his peg hung Sergeant Barboux's white
tunic.

It had not been hanging there last night when he dropped asleep: to
that he could take his oath. He had supposed it to be left behind in
the _armoire_ at Boisveyrac. For a full minute he sat on the bed's
edge gazing at it in sheer dismay, its evil menace closing like a
grip upon his heart.

But by and by the grip relaxed as dismay gave room to rage, and with
rage came courage.

He laughed again fiercely. Up to this moment he had always shrunk
from touch of the thing; but now he pulled it from its peg, held it
at arm's length for a moment, and flung it contemptuously on the
floor.

"You, at least, I am not going to fear any longer!"

As he cast it from him something crackled under his fingers. For a
second or two he stood over the tunic, eyeing it between old disgust
and new surmise. Then, dropping on one knee, he fumbled it over,
found the inner breast-pocket, and pulled from it a paper.

It was of many sheets, folded in a blue wrapper, sealed with a large
red seal, and addressed in cipher.

Turning it over in his hand, he caught sight, in the lower left-hand
corner, of a dark spot which his thumb had covered. He stared at it;
then at his thumb, to the ball of which some red dust adhered; then
at the seal. The wax bore the impress of a flying Mercury, with cap,
caduceus and winged sandals. The ciphered address he could not
interpret; it was brief, written in two lines, in a bold clear hand.

This, then, was the missive which Barboux had carried.

Had Menehwehna discovered it and placed it here for him to discover?
Yes, undoubtedly. And this was a French dispatch; and at any cost he
must intercept it! His soldier's sacrament required no less.
He must conceal it--seek his opportunity to escape with it--go on
lying meanwhile in hope of an opportunity.

Where now was the prospects of his soul's deliverance?

He crept back to bed and was thrusting the letter under his pillow
when a slight sound drew his eyes towards the door.

In the doorway stood Menehwehna with a breakfast-tray. The Indian's
eyes travelled calmly across the room as he entered and set the tray
down on the bed next to John's. Without speaking he picked up the
tumbled tunic from the floor and set it back on its peg.

CHAPTER XIV.

AGAIN THE WHITE TUNIC.

"But touching this polygon of M. de Montcalm's--"

Within the curtain-wall facing the waterside the ground had been
terrac