ion: 392]

Half to secure a position, and half with the thought of watching what
this might portend, Beecher stepped aside into the dense brushwood at
the side of the alley, and which effectually hid him from view. He had
barely time to make his retreat when a horse swept past him at full
stride, and with one glance he recognized him as "Klepper." It was
Rivers, too, who rode him, sitting high over the saddle and with his
hands low, as if racing. Now, it was but that very morning Rivers had
told him that the horse was not "quite right,"--a bit heavy or so about
the eyes,--"out of sorts" he called it; and there he was now, flying
along at the top of his speed in full health and condition. It needed
but the fortieth part of this to suggest a suspicion to such a mind as
his, and with the speed of lightning there flashed across him the notion
of a "cross." He, Annesley Beecher, was to be "put into the hole," to
be "squared," and "nobbled," and all the rest of it! It did not, indeed,
occur to him how very unprofitably such an enterprise would reward its
votaries, that it would be a most gratuitous iniquity to "push him to
the wall," that all the ingenious malevolence in the world could never
make the venture "pay;" his self-conceit smothered these reasonings, and
he determined to watch and to see how the scheme was to be developed.
He had not to wait long in suspense; at the bend of the alley where the
horse had disappeared, two horsemen were now seen slowly approaching
him. As they drew nearer, Beecher could mark that they were in close,
and what seemed confidential conversation. One he quickly recognized to
be the Count; the other, to his amazement, was Spicer, of whose arrival
at Aix he had not heard anything. They moved so slowly past the spot
where he was standing that he could gather some of the words that
escaped them, although being in French. The sound of his own name
quickly caught his ear. It was the Count spoke as they came up,--

"He is a _pauvre sire_, this Beecher, and I don't yet see what use he
can be to us."

"Davis likes him, or, at least, he wants him," replied Spicer, "and
that's enough for us. Depend upon it, Grog makes no mistakes." The other
laughed; but what he replied was lost in the distance?

It was some time ere Beecher could summon resolution to leave the place
of his concealment and set out towards the town. Of all the sentiments
that swayed and controlled him, none had such a perfect master