About nine o'clock the next morning an incident occurred which might

have terminated my career in one way, and did, ultimately, end it in

another.

I had been exercising my lions and putting them through their paces,

and had noticed no unusual insubordination among them, when suddenly,

Timour Melek, a big Algerian lion, flew at me without the slightest

provocation or warning.

Fortunately I had a training-chair in my hand, on which Timour had

just been sitting, and I had time to thrust it into his face. Thrice

with incredible swiftness he struck the iron-chair, right, left, and

right, as a cat strikes, then seized it in his teeth. At the same

moment I brought my loaded whip heavily across his nose.

"Down, Timour Melek! Down! down! down!" I said, steadily,

accompanying each word with a blow of the whip across the nose.

The brute had only hurt himself when he struck the chair, and now,

under the blows raining on his sensitive nose, he doubtless remembered

similar episodes in his early training, and shrank back, nearly

deafening me with his roars. I followed, punishing him, and he fled

towards the low iron grating which separated the training-cage from

the night-quarters.

This I am now inclined to believe was a mistake of judgment on my

part. I should have driven him into a corner and thoroughly cowed him,

using the training-chair if necessary, and trusting to my two

assistants with their irons, who had already closed up on either side

of the cage.

I was not in perfect trim that morning. Not that I felt nervous in the

least, nor had I any lack of self-confidence, but I was not myself. I

had never in my life entered a lion-cage feeling as I did that

morning--an indifference which almost amounted to laziness, an apathy

which came close to melancholy.

The lions knew I was not myself--they had been aware of it as soon as

I set foot in their cage; and I knew it. But my strange apathy only

increased as I went about my business, perfectly aware all the time

that, with lions born in captivity, the unexpected is always to be

expected.

Timour Melek was now close to the low iron door between the

partitions; the other lions had become unusually excited, bounding at

a heavy gallop around the cage, or clinging to the bars like enormous

cats.

Then, as I faced Timour, ready to force him backward through the door

into the night-quarters, something in the blank glare of his eyes

seemed to fascinate me. I had an absurd sensation that he was slipping

away from me--escaping; that I no longer dominated him nor had

authority. It was not panic, nor even fear; it was a faint

paralysis--temporary, fortunately; for at that instant instinct saved

me; I struck the lion a terrific blow across the nose and whirled

around, chair uplifted, just in time to receive the charge of Empress

Khatoun, consort of Timour.

She struck the iron-bound chair, doubling it up like crumpled paper,

hurling me headlong, not to the floor of the cage, but straight

through the sliding-bars which Speed had just flung open with a shout.

As for me, I landed violently on my back in the sawdust, the breath

knocked clean out of me.

When I could catch my breath again I realized that there was no time

to waste. Speed looked at me angrily, but I jerked open the grating,

flung another chair into the cage, leaped in, and, singling out

Empress Khatoun, I sailed into her with passionless thoroughness,

punishing her to a stand-still, while the other lions, Aicha,

Marghouz, Timour, and Genghis Khan snarled and watched me steadily.

As I emerged from the cage Speed asked me whether I was hurt, and I

gasped out that I was not.

"What went wrong?" he persisted.

"Timour and that young lioness--no, I went wrong; the lions knew it

at once; something failed me, I don't know what; upon my soul, Speed,

I don't know what happened."

"You lost your nerve?"

"No, not that. Timour began looking at me in a peculiar way--he

certainly dominated me for an instant--for a tenth of a second; and

then Khatoun flew at me before I could control Timour--"

I hesitated.

"Speed, it was one of those seconds that come to us, when the

faintest shadow of indecision settles matters. Engineers are subject

to it at the throttle, pilots at the helm, captains in battle--"

"Men in love," added Speed.

I looked at him, not comprehending.

"By-the-way," said Speed, "Leo Grammont, the greatest lion-tamer who

ever lived, once told me that a man in love with a woman could not

control lions; that when a man falls in love he loses that intangible,

mysterious quality--call it mesmerism or whatever you like--the occult

force that dominates beasts. And he said that the lions knew it, that

they perceived it sometimes even before the man himself was aware

that he was in love."

I looked him over in astonishment.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked, amused.

"What's the matter with you?" I demanded. "If you mean to intimate

that I have fallen in love you are certainly an astonishing ass!"

