rvice. But this he declined, with becoming gratitude indeed,
but none the less firmly. He had no fancy to spend the rest of his life
in a trooper's saddle riding down naked savages--an agreeable
occupation, whose only variation was an afternoon at pig-sticking or a
chance crack at some Doomsman's head. Better to endure the drudgery of
the tan-pits than to part with all purpose in life.

And so the crusade, which Constans had hoped to father, died at its
birth. The kinsmen and friends of his family were sincere enough in
their sympathy, but they could not be expected to risk their own skins
in the furtherance of his private quarrels, and, so far as it was a
question of political economy or of patriotism, these easy-going
gentlemen troubled themselves not one whit. For the most part the
Doomsmen kept their distance from a Stockader's threshold, and
_laissez-faire_ was a good motto for both sides to adopt.

Constans returned to Croye and to Messer Hugolin's attic neither
overmuch surprised nor discouraged by the results of his mission. After
all, his ultimate object was a personal one--his revenge--and only his
own hand could discharge that debt in full. Did the time seem over-long,
the way unendurably lonely and toilsome? He had only to close his eyes
to remember--to remember. And so the years had passed.

* * * * *

It was the noon spell on a day in late October, and Constans sat on the
river end of the long wooden pier at the tanyard eating his luncheon of
bread and bacon scraps. The tide was running up slowly, as could be
noted from the bubbles and drift-wood that circled past the piling of
the wharf, and Constans, happening to glance down into the swirl, saw
something that brought him to his feet. Nothing more remarkable than a
bottle of thick, greenish glass, but bottles of any kind had become
valuable now that the art of glass blowing was so little practised, and
such flotsam was not to be despised.

Having strung a length of noosed cord to a light pole, Constans threw
himself flat along the string-piece of the pier and began angling for
the prize. A failure or two and then he had it snared securely; now it
was in his hand.

The bottle was foul with slime and fungous growth, showing that it had
been in the water for a long period. Possibly it had been out to sea and
back many times before this particular flood-tide had brought it to
Messer Hugolin's tannery and under the eyes of