunerative part of his precarious living as a poisoner?

When the Doctor came out of the cottage he showed Roger a fair-sized bottle three parts full of liquid.

"What is that?" asked Roger, striving to conceal his perturbation.

" 'Tis Ergot of Rye," replied the Doctor shortly, "an invaluable specific for the ills to which many young women become subject," but he refused to amplify his statement, so Roger was left only partially satisfied as to the purpose for which this expensive acquisition was intended.

As they walked back towards the centre of the town Georgina's prediction recurred to him. She had said that he would be in grave danger from water; and he had been. She had said that he would meet with a man that boded no good to him and had something the matter with his left eye; and, wondering that he had not thought of it before, Roger now recalled the scar running up to the eye corner on De Roubec's left cheek. She had said that he would go into some form of partnership with an old man who would prove a good friend to him, yet that no permanent good would come to him from it.

But it was too late now to speculate on whether or no the Doctor was the old man she had seen in the glass. Roger realised that his last chance of getting back to England had vanished with the completion of their purchases that afternoon and only a few francs now stood between him and starvation. The die was cast and, for better or for worse, he must take the road with old Aristotle Fenelon the following morning.

CHAPTER X

THE MAN IN GREY

THEY got back to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys with some hours of the long afternoon still to spare, so they at once set about turning the brew-house into a dispensary. While Roger stabled Monsieur de Montaigne and unloaded his panniers the Doctor brought down from his room two battered old portmanteaux, containing his medical instruments, a few crude laboratory appliances and the oddments of stock that he had over from his last journey. A fire was soon lighted under the big copper and a supply of fresh water drawn from the well in the yard; then Dr. Aristotle entered upon the performance of his dubious mysteries.

Roger, his coat off and his shirt sleeves.rolled up, watched him fascinated, and lent his aid by washing and drying the pots and bottles, then filling them with the Doctor's sinister concoctions. Many of their purchases needed no further treatment than watering down and the principal business resolved itself into two main operations each followed by a number of subsidiary ones. The first was the blending of a foundation grease to which was added a variety of scents, some fragrant and some abominably foul, to give it the semblance of a number of quite different ointments; the second was the blending of a clear fluid, containing 90 per cent water, to varying proportions of which colouring matter or pungent flavourings were added for a similar purpose.

They broke off for supper then returned to finish their labours by candlelight, spending an additional hour rolling pills made of soap and a dash of cascara, then they packed their wares into the panniers and retired to bed.

In the morning Roger woke with the awful thought that during the night the Doctor might have absconded with the lotions and unguents which now represented his small capital, leaving him near destitute. Hurriedly pulling on his clothes he dashed downstairs and out to the stable. To his immense relief he found his fears to be groundless; Monsieur de Montaigne was quietly munching away at the hay in his manger and the panniers lay nearby packed and strapped as they had been left the night before.

Half an hour later, still feeling a little guilty about his unjust suspicions, he met his partner in the coffee robm and they sat down to their petit dejeuner. Over the meal they discussed the itinerary for their journey and the Doctor having come down from Picardy via Dieppe, visiting all the villages along the coast on his way, it was decided to continue on into southern Normandy; but as they could not afford to take passage in a ferry across the wide estuary of the Seine they would follow its northern bank east as far as Rouen and then strike south from there.

Roger's bill for the eventful thirty-eight hours he had spent at Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys came to eight francs fourteen sous, so after a pourboire to the serving man and the chambermaid he was reduced to a single crown and a little small change; but he was not unduly perturbed by the depletion of his resources as the day was fine and it held for him ample promise of new scenes and interests.

Having hoisted the panniers on to Monsieur de Montaigne's back and strapped on top of them the Doctor's collapsible street pulpit they left the inn soon after eight o'clock and took the road to Harfleur.

It was on the way there that the Doctor spoke tactfully to Roger about his sword. The old man told him that in France it was forbidden to carry arms unless of noble birth; the only exception to the rule being that barbers were allowed to do so, as a special concession on account of their peculiarly intimate relations with the nobility and their clients' dependence upon them. In the towns, of course, many soldiers of fortune, and scallywags such as the Chevalier, wore swords in support of their pretensions to an aristocratic lineage that they did not in fact possess, and they were so numerous as rarely to be called to account for this misdemeanour, but in the country it was different.

As the Doctor pointed out, should some nobleman drive up to an inn and halt there for the horses of his coach to be watered he might see Roger wearing a sword while assisting to peddle their medicines. This would appear so incongruous to him that he would most probably set his lackeys on to give Roger a whipping.

Having worn his sword only for a day, Roger was somewhat loath to take it off; but he saw the sense of the Doctor's remarks and felt that as he had never carried one in England, to go without it would be no great deprivation, so he removed it from its frog and stowed it among the baggage on the mule.

By ten o'clock they reached the still battlemented walls of Harfleur, made famous by King Henry V's siege and reduction of it, but they did not pause there, and continued on along the main highway to the north-east, until an hour after midday they entered the village of St. Romain.

