re that you can see the American coast
from the pier yonder, then I'll make up my bundle. Not before.'

'You're afraid, then, to risk anything?'

'I'm afraid of nothing, _moi_. But I am not a fool either. I don't want
to kick away my _sabots_ till I am certain of a pair of shoes. I can go
barefoot here. I don't want to find water where I counted on land. As
for America, I've been there already.'

'Ah! you've been there?'

'I've been to Brazil and Mexico and California and the West Indies.'

'Ah!'

'I've been to Asia, too.'

'Ah!'

'_Pardio_, to China and India. Oh, I've seen the world! I've been three
times around the Cape.'

'You've been a seaman then?'

'Yes, ma'am; fourteen years.'

'On what ship?'

'Bless your heart, on fifty ships.'

'French?'

'French and English and Spanish; mostly Spanish.'

'Ah?'

'Yes, and the more fool I was.'

'How so?'

'Oh, it was a dog's life. I'd drown any dog that would play half the
mean tricks I used to see.'

'And you never had a hand in any yourself?'

'_Pardon_, I gave what I got. I was as good a Spaniard and as great a
devil as any. I carried my knife with the best of them, and drew it as
quickly, and plunged it as deep. I've got scars, if you weren't a lady.
But I'd warrant to find you their mates on a dozen Spanish hides!'

He seemed to pull with renewed vigor at the recollection. There was a
short silence.

'Do you suppose,' said Madame Bernier, in a few moments--'do you
remember--that is, can you form any idea whether you ever killed a man?'

There was a momentary slackening of the boatman's oars. He gave a sharp
glance at his passenger's countenance, which was still so shaded by her
position, however, as to be indistinguishable. The tone of her
interrogation had betrayed a simple, idle curiosity. He hesitated a
moment, and then gave one of those conscious, cautious, dubious smiles,
which may cover either a criminal assumption of more than the truth or a
guilty repudiation of it.

'_Mon Dieu!_' said he, with a great shrug, 'there's a question!... I
never killed one without a reason.'

'Of course not,' said Hortense.

'Though a reason in South America, _ma foi!_' added the boatman,
'wouldn't be a reason here.'

'I suppose not. What would be a reason there?'

'Well, if I killed a man in Valparaiso--I don't say I did, mind--it's
because my knife went in farther than I intended.'

'But why did you use it at all?'

'I didn't. If I had, it