d call to heaven for the safety of Laura. Love her? Yes! She was
the one woman. But men did not make captives of women and obtain their
love. He knew the futility of such coercion. He had committed two or
three scoundrelly acts, but never would he or could he sink to such a
level. No. He meant no harm at all. Frighten her, perhaps, and
terrorize the others; and mayhap take a kiss as he left her to the
coming of her friends. Nothing more serious than that.

Two millions in gold and silver and English notes! He would have his
revenge, for all these years of struggle and failure; for the cold and
callous policies of state which had driven him to this piece of
roguery, on their heads be it. Two thousand in Marseilles, ready at
his beck and call, a thousand more in Avignon, in Lyons, in Dijon, and
so on up to Paris, the Paris he had cursed one night from under his
mansard. In a week he would have them shaking in their boots. The
unemployed, the idlers, thieves, his to a man. If he saw his own death
at the end, little he cared. He would have one great moment, pay off
the score, France as well as Germany. He would at least live to see
them harrying each other's throats. To declare to France that he was
only Germany's tool, put forward for the sole purpose of destroying
peace in the midst of a great military crisis. He had other papers,
and the prying little Frenchman had never seen those; clever forgeries,
bearing the signature of certain great German personages. These should
they find at the selected moment. Let them rip one another's throats,
the dogs! Two million of francs, enough to purchase a hundred thousand
men.

"Ah, my great-grandsire, if spirits have eyes, yours will see something
presently. And that poor little devil of a secret agent thinks I want
a crown on my head! There was a time . . . Curse these infernal
headaches!"

On, on; hurry, hurry. The driver was faithful, a sometime brigand and
later a harbor boatman; and of all his confederates this one was the
only man he dared trust on an errand of this kind.

Evisa. They did not pause. They ate their supper on the way. With
three Sardinian donkeys, strong and patient little brutes, with
lanterns and shovels and sacks, the two fared into the pines. Aitone
was all familiar ground to the Corsican who, in younger days, had taken
his illegal tithe from these hills. They found the range soon enough,
but made a dozen mistakes in measurem