Hungry now, after their twelve-mile tramp, they went to the inn and, for a franc, procured a meal of bread and cheese washed down by a coarse vin du pays. During the afternoon they rested in an orchard, then towards five o'clock when the peasants, their day's work done, began to drift back from the fields, the partners proceeded to set about their business.

While the Doctor put up his stand outside the inn, Roger brought from the stable an assortment of bottles and pots which he set out on a small folding table beside the stand. The Doctor then mounted it and picking up a large handbell began to ring it loudly to attract the handful of people who were to be seen doing errands or gossiping in the village street.

In a few moments he had a dozen children round him and a few grown-ups, and Roger had to admire the cleverness with which he opened the proceedings. Producing a packet of the cheap sweets from his pocket he addressed himself to the children.

"My little ones, you see in me a wise man skilled in all medicines. Many of you must have mothers, fathers, and other relatives who are suffering and in pain from one cause or another. Run now to your homes and tell them that the good Doctor Aristotle Fenelon has arrived here for the special purpose of curing their complaints, and that it will cost them no more than a few sous. But before you bear these good tidings to your folks look what I have here for you, a sweet a-piece as succulent as it is colourful. Forget not my message; and those of you who have pretty sisters should add that for a trifle I have lotions and unguents here which will make red hands as white as alabaster and dull eyes sparkle like the stars."

He then handed out the highly-coloured sweets amongst them and they scurried away to spread the news of his visit through the village.

After ringing the bell again for a while he had a crowd of some twenty people assembled and more were drifting up every moment. As Roger looked at them he greatly doubted if they could raise a louis between them, as they were mostly dressed in rags, and it struck him most forcibly how much poorer the people here appeared to be than would have a similar crowd in an English village. But his attention was soon distracted from the comparison as he endeavoured to follow the flowery phrases in which the Doctor now addressed them.

"My friends!" he cried, in a sonorous voice, "To-day is a day of good fortune for this ancient and populous township of St. Romain. Never, I make bold to say, since the good Saint who founded it passed to his holy rest, has such a unique opportunity been offered to its intelligent inhabitants to be swiftly relieved of their ills, both physical and mental.

"I am the great Doctor Aristotle Fenelon, of whom many of you must have heard; since I spend my life ministering to suffering humanity, and my name is reverenced from far Muscovy to even more distant Cathay for the miraculous cures and good works that I perform —yet I am also your most humble servant.

"I was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, and also at the famous universities of Leyden, Oxford, Pavia and Heidelberg. At these great seats of learning I took all the degrees which it was possible to take, while still quite young, and my wisdom became so renowned that elderly professors travelled from such distant cities as Danzig, Palermo and Madrid to hold converse with me.

"Having completed my studies I spent twenty years in travelling the world in search of medicines and remedies so far unknown in Europe. From the Moorish doctors of the Orient I learned the secrets by which the ladies of the Great Turk's harem preserve their beauty from decay for almost unbelievable periods, so that at the age of sixty they are no less desirable than when at seventeen they first attracted the notice of their munificent master. Journeying on to Hind, I traversed the empire of the Grand Mogul from end to end, studying the methods by which the fakirs prolong their lives to the span of three-hundred years, as did the Patriarchs in holy writ, and are still capable of begetting a child upon a virgin when two-hundred and fifty years of age.

"But think not that my search for the secrets of healing, longevity, beauty and vigour have been confined only to Europe and the East. I have also visited the Americas, where I learned of the Red men how to seal open wounds by fire almost painlessly, and to cure the pox by a decoction made from the bark of a tree that grows only on the tops of the Andes mountains. In short, I am the living compendium of all knowledge concerning bodily ailments and the satisfaction of physical desire.

"Yet, lest you may think me boastful I will freely confess that there is one thing I cannot do. I am an honest man and would never seek to deceive so distinguished and critical an audience. Death is still the master of us all, and although I can prolong life I cannot do so indefinitely. It is your great misfortune, as it is also mine, that although I once possessed a rare parchment on which an Atlantian alchemist had inscribed the method of distilling the Elixir of Life, a rascally Egyptian priest stole it from me; and, alas! the recipe was too complicated for any human brain to remember.

"But, even though I cannot offer you the divine gift of immortality, I can provide a panacea for a thousand ills. I draw teeth, set sprains and apply electric fluid after the principles of Doctor Mesmer, who, as you may have heard, is now all the rage in fashionable Paris, and, 'tis said, has even treated Queen Marie Antoinette herself. I can cure boils, warts, tumours, goitre, suppurating ulcers, irritant rashes, eczema, catarrh, lumbago, anaemia, a persistent cough, acidity, headaches, sleeplessness, sore nipples, affections of the eyes, deafness, night-sweats, wind, bad breath and foot rot.