"Don't talk that way," he said, good-humoredly. "I didn't dream of

such a thing, or of offending you, Scarlett."

It struck me at the same moment that my irritable and unwarranted

retort was utterly unlike me.

"I beg your pardon," I said. "I don't know exactly what is the

matter with me to-day. First I quarrel with poor old Timour Melek,

then I insult you. I've discovered that I have nerves; I never before

knew it."

"Cold flap-jacks and cider would have destroyed Hercules himself in

time," observed Speed, following with his eyes the movements of a

lithe young girl, who was busy with the hoisting apparatus of the

flying trapeze. The girl was Jacqueline, dressed in a mended gown of

Miss Delany's.

"At times," muttered Speed, partly to himself, "that little witch

frightens me. There is no risk she dares not take; even Horan gets

nervous; and when that bull-necked numbskull is scared there's reason

for it."

We walked out into the main tent, where simultaneous rehearsals were

everywhere in progress; and I picked up the ring-master's whip and

sent it curling after "Briza," a harmless, fat, white mare on which

pretty Mrs. Grigg was sitting expectantly. Round and round the ring

she cantered, now astride two horses, now guiding a "spike,"

practising assiduously her acrobatics. At intervals, far up in the

rigging overhead, I caught glimpses of Miss Crystal swinging on her

trapeze, watching the ring below.

Byram came in to rehearse the opening processional and to rebuke his

dearest foe, the unspeakable "camuel," bestridden by Mrs. Horan as

Fatima, Queen of the Desert. Speed followed, squatted on the head of

the elephant, ankus on thigh, shouting, "Hôut! Mäil! Djebé Noain!

Mäil the hezar! Mäil!" he thundered, triumphantly, saluting Byram with

lifted ankus as the elephant ambled past in a cloud of dust.

"Clear the ring!" cried Byram.

Miss Delany, who was outlining Jacqueline with juggler's knives, began

to pull her stock of cutlery from the soft pine backing; elephant,

camel, horses trampled out; Miss Crystal caught a dangling rope and

slid earthward, and I turned and walked towards the outer door with

Byram.

As I looked back for an instant I saw Jacqueline, in her glittering

diving-skin, calmly step out of her discarded skirt and walk towards

the sunken tank in the middle of the ring, which three workmen were

uncovering.

She was to rehearse her perilous leap for the first time to-day, and I

told Speed frankly that I was too nervous to be present, and so left

him staring across the dusky tent at the slim child in spangles.

I had an appointment to meet Robert the Lizard at noon, and I was

rather curious to find out how much his promises were worth when the

novelty of his new gun had grown stale. So I started towards the

cliffs, nibbling a crust of bread for luncheon, though the incident of

the morning had left me small appetite for food.

The poacher was sunning himself on his doorsill when I came into view

over the black basalt rocks. To my surprise, he touched his cap as I

approached, and rose civilly, replying to my greeting with a brief,

"Salute, m'sieu!"

"You are prompt to the minute," I said, pleasantly.

"You also," he observed. "We are quits, m'sieu--so far."

I told him of the progress that Jacqueline was making; he listened in

silence, and whether or not he was interested I could not determine.

There was a pause; I looked out across the sun-lit ocean, taking time

to arrange the order of the few questions which I had to ask.

"Come to the point, m'sieu," he said, dryly. "We have struck

palms."

Spite of my training, spite of the caution which experience brings to

the most unsuspicious of us, I had a curious confidence in this

tattered rascal's loyalty to a promise. And apparently without reason,

too, for there was something wrong with his eyes--or else with the way

he used them. They were wonderful, vivid blue eyes, well set and well

shaped, but he never looked at anybody directly except in moments of

excitement or fury. At such moments his eyes appeared to be lighted up

from behind.

"Lizard," I said, "you are a poacher."

His placid visage turned stormy.

"None of that, m'sieu," he retorted; "remember the bargain! Concern

yourself with your own affairs!"

"Wait," I said. "I'm not trying to reform you. For my purposes it is

a poacher I want--else I might have gone to another."

"That sounds more reasonable," he admitted, guardedly.

"I want to ask this," I continued: "are you a poacher from

necessity, or from that pure love of the chase which is born in even

worse men than you and I?"

