has! But listen, gentlemen: you know that I
am a Gascon; that they accuse us of exaggerating and you would
ridicule----"

But Captain Daniel interposed, with a serious air, which could not be
feigned, "When we arrive at Martinique ask the first creole whom you
meet as to this Blue Beard; and may St. John, my patron saint, curse me
if you will not hear concerning Blue Beard and her three friends the
same thing."

"And as to her immense wealth, will they also speak to me of that?"
asked the chevalier.

"They will tell you that the plantation where Devil's Cliff is situated
is one of the most beautiful in the island, and that Blue Beard
possesses a counting house at Fort St. Pierre, and that this counting
house, managed by a man in her employ, sends out each year five or six
vessels like the one we have just passed."

"I see how it is, then," said the chevalier in raillery. "Blue Beard is
a woman who is weary of riches and the pleasures of this world; in order
to distract her thoughts, she is capable of entertaining a buccaneer, a
filibuster, and even a cannibal, if her heart so dictates."

"That it pleases her is evident in that she is never bored," replied the
captain.

At this moment Father Griffen mounted to the deck. Croustillac said to
him, "Father, I have told these gentlemen that we are accused, we
Gascons, of telling fibs, but is what they say of Blue Beard the truth?"

The face of Father Griffen, ordinarily placid and joyful, took on a
darker hue at once, and he replied gravely to the adventurer, "My son,
never breathe the name of this woman."

"But, Father, is it true? She replaces her deceased husbands by a
filibuster, a buccaneer and a cannibal?"

"Enough, enough, my son," returned the priest, "I pray you do not speak
of Devil's Cliff and what goes on there."

"But, Father, is this woman as rich as they say?" pursued the Gascon,
whose eyes were snapping with covetousness; "has she such immense
treasures? Is she beautiful? Is she young?"

"May heaven defend me from ascertaining!"

"Is it true that her three husbands have been murdered by her, father?
If this be true, how is it that the law has not punished such crimes?"

"There are crimes that may escape the justice of men, my son, but they
never escape the justice of God. I do not know, however, if this woman
is as culpable as they say, but still I say, do not speak of her, my
son, I implore you," said Father Griffen, whom this interview seeme