trail of sparks hissing on the snow. They
built up the fire again and waited, crouching low over the embers. They
could see nothing out to sea. There was nothing to be done but to
wait. Some had gone along the shore to the south, keeping pace with
the supposed progress of the boat, ready to help should she be thrown
ashore.

Suddenly the Marquis de Gemosac, shivering over the fire, raised his
voice querulously. His emotions always found vent in speech.

"It is a folly," he repeated, "that he has committed. I do not
understand, gentlemen, how he was permitted to do such a thing--he whose
life is of value to millions."

He turned his head to glance sharply at Captain Clubbe, at Colville,
at Turner, who listened with that half-contemptuous silence which
Englishmen oppose to unnecessary or inopportune speech.

"Ah!" he said, "you do not understand--you Englishmen--or you do not
believe, perhaps, that he is the King. You would demand proofs which you
know cannot be produced. I demand no proofs, for I know. I know without
any proof at all but his face, his manner, his whole being. I knew at
once when I saw him step out of his boat here in this sad village, and
I have lived with him almost daily ever since--only to be more sure than
at first."

His hearers made no answer. They listened tolerantly enough, as one
listens to a child or to any other incapable of keeping to the business
in hand.

"Oh, I know more than you suspect," said the Marquis, suddenly. "There
are some even in our own party who have doubts, who are not quite sure.
I know that there was a doubt as to that portrait of the Queen," he half
glanced toward Dormer Colville. "Some say one thing, some another.
I have been told that, when the child--Monsieur de Bourbon's
father--landed here, there were two portraits among his few
possessions--the miniature and a larger print, an engraving. Where is
that engraving, one would ask?"

"I have it in my safe in Paris," said a thick voice in the darkness.
"Thought it was better in my possession than anywhere else."

"Indeed! And now, Monsieur Turner--" the Marquis raised himself on his
knees and pointed in his eager way a thin finger in the direction of
the banker--"tell me this. Those portraits to which some would attach
importance--they are of the Duchess de Guiche. Admitted? Good! If you
yourself--who have the reputation of being a man of wit--desired to
secure the escape of a child and his nurse, would you conte