"I poach because I love it. There are no poachers from necessity;

there is always the sea, which furnishes work for all who care to

steer a sloop, or draw a seine, or wield a sea-rake. I am a pilot."

"But the war?"

"At least the war could not keep me from the sardine grounds."

"So you poach from choice?"

"Yes. It is in me. I am sorry, but what shall I do? It's in me."

"And you can't resist?"

He laughed grimly. "Go and call in the hounds from the stag's

throat!"

Presently I said:

"You have been in jail?"

"Yes," he replied, indifferently.

"For poaching?"

"Eur e'harvik rous," he said in Breton, and I could not make out

whether he meant that he had been in jail for the sake of a woman or

of a "little red doe." The Breton language bristles with double

meanings, symbols, and allegories. The word for doe in Breton is

karvez; or for a doe which never had a fawn, it is heiez; for a

fawn the word is karvik.

I mentioned these facts to him, but he only looked dangerous and

remained silent.

"Lizard," I said, "give me your confidence as I give you mine. I

will tell you now that I was once in the police--"

He started.

"And that I expect to enter that corps again. And I want your aid."

"My aid? For the police?" His laugh was simply horrible. "I? The

Lizard? Continue, m'sieu."

"I will tell you why. Yesterday, on a visit to Point Paradise, I saw

a man lying belly down in the bracken; but I didn't let him know I saw

him. I have served in the police; I think I recognize that man. He is

known in Belleville as Tric-Trac. He came here, I believe, to see a

man called Buckhurst. Can you find this Tric-Trac for me? Do you,

perhaps, know him?"

"Yes," said the Lizard, "I knew him in prison."

"You have seen him here?"

"Yes, but I will not betray him."

"Why?"

"Because he is a poor, hunted devil of a poacher like me!" cried the

Lizard, angrily. "He must live; there's enough land in Finistère for

us both."

"How long has he been here in Paradise?"

"For two months."

"And he told you he lived by poaching?"

"Yes."

"He lies."

The Lizard looked at me intently.

"He has played you; he is a thief, and he has come here to rob. He is

a filou--a town rat. Can he bend a hedge-snare? Can he line a string

of dead-falls? Can he even snare enough game to keep himself from

starving? He a woodsman? He a poacher of the bracken? You are

simple, my friend."

The veins in the poacher's neck began to swell and a dull color

flooded his face.

"Prove that he has played me," he said.

"Prove it yourself."

"How?"

"By watching him. He came here to meet a man named Buckhurst."

"I have seen that man Buckhurst, too. What is he doing here?" asked

the Lizard.

"That is what I want you to find out and help me to find out!" I

said. "Voilà! Now you know what I want of you."

The sombre visage of the poacher twitched.

"I take it," said I, "that you would not make a comrade of a petty

pickpocket."

The poacher uttered an oath and shook his fist at me. "Bon sang!" he

snarled, "I am an honest man if I am a poacher!"

"That's the reason I trusted you," said I, good-humoredly. "Take

your fists down, my friend, and think out a plan which will permit me

to observe this Monsieur Tric-Trac at my leisure, without I myself

being observed."

"That is easy," he said. "I take him food to-day."

"Then I was right," said I, laughing. "He is a Belleville rat, who

cannot feed himself where there are no pockets to pick. Does he know a

languste from a linnet? Not he, my friend!"

The Lizard sat still, head bent, knees drawn up, apparently buried in

thought. There is no injury one can do a Breton of his class like the

injury of deceiving and mocking.

If Tric-Trac, a man of the city, had come here to profit by the

ignorance of a Breton--and perhaps laugh at his stupidity!

But I let the ferment work in the dark blood of the Lizard, leaving

him to his own sombre logic, undisturbed.

Presently the Lizard raised his head and fixed his bright, intelligent

eyes on me.

"M'sieu," he said, in a curiously gentle voice, "we men of Paradise

are called out for the army. I must go, or go to jail. How can I

remain here and help you trap these filous?"

"I have telegraphed to General Chanzy," I said, frankly. "If he

accepts--or if General Aurelles de Palladine is favorable--I shall

make you exempt under authority from Tours. I mean to keep you in my

service, anyway," I added.

"You mean that--that I need not go to Lorient--to this war?"

"I hope so, my friend."

He looked at me, astonished. "If you can do that, m'sieu, you can do

anything."