"There are too, those results of amatory imprudence which for some purpose of His own the good God has seen fit to inflict upon us poor mortals. I refer, in the first place, to those dangerous diseases which, praise be, are rarely met with in the country, and particularly in towns of such high morality as St. Romain, but can be caught by even the best-intentioned during visits of curiosity to the dubious haunts of our great cities; in the second, to that process in nature which, as the result of a few moments' indulgence, oft inflicts upon a girl or woman a burden that she is either unfitted or unwilling to bear. Finally, there are those distempers of the mind and brain which call for special treatment. Unrequited love is such a one, loss of sexual vitality and an inability to beget children are others. For all of these I have most efficacious remedies; but such are private matters, and should any of you wish to consult me on them I shall be at your service in my room here, at the inn, between eight o'clock and midnight. I make no extra charge for these confidential consultations and your secrets will be as safe with me as if made to your Cure in the con­fessional."

As the Doctor finished this long and grandiloquent harangue, Roger would not have been surprised if the crowd had broken into cries of anger and derision. Never had he heard so many palpable lies rolled off in so few moments, and it seemed impossible that any collection of sane men and women would believe one-tenth of them. Yet, as he looked at the dull and stupid faces of the peasant audience he realised that their ignorance must be abysmal, and that it was doubtful if they even understood half the allusions the Doctor had made to his mythical journeyings. They just stood quietly and patiently there like a herd of animals. There was hardly a movement among them and their faces remained quite expressionless.

As no one came forward the Doctor went on: "Now, good folk, have no fears, but seize upon this all-too-fleeting opportunity, for by dawn to-morrow it will be too late. The world is wide and there are many sufferers in it, so I must be on my way to give the great benefit of my experience to others. But for this evening my encyclopaedic knowledge is yours for the asking. To produce an example, and thus overcome your reluctance to voice your needs, I will give a free treat­ment to whoever first consults me."

This offer produced an immediate reaction. The peasants were not so deaf and dumb as they appeared, and there was a little surge forward of the crowd as several people, all speaking at once, endeavoured to push their way to the front.

"That's better," purred the Doctor, as a lean, determined-looking woman gained first place. "Well, mother! What ails thee?"

It was the woman's eyes that were troubling her. Stepping down from his stand the Doctor screwed a pocket-lens into his own eye, took a quick look at them, and gave her a bottle which Roger knew to contain plain salt dissolved in water; as he remembered the Doctor remarking when they made it up that no better eye lotion had ever been discovered, and that it was a pity they had to pander to their customer's stupid belief that no medicine was ever efficacious unless it was coloured, since the colouring matter rendered it much less soothing than would have been an unadulterated solution.

The next applicant was a man with a horrid suppurating ulcer on his forearm, for which the Doctor sold him a pot of ointment; the third a woman who complained of splitting headaches; the fourth, another carrying a child that had croup: and so it went on for an hour or more. After a brief examination of each patient the Doctor pointed out the bottle or pot that Roger was to hand them and told him how much to charge. The fee was generally three sous and rarely more than six, while for drawing a tooth or extracting the core of a malignant boil by the application of the neck of a heated bottle, the Doctor charged only half a franc, so Roger, greatly disappointed in this collection of half-pence, began to fear that they would not even make enough clear profit to pay for their night's lodging.

Yet his pile of greasy little copper coins gradually grew, and presently the young men and girls of the village began to mingle with the afflicted, having raided their savings to buy the vigour-inducing tonics and beauty preparations which the Doctor had mentioned in his opening address.

For each he had some special name and story. "Paris drops" were the very same elixir which had enabled the hero of antiquity to rape one hundred virgins in a night and yet remain with his desire unappeased next morning. "Helen's cream" was the secret of the beauty which had made the knees of old men turn to water as they watched her pass by on the battlements of Troy. "Cleopatra's oint­ment" was that same kohl with which the Egyptian Queen had painted her black eyebrows when she went out to meet and ensnare Caesar, and so on, ad infinitum.

As Roger handed out these nostrums, balms and potions, he was amazed that the village wenches among his customers should be so far removed from the score or so of elegant ladies he had seen shopping in the Rue Francois 1er two afternoons earlier, and even from the shop girls of Le Havre, as to appear almost of a different race. They were bedraggled, dirty and slovenly, with their hair unkempt and their ugly feet thrust naked into wooden sabots. Yet it seemed, as they carefully counted out their hoarded sous, they were as anxious to obtain some little aid to beauty as their more fortunate sisters in the city.

At length, as twilight deepened, the crowd dwindled and the last customer was served with a little phial of "Oil of Hercules," that the Doctor assured him would enable him to win the village ploughing contest in the coming spring; and having packed up their goods and chattels they went into the inn.

It was a poor place but the simple food was well cooked and, after they had eaten, the partners received three visitors, at intervals, in the room they were sharing. Dr. Aristotle had been averse to his young companion being present at these interviews but Roger, still a little suspicious from his sad experience of the previous day, thought it possible that the old man might secrete a portion of the fees wherewith to buy brandy on the sly, so he insisted.

The proceedings made him feel slightly sick in all three cases, as the first two patients were suffering from advanced stages of venereal disease, and the third was a bent but lecherous-looking old man who wanted a potion that would make him capable of deflowering a girl who worked on his holding. But the Doctor took a franc a-piece off the two former and a crown off the latter, so Roger felt that he had been wise to remain.

