nk back in his chair, and for a little while buried his
face in his hands. Then he went on.

"I needn't go into details," he said, huskily. "It is enough to say that
every devilish engine of force and cunning was put in operation against
me. So it came that at last, on a hint from a hanger-on of the
police-office, who had enough humanity in him to remember a kindness he
had experienced at my hands, that we took flight in the middle of the
night--my poor wife, myself, and our three children, with nothing in the
world but our bare lives and the clothes we wore. I might have tried to
get aboard a foreign ship in the harbour, but I knew that would be
useless. I should have been given up on whatever criminal charge Mayes
chose to present, and my wife and children with me. I had hope of
somehow getting to San Cristobel, where I had a friend--over the border
in the other Government of the island, the Dominican Republic. That was
eighty miles away and more, across swamps, and forests and mountains.
Well, we did it--we did it. We did it, Mr. Hewitt, and I dream of it
still. They hunted us, sir--hunted us with dogs. We hid from them a
whole day among the rank weeds--up to our shoulders in the water of a
pestilential fever-swamp; Claire, the baby, on her mother's back, and
both the boys on mine. They died--they died next day. My two beautiful
boys, gentlemen, died in my arms, and I was too weak even to bury them!"

There was another long pause, and the man's head was bowed in his hands
once more. Presently he went on again, but at first without lifting his
head.

"We did it, gentlemen," he said--"we did it. We crawled into San
Cristobel at the end of five days; and from that moment my dear wife has
never once stood upright on her feet. So we came out of it, and the
baby, Claire, was the one that suffered least. She was too young to
understand, and her mother--her mother saved her, when I could not save
the boys!"

He paused again, and presently sat up, pale, but in full command of
himself. "You will excuse me, gentlemen, I am sure, and make allowances
for my feelings," he said. "There is not a great deal more to tell.
Mayes did not last long in Hayti. Domingue was overthrown, and Mayes
left the island, I was told, and made for another part of the world.
Years afterward I heard of his being in China, though what truth there
may have been in the rumour I cannot say.

"My friend in San Cristobel--he was a cousin, in fact--put me