"In the meanwhile," I said, dryly, "I want another look at

Tric-Trac."

"I could show you Tric-Trac in an hour--but to go to him direct would

excite his suspicion. Besides, there are two gendarmes in Paradise to

conduct the conscripts to Lorient; there are also several

gardes-champêtre. But I can get you there, in the open moorland, too,

under everybody's noses! Shall I?" he said, with an eager ferocity

that startled me.

"You are not to injure him, no matter what he does or says," I said,

sharply. "I want to watch him, not to frighten him away. I want to

see what he and Buckhurst are doing. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Then strike palms!"

We struck vigorously.

"Now I am ready to start," I said, pleasantly.

"And now I am ready to tell you something," he said, with the fierce

light burning behind his blue eyes. "If you were already in the

police I would not help you--no, not even to trap this filou who has

mocked me! If you again enter the police I will desert you!"

He licked his dry lips.

"Do you know what a blood-feud is?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then understand that a man in a high place has wronged me--and that

he is of the police--the Imperial Military police!"

"Who?"

"You will know when I pass my fagot-knife into his throat," he

snarled--"not before."

The Lizard picked up his fishing-rod, slung a canvas bag over his

stained velveteen jacket, gathered together a few coils of hair-wire,

a pot of twig-lime, and other odds and ends, which he tucked into his

broad-flapped coat-pocket. "Allons," he said, briefly, and we

started.

The canvas bag on his back bulged, perhaps with provisions, although

the steel point of a murderous salmon-gaff protruded from the mouth of

the sack and curved over his shoulder.

The village square in Paradise was nearly deserted. The children had

raced away to follow the newly arrived gendarmes as closely as they

dared, and the women were in-doors hanging about their men, whom the

government summoned to Lorient.

There were, however, a few people in the square, and these the Lizard

was very careful to greet. Thus we passed the mayor, waddling across

the bridge, puffing with official importance over the arrival of the

gendarmes. He bowed to me; the Lizard saluted him with, "Times are

hard on the fat!" to which the mayor replied morosely, and bade him go

to the devil.

"Au revoir, donc," retorted the Lizard, unabashed. The mayor bawled

after him a threat of arrest unless he reported next day in the

square.

At that the poacher halted. "Don't you wish you might get me!" he

said, tauntingly, probably presuming on my conditional promise.

"Do you refuse to report?" demanded the mayor, also halting.

"Et ta soeur!" replied the poacher; "is she reporting at the

caserne?"

The mayor replied angrily, and a typical Breton quarrel began, which

ended in the mayor biting his thumb-nail at the Lizard and wishing

him "St. Hubert's luck"--an insult tantamount to a curse.

Now St. Hubert was a mighty hunter, and his luck was proverbially

marvellous. But as everything goes by contrary in Brittany, to wish a

Breton hunter good luck was the very worst thing you could do him. Bad

luck was certain to follow--if not that very day, certainly,

inexorably, some day.

With wrath in his eyes the Lizard exhausted his profanity, stretching

out his arm after the retreating mayor, who waddled away,

gesticulating, without turning his head.

"Come back! Toad! Sourd! V-Snake! Bat of the gorse!" shouted the

Lizard. "Do you think I'm afraid of your spells, fat owl of Faöuet?

Evil-eyed eel! The luck of Ker-Ys to you and yours! Ho fois! Do you

think I am frightened--I, Robert the Lizard? Your wife is a camel and

your daughter a cow!" The mayor was unmarried, but it didn't matter.

And, moreover, as that official was now out of ear-shot, the Lizard

turned anxiously to me.

"Don't tell me you are superstitious enough to care what the mayor

said," I laughed.

"Dame, m'sieu, we shall have no luck to-day. To-morrow it doesn't

matter--but if we go to-day, bad luck must come to us."

"To-day? Nonsense!"

"If not, then another day."

"Rubbish! Come on."

"Do you think we could take precautions?" he asked, furtively.

"Take all you like," I said; "rack your brains for an antidote to

neutralize the bad luck, only come on, you great gaby!"

I knew many of the Finistère legends; out of the corner of my eye I

watched this stalwart rascal, cowed by gross superstition, peeping

about for some favorable sign to counteract the luck of St. Hubert.