Next morning they struck away from the high road and walked at an easy pace for five miles down by-lanes until they came to the smaller village of Tancarville, at the mouth of the Seine. Here the performances were repeated with still more meagre results and at a penalty of having to sleep in a miserable inn where the beds were alive with fleas; but on the following day they turned north-east again and, arriving at the township of Lillebonne by midday, spent the following three nights there in reasonable comfort. On the first two they did good business and the third day of their stay being Sunday they rested from their labours.

On the Monday they set out again, zig-zagging eastward through the villages of Candebec and Duclair to another little township called Barentin, which they reached on the Wednesday. Thursday, Friday and Saturday they slept in the nearby adjacent villages of Le Houlme, Maromme and Deville, and on the Sunday morning they walked into the ancient city of Rouen.

By this time Roger had picked up the game, and on entering a place where they intended to pass the night was able to form a fair estimate of what their takings in it were likely to be. Any village, however small, seemed good enough for a night's bed and board with a iew crowns over, but in the small towns they had made much bigger profits. For one thing the crowds they attracted were considerably larger and, for another, the general run of the inhabitants being somewhat better off, the Doctor was able to charge more for his wares. So on entering Rouen Roger had high hopes of their garnering a bumper harvest.

On his mentioning this, however, his partner was quick to disabuse him of the idea. The Doctor emphasised that only from the poor and ignorant could they hope to exact unquestioning belief in his own powers, and consequent tribute. In the larger towns and cities there were properly qualified doctors, apothecarys' shops and barbers' establishments which dealt in beauty preparations much superior to his own. Moreover, a good part of their inhabitants were educated people or, worse, cynical riff-raff who thought it good sport to throw rotten eggs and decayed garbage at such poor street practitioners as himself. This visit to Rouen, he added, must be regarded only as a holiday and the occasion for a little relaxation.

Contrary to Roger's expectations the old man had, so far, been very good in refraining from asking for nips of Cognac; but, on hearing this, his young partner rightly suspected that the Doctor now had it in mind to indulge his weakness. In ten evenings' work they had, some­what to Roger's surprise, managed to amass, mainly in sous and francs, some nine louis over and above their expenses, and he had no intention of seeing this small nucleus to their future fortunes frittered away. So he took the bull by the horns and said at once:

" 'Tis not yet two weeks since we set out upon our journey, so the time has not yet come for us to take a holiday."

"Why should we not take just a little holiday?" the Doctor pleaded. "Two or three nights, no more; but long enough for me to show you the site upon which the Maid of Orleans was burnt as a witch and the tombs of the Crusaders in the great Cathedral?"

"That we can do to-day," said Roger firmly. "And, since you say that we should only invite trouble by setting up our stand here, to­morrow morning we will continue our progress southward to lesser places where profits are to be made."

"So be it, sighed the Doctor. "But thou art a hard taskmaster for one so young. I intended to ask no more than a little rest for my old bones and, perhaps, a few crowns from our profits with which to purchase the wherewithal to warm the lining of my stomach."

"I knew it," Roger replied. "But one little dram leads to another little dram, as you yourself have said; and once you fall to drinking in earnest I'll never be able to get you on the move again. I've naught against our treating ourselves to a good dinner and a decent bottle of wine to go with it, but I pray you be content with that, and let us take the road again to-morrow."

The Doctor brightened a little and now seemed quite willing to let Roger fight his failing for him; but although they did not set up their stand in Rouen they were fated to meet trouble there.

Le Pomme D'Or, at which they put up, because the Doctor was known at it, proved to be a small inn down by the river. Having stabled Monsieur de Montaigne and taken their things up to their room, they went down to the parlour and found it to be full of sailors, who had recently been discharged from a man-o'-war. As in England, most of them had originally been pressed into the service, and many of them had spent the best years of their youth sailing the seas and fighting in the late war; yet now that the French Navy was gradually being reduced they had been paid off with a pittance which would barely keep them for a month, and comparatively few of them knew a trade by which they could earn a living ashore.

Naturally they were in an angry mood, and Roger, on learning the reason for their discontent, was indiscreet enough to remark that the French King's finances must be in a very poor state compared to those of the King of England, since the latter gave his sailors handsome bonuses on their discharge, and they went ashore with their pockets full of gold from their share of the prize money earned by the ships in which they had served.

On it emerging that he was English himself, they showed a sudden and alarming hostility. They knew nothing of the real causes of the late war; only that as a result of it they had been seized by the press-gangs and forced to spend years of hardship and danger far from their families. They had, moreover, been taught to believe that the perfidious English, desiring to dominate the world, had forced the war upon peaceful France, and that every Englishman was a fit object for the blackest hatred. In consequence they now regarded Roger as a visible cause of their past miseries and present anxieties.

With menacing looks half a dozen of these dark, wiry, uncouth-looking sailors now gathered round, shouting obscene abuse indis­criminately at him and everything that England stood for, and the street women they had picked up on landing added to the clamour with shrill, vindictive cries.

