command it, I will not awaken the captain, and
I shall have the honor of conducting you to your cabin."

Croustillac inclined his head.

"Till to-morrow, your highness," said De Chemerant.

"Till to-morrow," responded the adventurer.

The officer descended by the hatchway to the gun-deck, opened the door
of a large, wide cabin perfectly lighted by a skylight, and said to the
Gascon: "Your highness, there is your cabin; there are two other small
rooms to the right and left."

"This is admirable, sir; do me the favor, I pray you, to give the
strictest orders that no one enters my cabin to-morrow until I call. No
one, sir, you understand--absolutely no one!--this is of the last
importance."

"Very well, my lord. Your highness does not wish that I should send one
of the people to assist you to disrobe?"

"I am a soldier, sir," said Croustillac proudly, "and I disrobe without
assistance."

The young officer bowed, taking this response for a lesson in stoicism;
he went out, ordering one of the orderlies to allow no one to enter the
cabin of the duke, and again ascended on deck to rejoin De Chemerant.

"Your duke is a veritable Spartan, my dear De Chemerant," said he to
him. "Why! he has not brought even a lackey."

"That is true," responded De Chemerant; "such strange things have taken
place on land that neither he nor I thought of it; but I will give him
one of my people. Just now the important thing is to set sail."

"That is also the opinion of the captain. He gave me orders to wake him
if you judged it necessary to depart at once."

"We will start on the instant, for both wind and tide are in our favor,
I think," answered De Chemerant.

"So favorable," said the officer, "that if this wind holds, to-morrow by
sunrise we shall no longer be able to see the shores of Martinique."

A half-hour after the arrival of the Gascon on board, the Thunderer got
under sail with an excellent breeze from the southwest.

When De Chemerant saw the frigate leaving the roads, he could not
refrain from rubbing his hands, saying to himself, "Faith it is not that
I am vain and boastful, but I would only have given this mission in a
hundred to the most skillful of men--to unravel the projects of the
English envoy, to conquer the scruples of the duke, to aid him to
revenge himself on a guilty wife, to tear him by force of eloquence from
the overwhelming feelings this conjugal accident has roused in his soul,
to bring him back to