First he looked up at the crows, and counted them as they passed

overhead cawing ominously--one--two--three--four--five! Five is danger!

But wait, more were coming: one--two--three--four--five--six--seven--! A

loss! Well, that was not as bad as some things. But hark! More crows

coming: one--two--three! Death!

"Jesû!" he faltered, ducking his head instinctively. "I'll look

elsewhere for signs."

The signs were all wrong that morning; first we met an ancient crone

with a great pack of fagots on her bent back, and I was sure he could

have strangled her cheerfully, because there are few worse omens for a

hunter of game or of men. Then he examined the first mushroom he

found, but under the pink-and-pearl cap we saw no insects crawling.

The veil, too, was rent, showing the poisonous, fluted gills; and the

toadstool blackened when he cut it with the blade of his fagot-knife.

He tried once more, however, and searched through the gorse until he

found a heavy lizard, green as an emerald. He teased it till it

snapped at the silver franc in my hand; its teeth should have

vanished, but when he held out his finger the creature bit into it

till the blood spurted.

Still I refused to turn back. What should he do? Then into his mind

crept a Pouldu superstition. It was a charm against evil, including

lightning, black-rot, rheumatism, and "douleurs" of other varieties.

The charm was simple. We needed only to build a little fire of gorse,

and walk through the smoke once or twice. So we built the fire and

walked through the smoke, the Lizard coughing and cursing until I

feared he might overdo it by smothering us both. Then stamping out

the last spark--for he was a woodsman always--we tramped on in better

humor with destiny.

"You think that turned the curse backward, m'sieu?" he asked.

"There is not the faintest doubt of that," I said.

Far away towards Sainte-Ysole we saw the blue woods which were our

goal. However, we had no intention of going there as the bee flies,

partly because Tric-Trac might see us, partly because the Lizard

wished any prowling passer-by to observe that he was occupied with his

illegitimate profession. For my part, I very much preferred a brush

with a garde-champêtre or a summons to explain why no shots were found

in the Lizard's pheasants, rather than have anybody ask us why we were

walking so fast towards Sainte-Ysole woods.

Therefore we promptly selected a hedge for operations, choosing a

high, thick one, which separated two fields of wheat stubble.

Kneeling under the hedge, he broke a hole in it just large enough for

a partridge to worry through. Then he bent his twig, fastened the

hair-wire into a running noose, adjusted it, and stood up. This

manoeuvre he repeated at various hedges or in thickets where he

"lined" his trail with peeled twigs on every bush.

Once he paused to reset a hare-trap with a turnip, picked up in a

neighboring field; once he limed a young sapling and fixed a bit of a

mirror in the branches, but not a bird alighted, although the

blackthorns were full of fluttering wings. And all the while we had

been twisting and doubling and edging nearer and nearer to the

Sainte-Ysole woods, until we were already within their cool shadow,

and I heard the tinkle of a stream among leafy depths.

Now we had no fear; we were hidden from the eyes of the dry, staring

plain, and the Lizard laughed to himself as he fastened a grasshopper

to his hook and flung it into the broad, dark water of the pool at his

feet.

Slowly he fished up stream, but, although he seemed to be intent on

his sport, there was something in the bend of his head that suggested

he might be listening for other sounds than the complex melodies of

mossy waterfalls.

His poacher's eyes began to glisten and shimmer in the forest dusk

like the eyes of wild things that hunt at night. As he noiselessly

turned, his nostrils spread with a tremor, as a good dog's nose

quivers at the point.

Presently he beckoned me, stepped into the moss, and crawled without a

sound straight through the holly thicket.

"Watch here," he whispered. "Count a hundred when I disappear, then

creep on your stomach to the edge of that bank. In the bed of the

stream, close under you, you will see and hear your friend

Tric-Trac."

Before I had counted fifty I heard the Lizard cry out, "Bonjour,

Tric-Trac!" but I counted on, obeying the Lizard's orders as I should

wish mine to be obeyed. I heard a startled exclamation in reply to the

Lizard's greeting, then a purely Parisian string of profanity, which

terminated as I counted one hundred and crept forward to the mossy

edge of the bank, under the yellow beech leaves.

Below me stood the Lizard, intently watching a figure crouched on

hands and knees before a small, iron-bound box.