Only the Doctor's intervention saved Roger from a nasty mauling. In his sonorous voice the old man quelled the tumult. He upbraided the sailors for their discourtesy to a citizen of a country with which France was now at peace, and pointed out that since the late war had begun in '78 no one so young as Roger could possibly have had a hand in the making of it.

A blue-eyed shrew, attracted by Roger's good looks, also took his part and turned her screaming abuse upon the now hesitant sailors, calling them a pack of great, misbegotten bullies for attempting to browbeat so young a lad.

At the Doctor's suggestion Roger stood the company a round of drinks, and there the matter ended. But, when they had gone up to their room that night, he told Roger that among the ignorant in France there was still much resentment against the English, on account of the additional taxes and other hardships that the war had brought upon them; so he thought it would be a wise move if his young companion took another name and gave himself out to be a native of some other country.

As he was very proud of being English Roger was, at first, most loath to adopt the Doctor's suggestion, but eventually he was persuaded of its wisdom, and, after some discussion, it was decided that to account for his poor French and heavy accent he should pass himself off as a Frenchman hailing from Alsace; since most of the inhabitants of that province were brought up to speak only their mother tongue, which was German.

It was then agreed that Roger should keep his Christian name, which, pronounced as Rojé, was not uncommon in France, and change his surname to Breuc, that being the nearest French spelling to Brook.

On the Monday they set out again, crossing the Seine and journeying from village to village through central Normandy by way of Bernay and Lisieux to Caen. The August days were warm and pleasant, the life never lacking in variety and interest. Their stock was dwindling but Roger's money-bag grew satisfactorily heavier and when they reached Caen on the thirtieth of the month their takings totalled twenty-three louis.

Now that they had once more reached a city the Doctor again pressed for a "little holiday." But after some trouble Roger managed to argue him out of it on the grounds that another two days would see them in September, so they could count on only five or six weeks more good weather, and therefore should make the most of it.

The Doctor admitted that there was sound sense in this, as journey­man-doctoring in winter was a poor business, and the more they were able to put by while the good weather lasted the more frequently they would be able to lie up when storms were turning the roads into quagmires.

That afternoon, instead of remaining in the stuffy city, they walked out to a meadow, from which they could see the spires of the great Norman churches, and lay there for a while in the sunshine.

They dozed for a little, then, on their rousing, the Doctor asked Roger, apropos of nothing, how he liked the life he was leading and if he would be willing to continue their partnership as a permanency.

" 'Tis well enough," Roger replied, "and I am mighty grateful that I fell in with you. But as soon as I have saved sufficient to make me independent for a while I plan to return to England."

"Had you not that in view, would you be content to remain with me?" inquired the Doctor.

Roger had developed a great fondness for the old man and while he knew that-his ambitions could never be satisfied by such a life, he was loath to hurt his companion's feelings, so he said:

"We get on so well together that I would hate to part with you, and the life itself has many attractions. Even if we fool some people and endanger others by selling them drastic remedies, the good we do to the great majority is out of all proportion to the harm we may do the few. Yet at times it saddens me.

"How so?"

" 'Tis the sore straits in which those from whom we make a living, live themselves. They herd together like animals in their miserable, broken-down cottages, many of which have leaking roofs and hardly any of which even have windows to keep out the bitter winds of winter. Often I am ashamed to take from them the miserable sous they bring us."

"I'll not gainsay that they are poor," replied the Doctor, "but the majority of them are by no means as poor as you might think. In most cases 'tis for quite a different reason that they refrain from patching their roofs and putting windows in their houses. As you must have seen, on Sundays and Feast-days the village women bedeck themselves in very different raiment to that which they wear in the fields. Their layers of striped petticoats and lace headdresses have cost good money, and few of them are without gold chains and crosses for their necks, so they can well afford to part with a few sous for a beauty ointment."

"Why, then, do they live in such miserable conditions?"

" 'Tis on account of the taille,, my young friend, the most mon­strously stupid form of taxation that was ever devised by a government of fools. The King's Intendants assess each village at whatever lump sum they may judge it to be worth, and the village syndics, whether they like it or not, are forced to collect the money from the villagers. The syndics, in turn, are empowered to assess each householder quite arbitrarily, not upon his actual capacity to pay, but simply on the amount they think they can squeeze out of him. Each man is taxed, therefore, upon his presumed Wealth, and this is judged by his mode of living and apparent prosperity. As a result every villager makes an outward show of the direst poverty in order to get off as lightly as he can. This not only leads them to the self-infliction of many hardships which there would otherwise be no call for them to bear but it also strikes most savagely at the true interests of the country, since the peasants leave much of their land untilled from fear that bigger crops would land them with a higher tax assessment."

"What incredible folly," said Roger. "But why do not the nobles who own so much of the land make representations to the King, and get the tax laws altered?"

The Doctor shook his head. "The nobility of France still retains its privileges. Most unjustly all persons of rank are exempt from taxation, and they still possess the sole rights in shooting and snaring game, which is hard on the peasantry; but for many decades past they have lost all power of influencing the government. 'Twas the great Cardinal de Richelieu who destroyed the power of the feudal lords, and Le Grand Monarque completed the process by compelling them all to leave their estates and live as idlers at his court of Versailles in order to make a splendid background for himself. From that time on the running of the country fell into the hands of the Kings almost entirely, and they could know little of its state, as they were advised only by a small clique of greedy favourites and Finance Ministers who depended on the Farmers of the Revenue to suggest ways of raising money as best they could."

