his heavy face to Jack's, smiled wearily and
inclined his head.

"Good," said the marquis, apparently labouring under tremendous
excitement. "You ask me to give you, or sell you, or loan you my
secret for military balloons. My answer is, 'No!'"

The Emperor's face did not change as he said, "I ask it for your
country, not for myself, monsieur."

"And I will give it to my country, not to you!" said the marquis,
violently.

Jack looked at the Emperor. He noticed his unkempt hair brushed
forward, his short thumbs pinching the table-cloth, his closed
eyes.

The Marquis de Nesville took a step towards him.

"Does your majesty remember the night that Morny lay dying in the
shadows? And that horrible croak from the darkness when he
raised himself on one elbow and gasped, 'Sire, prenez garde a la
Prusse!' Then he died. That was all--a warning, a groan, the
death-rattle in the shadows by the bed. Then he died."

The Emperor never moved.

"'Look out for Prussia!' That was Morny's last gasp. And now?
Prussia is there, you are here! And you need aid, and you send
for me, and I tell you that my secrets are for my country, not
for you! No, not for you--you who said, 'It is easy to govern the
French, they only need a war every four years!' Now--here is your
war! Govern!"

The Emperor's slow eyes rested a moment on the man before him.
But the man, trembling, pallid with passion, clenched his hands
and hurled an insult at the Emperor through his set teeth:
"Napoleon the Little! Listen! When you have gone down in the
crash of a rotten throne and a blood-bought palace, then, when
the country has shaken this--this thing--from her bent back, then
I will give to my country all I have! But never to you, to save
your name and your race and your throne--never!"

He fairly frothed at the lips as he spoke; his eyes blazed.

"Your coup-d'etat made me childless! I had a son, fairer than
yours, who lies asleep in there--brave, gentle, loving--a son of
mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him--shot him to
death on the boulevards--him among the others--so that you could
sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them--those piled corpses! I
saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the
heaped slain lying before Tortoni's, where the whole street was
flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you
ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honore, and when you
met the barricade you turned pale and rod