The person addressed as Tric-Trac promptly tried to hide the box by

sitting down on it. He was a young man, with wide ears and unhealthy

spots on his face. His hair, which was oily and thick, he wore neatly

plastered into two pointed love-locks. This not only adorned and

distinguished him, but it lent a casual and detached air to his ears,

which stood at right angles to the plane of his face. I knew that

engaging countenance. It was the same old Tric-Trac.

"Zut, alors!" repeated Tric-Trac, venomously, as the poacher smiled

again; "can't you give the company notice when you come in?"

"Did you expect me to ring the tocsin?" asked the Lizard.

"Flute!" snarled Tric-Trac. "Like a mud-rat, you creep with no

sound--c'est pas polite, nom d'un nom!"

He began nervously brushing the pine-needles from his skin-tight

trousers, with dirty hands.

"What's that box?" asked the Lizard, abruptly.

"Box? Where?" A vacant expression came into Tric-Trac's face, and he

looked all around him except at the box upon which he was sitting.

"Box?" he repeated, with that hopeless effrontery which never deserts

criminals of his class, even under the guillotine. "I don't see any

box."

"You're sitting on it," observed the Lizard.

"That box? Oh! You mean that box? Oh!" He peeped at it between

his meagre legs, then turned a nimble eye on the poacher.

"What's in it?" demanded the poacher, sullenly.

"Don't know," replied Tric-Trac, with brisk interest. "I found it."

"Found it!" repeated the Lizard, scornfully.

"Certainly, my friend; how do you suppose I came by it?"

"You stole it!"

They faced each other for a moment.

"Supposition that you are correct; what of it?" said the young

ruffian, calmly.

The Lizard was silent.

"Did you bring me anything to chew on?" inquired Tric-Trac, sniffing

at the poacher's sack.

"Bread, cheese, three pheasants, cider--more than I eat in a week,"

said the Lizard, quietly. "It will cost forty sous."

He opened his sack and slowly displayed the provisions.

I looked hard at the iron-bound box.

On one end was painted the Geneva cross. Dr. Delmont and Professor

Tavernier had disappeared carrying red-cross funds. Was that their

box?

"I said it costs forty sous--two silver francs," repeated the Lizard,

doggedly.

"Forty sous? That's robbery!" sniffed the young ruffian, now using

that half-whining, half-sneering form of discourse peculiar alike to

the vicious chevalier of Paris and his confrère of the provincial

centres. Accent and slang alone distinguish between them; the argot,

however, is practically the same.

Tric-Trac fished a few coins from his pocket, counted carefully, and

handed them, one by one, to the poacher.

The poacher coolly tossed the food on the ground, and, as Tric-Trac

rose to pick it up, seized the box.

"Drop that!" said Tric-Trac, quickly.

"What's in it?"

"Nothing! Drop it, I tell you."

"Where's the key?"

"There's no key--it's a machine."

"What's in it?"

"Now I've been trying to find out for two weeks," sneered Tric-Trac,

"and I don't know yet. Drop it!"

"I'm going to open it all the same," said the Lizard, coolly, lifting

the lid.

A sudden silence followed; then the Lizard swore vigorously. There was

another box within the light, iron-edged casket, a keyless cube of

shining steel, with a knob on the top, and a needle which revolved

around a dial on which were engraved the hours and minutes. And

emblazoned above the dial was the coat of arms of the Countess de

Vassart.

When Tric-Trac had satisfied himself concerning the situation, he

returned to devour his food.

"Flute! Zut! Mince!" he observed; "you and your bad manners, they

sicken me--tiens!"

The Lizard, flat on his stomach, lay with the massive steel box under

his chin, patiently turning the needle from figure to figure.

"Wonderful! wonderful!" sneered Tric-Trac. "Continue, my friend, to

put out your eyes with your fingers!"

The Lizard continued to turn the needle backward and forward around

the face of the dial. Once, when he twirled it impatiently, a tiny

chime rang out from within the box, but the steel lid did not open.

"It's the Angelus," said Tric-Trac, with a grimace. "Let us pray, my

friend, for a cold-chisel--when my friend Buckhurst returns."

Still the Lizard lay, unmoved, turning the needle round and round.

Tric-Trac having devoured the cheese, bread, and an entire pheasant,

made a bundle of the remaining food, emptied the cider-jug, wiped his

beardless face with his cap, and announced that he would be pleased to

"broil" a cigarette.