"They seem to have made a pretty mess of things," Roger com­mented. "Our nobility in England would not stand for such mismanage­ment, nor would the people, either. Why, they cut off the King's head with less reason a hundred and forty years ago."

" Twas neither the nobility nor the people who cut off King Charles's head," corrected the Doctor gently. " 'Twas the bourgeoisie; the lawyers and the rich tradespeople of the cities. And 'twill be the same here if the present discontents come to a head. The peasantry are too apathetic and too cowed to rise; the nobility has all to lose and naught to gain by so doing. But there is money in the towns, and money begets both ambition and jealousy of the privileges of the ruling caste. Of late years the reading of books by such as can read has spread apace, and such works as those of Messieurs de Quesnay, de Mirabeau, de Morelly and Jean Jacques Rousseau have spread abroad this cry for equality. Yet those who shout loudest have not in mind equality for the peasant with themselves but equality for themselves with the nobility."

"Have you no body the like of the English Parliament that could put matters to rights without disrupting the country by a great rebellion?"

"We have no Parliament in your sense, to which the people elect their own representatives. There are the local Parliaments, which we term Estates. Each of these consists of three chambers, the Church, the Nobility and a third Estate composed of the representatives of the city corporations and the trade guilds; but they have never been aught but provincial municipalities. Time was, though, when they used to send their representatives to Paris to sit in the States-General and advise the Kings of France whenever there arose a major crisis in the affairs of the nation. But the States-General has not now been sum­moned for nearly a hundred and seventy years. The last time they met was in 1614; and since then the Monarchy has become so-all-powerful that it ignores them. As for the provincial Estates, from one cause and another most of them have ceased to function these many decades past, and only those of Artois, Flanders, Burgundy, Brittany and Languedoc continue to assemble regularly."

"How is the kingdom governed, then?" asked Roger, "for if the nobles play no part and these Estates you speak of are moribund, how can the King, hedged about as he is by a crowd of ill-informed wasters, know what is happening to his subjects?"

"Alas! he does not; though 'tis said that he is good-intentioned. By theory he rules through the governors of his provinces, but these are all great nobles who live in luxury at his Court on the huge incomes that their governorships bring them. In fact, the land is ruled by the Intendants appointed by the Comptroller-General of Finance, most of whom are clever upstarts with but one concern—to line their own pockets at the expense of both the King and the people."

"But can the gentry do nothing to better matters?" asked Roger. "In England all people who have estates, whether large or small, feel it incumbent on them to protect and succour their dependants. A landlord who allowed his tenants' cottages to fall into disrepair or left his village folk starving in a bad winter would at once be cold-shouldered by his neighbours."

"Ah, and 'twas so here in the good old days. But the gentry are now almost as helpless as the peasants. All the wealth of the land is drawn either to Versailles in taxes or into the pockets of the lawyers and rich merchants in the cities. The upper tenth of the nobility, that which lives at Court near the King and grabs up the rich plums that fall from his table, does monstrous well; the other nine-tenths lives on its estates, mostly small properties that bring in barely enough to keep a roof on the Chateaux of their owners. They are mostly proud, aloof, hidebound in their ideas and jealous of their privileges; and they have lost both the inclination and the means to help their unfortunate peasantry."

" Tis a parlous state the country has come to, in very truth; and what you tell me interests me mightily. Yet it affects not the fact that I find it ever increasingly repugnant to take their savings off these wretched villagers."

"If 'tis that which worries you," the Doctor said, after a moment, "we will proceed yet further south into Brittany. The ancient kingdom is one of the few provinces in France where the Estates still function to some purpose. Moreover, the nobility there have never brought themselves to feel any strong allegiance to the Crown, and both rich and poor among them rarely leave their properties. I do not say that you will find the Breton peasants wealthy, out at least you will find them more prosperous and better cared for than those in the villages you have so far visited with me."

So it came about that, having replenished their stock of unguents, balms and 'sovereign remedies" in Caen next day, they followed the road south-west through Vire and Avranches towards Brittany. It was the 20th of September before they paid toll to enter the province and, since leaving Caen, in spite of their outlay there, the funds of the partnership had mounted to forty louis, partly as a result of several profitable private consultations that the Doctor had given to patients coming to him after dark.

Roger now no longer participated in these harrowing and gruesome interviews. Apart from the disgust they caused him he had reached the conclusion that there was little point in his doing so, since he knew how many private visitors the Doctor received each evening and approximately what he was likely to make out of them. Moreover, he now felt convinced that the only time his partner was at all likely to attempt to cheat him was when they were in a town and the craving for brandy overcame the old man's better nature.

From the frontier of the province they struck south towards Rennes, intending to make a wide circuit of its interior after they had once more replenished their store, of drugs in its capital.

