as rich as they say?"

"Yes, that is conceded; all the world knows it," replied the captain.

"Worth millions; rich enough to fit out vessels worth four hundred
thousand livres; rich enough to have sacks of diamonds and emeralds and
fine pearls!" cried the Gascon, whose eyes sparkled and nostrils
dilated, while his hands clinched.

"But I tell you that she is rich enough to buy Martinique and
Guadeloupe if she were so pleased," said the captain.

"And old? very old?" asked the Gascon, uneasily.

His informer looked at the other passengers with a questioning air.
"What age should you say Blue Beard was?"

"Faith, I do not know," said one.

"All I know," said another, "is that when I came to the colony two years
ago she had already had her second husband, and had a third in view, who
only lived a year."

"As to her third husband, it is said that he is not dead, but has
disappeared," said a third.

"He is certainly dead, however, because Blue Beard has been seen wearing
a widow's garb," said a passenger.

"No doubt, no doubt," continued another; "the proof that he is dead is
that the parish priest of Macouba was instructed, in the absence of
Father Griffen, to say the mass for the dead, for him."

"And it would not be surprising if he had been assassinated," said
another.

"Assassinated? by his wife, no doubt?" said still another voice with an
emphasis that spoke little in favor of Blue Beard.

"Not by his wife!"

"Ah, ah, that is something new!"

"Not by his wife? and by whom, then?"

"By his enemies in the Barbadoes."

"By the English colonists?"

"Yes, by the English, because he was himself English."

"Is it so, then, sir; the third husband is dead, really dead?" asked the
chevalier anxiously.

"Oh, as to being dead--he is that," exclaimed several in chorus.

Croustillac drew a long breath; a moment's thought, and his hopes
resumed their audacious flight.

"But the age of Blue Beard?" he persisted.

"Her age--as to that I can satisfy you; she must be anywhere from
twenty, yes, that is about it, from twenty to sixty years," said Captain
Daniel.

"Then you have not seen her?" said the Gascon, impatient under this
raillery.

"Seen her? I? And why the devil should you suppose I had seen Blue
Beard?" asked the captain. "Are you mad?"

"Why?"

"Listen, my friends," said the captain to his passengers; "he asks me if
I have seen Blue Beard."

The passengers shrugged their shoulders.

"B