"Do you want the gendarmes to scent tobacco?" said the Lizard.

"Are the 'Flics' out already?" asked Tric-Trac, astonished.

"They're in Paradise, setting the whole Department by the ears. But

they can't look sideways at me; I'm going to be exempt."

"It strikes me," observed Tric-Trac, "that you take great

precautions for your own skin."

"I do," said the Lizard.

"What about me?"

The poacher looked around at the young ruffian. Those muscles in the

human face which draw back the upper lip are not the muscles used for

laughter. Animals employ them when they snarl. And now the Lizard

laughed that way; his upper lip shrank from the edge of his yellow

teeth, and he regarded Tric-Trac with oblique and burning eyes.

"What about me?" repeated Tric-Trac, in an offended tone. "Am I to

live in fear of the Flics?"

The Lizard laughed again, and Tric-Trac, disgusted, stood up, settled

his cap over his wide ears, humming a song as he loosened his

trousers-belt:

"Si vous t'nez à vot' squelette

Ne fait' pas comme Bibi!

Claquer plutôt dans vot' lit

Que de claquer à la Roquette!"--

"Who are you gaping at?" he added, abruptly. "Bon; c'est ma geule.

Et après? Drop that box!"

"Come," replied the Lizard, coldly, placing the box on the moss,

"you'd better not quarrel with me."

"Oh, that's a threat, is it?" sneered Tric-Trac. He walked over to

the steel box, lifted it, placed it in the iron-edged case, and sat

down on the case.

"I want you to comprehend," he added, "that you have pushed your

nose into an affair that does not concern you. The next time you come

here to sell your snared pheasants, come like a man, nom de Dieu! and

not like a cat of the Glacière!--or I'll find a way to stop your

curiosity."

The dull-red color surged into the poacher's face and heavy neck; for

a moment he stood as though stunned. Then he dragged out his knife.

Tric-Trac sat looking at him insolently, one hand thrust into the

bosom of his greasy coat.

"I've got a toy under my cravate that says 'Papa!' six times--pop!

pop! pop! pop! pop! pop! Papa!" he continued, calmly; "so there's no

use in your turning red and swelling the veins in your neck. Go to the

devil! Do you think I can't live without you? Go to the devil with

your traps and partridges and fish-hooks--and that fagot-knife in your

fist--and if you try to throw it at me you'll make a sad mistake!"

The Lizard's half-raised hand dropped as Tric-Trac, with a movement

like lightning, turned a revolver full on him, talking all the while

in his drawling whine.

"C'est çà! Now you are reasonable. Get out of this forest, my

friend--or stay and join us. Eh! That astonishes you? Why? Idiot, we

want men like you. We want men who have nothing to lose and--millions

to gain! Ah, you are amazed! Yes, millions--I say it. I, Tric-Trac of

the Glacière, who have done my time in Noumea, too! Yes, millions."

The young ruffian laughed and slowly passed his tongue over his thin

lips. The Lizard slowly returned his knife to its sheath, looked all

around, then deliberately sat down on the moss cross-legged. I could

have hugged him.

"A million? Where?" he asked, vacantly.

"Parbleu! Naturally you ask where," chuckled Tric-Trac. "Tiens! A

supposition that it's in this box!"

"The box is too small," said the Lizard, patiently.

Tric-Trac roared. "Listen to him! Listen to the child!" he cried,

delighted. "Too small to hold gold enough for you? Very well--but is

a ship big enough?"

"A big ship is."

Tric-Trac wriggled in convulsions of laughter.

"Oh, listen! He wants a big ship! Well--say a ship as big as that

ugly, black iron-clad sticking up out of the sea yonder, like a

Usine-de-gaz!"

"I think that ship would be big enough," said the poacher,

seriously.

Tric-Trac did not laugh; his little eyes narrowed, and he looked

steadily at the poacher.

"Do you mean what I mean?" he asked, deliberately.

"Well," said the Lizard, "what do you mean?"

"I mean that France is busy stitching on a new flag."

"Black?"

"Red--first."

"Oh-h!" mused the poacher. "When does France hoist that new red

flag?"

"When Paris falls."

The poacher rested his chin on his doubled fist and leaned forward

across his gathered knees. "I see," he drawled.