As the Doctor had foretold, Roger found the Breton peasantry much more alive and human than their neighbours to the north. They showed more independence and even, at times, heckled the great Aristotle Fenelon, questioning his encyclopaedic knowledge and his much-vaunted wisdom. At times, too, the Curés of the villages came out and drove the human benefactor away, upbraiding him as a godless charlatan. But, in spite of this, the Bretons proved a credulous folk and their women bought much more freely of the Doctor's toilet preparations; so, when they reached Rennes on 5th of October, Roger had fifty-four louis, tucked, literally, under his belt, as he now kept their funds, as he once had Georgina's jewels, in an elongated pouch round his waist.

On arriving in Rennes they went to the Du Guesclin, a good inn, overlooking the Champs de Mars, as they intended to do themselves well. Having reached the town by mid-morning they were in time to enjoy an excellent dejeuner, but it struck Roger that during it his companion was unusually silent.

After the meal, as had become their custom on reaching any town of importance, they went out for a walk in order that the Doctor might show Roger such items of historic interest as the place contained. As they proceeded towards the Cathedral of St. Pierre the old man's quite abnormal un communicativeness continued, so Roger asked him if he was not feeling well.

"I'm well enough in myself, but a trifle worried," the Doctor replied.

"About what?" Roger inquired.

"I trust 'twill prove a matter of no moment; but did you, perchance, notice the man in the grey coat who was sitting alone at a small table in the coffee room, at its far end on the left side of the hearth—a tall, thin, angular fellow with red hair and a somewhat sour expression?"

"Yes," said Roger. "I glanced at him more than once because I was struck by the exceptional pallor of his face. I thought him not unhandsome, but there was something vaguely repellent about that small mouth of his, and his heavily lidded eyes that avoided my glance each time I looked at him. Who is he?"

"His name is Joseph Fouché. He is a lay preacher of the Oratorian Order and a native of Nantes. His father was, I believe, a sea-captain and left him both some small properties in Brittany and a plantation in San Domingo, so he is of independent means. However, as a hobby he interests himself in police affairs, playing the role of a private investi­gator for his own amusement, then acting as an informer. 'Twas in such a matter that I met him."

"What part did you play in this?" asked Roger with some appre­hension.

"I was in Nantes towards the end of last winter and, er—my funds were unusually low. 'Twas on that account that, against my better judgment, I agreed to treat a somewhat stubborn case. 'Twas through no lack of care on my part that I lost my patient. Even then no harm would have resulted to myself had not a wealthy family been involved and Monsieur Fouché as a friend of theirs, taken it upon himself to investigate the matter. He traced the cause of death to me, then browbeat me into certain admissions, and on his information the police issued a warrant for my arrest."

"Phew! That was indeed a tight corner to be in. How did you manage to get out of it?"

The Doctor sighed. "By sacrificing the handsome fee that I had received. As you may have gathered police-agents are almost universally corrupt. I bribed the agent sent to arrest me to connive at my escape. But I must confess that seeing Monsieur Fouché again has temporarily unnerved me."

"That I can well understand," Roger agreed. "Yet it does not seem to me that you have aught to fear from him. From what you tell me it appears that his only interest in such affairs is the sport he derives from tracing up a case. If that is so, in yours, he has already had all the satisfaction it could afford him."

"It may be that I have allowed myself to be scared without reason, but the warrant for my arrest must still be in existence. If Monsieur Fouché chose to be vindictive"

"The devil!" exclaimed Roger. "I had thought that as this all happened months ago, and we are many leagues from Nantes, you were not in any actual danger." D'you mean that he might inform again and cause the police of Rennes to arrest you?"

"If he did I would be hard put to it to escape a hanging."

"Then we must leave Rennes as speedily as possible," said Roger with decision.

"He may not have recognised me," hazarded the Doctor. "And, even if he did, I may be doing him a great injustice to suppose that, having no personal score against me, he would pursue me with such vindictiveness."

"Nevertheless I'm sure we'd be wise to quit the town before there is any chance of your running into him again. I have our money on me and if we set out at once we could reach some village to the south or west before nightfall."

"But how can we do business without our stock in trade?" the Doctor protested.

"We have ample funds and can buy more at the next town we come to; we are certain to reach one within a few days."

"You forget Monsieur de Montaigne. Never could I bring myself to abandon that faithful beast. Besides, there are my instruments. Many of them are not easy to come by and it would be weeks before I could replace them all. 'Twould prove a most serious handicap were we to leave them behind."

Roger thought for a moment, then he said: "I too should be loath to let poor old Monsieur de Montaigne fall into the knackers' hands; and since we must go back for him, how would it be if we wait till dusk? We could slip into the side door of the inn, collect our things, get him from the stable and be off again, with small chance of meeting this police-cheat on the stairs or being seen by him from one of the windows?"

On the Doctor agreeing that this proposal seemed to offer the best prospect of avoiding any risk of trouble, they proceeded about their inspection of the ancient monuments in the Breton capital. But for both of them it proved an uneasy afternoon, and they were glad when the falling shadows gave them notice that the time had come to go back to the inn.

When they reached it Roger felt that he had chosen this hour for their flitting well, as the twilight had deepened sufficiently to obscure the faces of passing pedestrians when they were at a little distance, yet the windows of most of the houses still remained unlighted, so the hallway and staircase of the inn would be in semi-darkness.

They went to the stable first, and swiftly saddled up Monsieur de Montaigne; then they entered the inn by its yard door and went cautiously along a gloomy passage. As they had treated themselves to a special dejeuner they had paid for it at the time, so they had no bill to settle. The Du Guesclin was an expensive place so they had taken one of the cheaper rooms beneath its eaves. It only remained for them to collect the two old portmanteaux containing the Doctor's implements from their attic and get down the staircase without running into Monsieur Fouché.

Roger reached the room first. As it had only a dormer window it was now almost dark in there and on his opening the door he could barely distinguish the outlines of the furniture. The Doctor followed him in and began to fumble with his tinder-box.

"Hurry!" exclaimed Roger, snatching up a candle and holding it out to him. " 'Tis a pity we must strike a light, but we'll see the better to pack our things and so the more quickly get away."

"We will need a light to see each other by; but why this hurry?" said a quiet voice from the bed, and as the wick of the candle flared they swung round to see the tall form of the man in grey reclining on the bed.

"Surely, Monsieur le Docteur, you were not thinking of leaving Rennes without allowing me the opportunity of paying my respects to you?" he went on mockingly. "That would have been churlish indeed."

"Why, no, Monsieur Fouché: I—I would not have dreamed of such a thing," stammered the Doctor, as Roger set down the candlestick on the chest of drawers.

"That is admirable; and, as you see, I have spared us both the trouble of arranging an interview by coming to your room. In fact, I have been waiting for you here most of the afternoon. But I am happy to be able to tell you that I found your bed quite passably comfortable. Tell me, Monsieur le Docteur, what have you been doing all this time. Are you still upon the road?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"So I gathered on finding that old mule of yours in the stable, and the panniers he bears stuffed with the noisome messes that you peddle to the peasantry. Whence have you come?"

"From Le Havre, Monsieur, by way of Rouen and Caen."

"A nice step that; and I trust profitable. After so long a tour your pockets should be positively bursting with shekels." After a moment the man in grey added quite casually: "Have you killed anybody recently?"

"Monsieur, you do me a great injustice," the Doctor burst out. "My medicines do no one any harm if taken as directed. That tragic accident in Nantes last winter came about through the poor girl taking too much of the drug I gave her."

" 'Twas the sort of accident that leads to old men like you meeting the executioner one fine morning before breakfast. You knew well that the Demoiselle Bracieux was five months gone with child, and that the odds were all against your being able to save her from the results of her indiscretion so late in her pregnancy."

"I have known similar cases where success was achieved, Monsieur; and the poor girl begged of me so hard to help her."

" 'Twas the ten louis d'or she offered you that softened that rogue's heart of yours."

"Nay, Monsieur, 'twas not only that. She swore to me that her parents would put her into a convent for life if they discovered her shame. I warned her that there was some risk, but both she and her lover decided that for her the lesser evil was to take it. 'Twas her foolish impatience in taking an overdose that killed her, and a terrible misfortune for all concerned."

"Your misfortune, my friend, was not the killing but in the person whom you killed. Had you made corpses of a dozen village wenches you'd have heard no more of it, but ‘twas the height of folly to run such a risk with the daughter of a Councillor of Parliament."

Again Fouché remained silent for a moment, then he went on: "But 'tis all over and as good as forgotten now, is it not, Monsieur le Docteur?"

"Why, yes, Monsieur FoucheV' sighed the Doctor with obvious relief. "Thanks to a fortunate explanation I was able to give the police, they refrained from executing the warrant that Councillor Bracieux took out against me."

"But the warrant is still valid, so I would not show your face in Nantes for a year or two if I were you."

"No, no. Be sure I shall give that fine city a wide berth in future."

"That would be wise, but I thought I should warn you."

" 'Twas most kind of you. Monsieur Fouché."

"Then there remains little more to be said."

"No; only for me to thank you again for having spent the afternoon here in order to warn me not to return to Nantes."

" 'Twas a pleasure," murmured the man in grey, but he made no move to get off the bed and continued to lie there propped up on one elbow with his head resting on his hand.

By the light of the candle Roger could now see his features clearly. He looked about twenty-four and was handsome in a way. His features were well cast though long and bony and the high cheekbones in con­junction with his deathly pale face suggested that, although tall and wiry, he might be delicate. The most disturbing thing about him was his hooded eyes and the fact that whenever he spoke he seemed to deliberately avoid the gaze of whoever he was addressing.

"Then if there is nothing else.." hazarded the Doctor suggestively.

Fouché's thin lips broke into a smile. "You seem very impatient to be rid of me."

"No, no, Monsieur, not in the least. But my young friend here and I made a change in our plans this afternoon. Big places like Rennes are no good for our business and we—well, we decided to push on to a smaller place to-night, and darkness is already falling."