"Under the commune there can be no more poverty," said Tric-Trac;

"you comprehend that."

"Exactly."

"And no more aristocrats."

"Exactly."

"Well," said Tric-Trac, his head on one side, "how does that

programme strike you?"

"It is impossible, your programme," said the poacher, rising to his

feet impatiently.

"You think so? Wait a few days! Wait, my friend," cried Tric-Trac,

eagerly; "and say!--come back here next Monday! There will be a few

of us here--a few friends. And keep your mouth shut tight. Here! Wait.

Look here, friend, don't let a little pleasantry stand between

comrades. Your fagot-knife against my little flute that sings

pa-pa!--that leaves matters balanced, eh?"

The young ruffian had followed the Lizard and caught him by his

stained velvet coat.

"Voyons," he persisted, "do you think the commune is going to let a

comrade starve for lack of Badinguet's lozenges? Here, take a few of

these!" and the rascal thrust out a dirty palm full of twenty-franc

gold pieces.

"What are these for?" muttered the Lizard, sullenly.

"For your beaux yeux, imbecile!" cried Tric-Trac, gayly. "Come back

when you want more. My comrade, Citizen Buckhurst, will be glad to see

you next Monday. Adieu, my friend. Don't chatter to the Flics!"

He picked up his box and the packet of provisions, dropped his

revolver into the side-pocket of his jacket, cocked his greasy cap,

blew a kiss to the Lizard, and started off straight into the forest.

After a dozen steps he hesitated, turned, and looked back at the

poacher for a moment in silence. Then he made a friendly grimace.

"You are not a fool," he said, "so you won't follow me. Come again

Monday. It will really be worth while, dear friend." Then, as on an

impulse, he came all the way back, caught the Lizard by the sleeve,

raised his meagre body on tip-toe, and whispered.

The Lizard turned perfectly white; Tric-Trac trotted away into the

woods, hugging his box and smirking.

The Lizard and I walked back together. By the time we reached Paradise

bridge I understood him better, and he understood me. And when we

arrived at the circus tent, and when Speed came up, handing me a

telegram from Chanzy refusing my services, the Lizard turned to me

like an obedient hound to take my orders--now that I was not to

re-enter the Military Police.

I ordered him to disobey the orders from Lorient and from the mayor of

Paradise; to take to the woods as though to avoid the conscription; to

join Buckhurst's franc-company of ruffians, and to keep me fully

informed.

"And, Lizard," I said, "you may be caught and hanged for it by the

police, or stabbed by Tric-Trac."

"Bien," he said, coolly.

"But it is a brave thing you do; a soldierly thing!"

He was silent.

"It is for France," I said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"And we'll catch this Tric-Trac red-handed," I suggested.

"Ah--yes!" His eyes glowed as though lighted up from behind. "And

another who is high in the police, and a friend of this Tric-Trac!"

"Was it that man's name he whispered to you when you turned so

white?" I said, suddenly.

The Lizard turned his glowing eyes on me.

"Was the man's name--Mornac?" I asked, at a hopeless venture.

The Lizard shivered; I needed no reply, not even his hoarse, "Are you

the devil, that you know all things?"

I looked at him wonderingly. What wrong could Mornac have done a

ragged outcast here on the Breton coast? And where was Mornac? Had he

left Paris in time to avoid the Prussian trap? Was he here in this

country, rubbing elbows with Buckhurst?

"Did Tric-Trac tell you that Mornac was at the head of that band?" I

demanded.

"Why do you ask me?" stammered the Lizard; "you know

everything--even when it is scarcely whispered!"

The superstitious astonishment of the man, his utter collapse and his

evident fear of me, did not suit me. Treachery comes through that kind

of fear; I meant to rule him in another and safer manner. I meant to

be absolutely honest with him.

It was difficult to persuade him that I had only guessed the name

whispered; that, naturally, I should think of Mornac as a high officer

of police, and particularly so since I knew him to be a villain, and

had also divined his relations with Buckhurst.

I drew from the poacher that Tric-Trac had named Mornac as head of the

communistic plot in Brittany; that Mornac was coming to Paradise very

soon, and that then something gay might be looked for.

And that night I took Speed into my confidence and finally Kelly Eyre,

our balloonist.

And we talked the matter over until long after midnight.




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