rew a glance at us as we entered.

"There ... _tenez_ ... _la_, _la_ ..." she said excitedly, and marked
her board and scrambled up the dominoes in a heap.

"Juliette has won never," she cried in her broken English. "I have won
three times. Where is Frederic, _ma cherie_? He is not fighting?
_Non?_"

"There is no fighting now, Yvonne," replied the Princess with admirable
restraint, as seemed to me. "Frederic is well."

"Oh, but the noise in the night," she rattled on in her own tongue. "It
was dreadful. I could not sleep for the guns. It was abominable to
mutiny. Ah, it is the doctor. Pardon, this light is not good, and they
have boarded up the windows. We must live in darkness," she added
peevishly. "But how are you, doctor? You have not been to cheer us
lately. It is a dull ship."

"Why, we consider it pretty lively, Mademoiselle," I answered lightly.
"It keeps us occupied."

"Ah, yes," she laughed. "But that is over now, and you will only have
to dispose of the prisoners, to guillotine? ... No, to hang?"

"It is we who are prisoners," said the Princess abruptly.

Mademoiselle stared. "_Mon Dieu!_ Prisoners! Oh, but it is not so,
Alix. Juliette, shuffle, or I will box your ears, silly... Whose
prisoners are we?"

"The anterooms, Mademoiselle, are cut off from the rest of the ship," I
explained. "Are you prepared to stand a siege?"

"Oh, but we have gallant defenders enough," she said with her pretty
laugh. "I am not afraid. It will be experience. Juliette, open, open,
stupid. Do not stare at Monsieur like a pig. Play."

I passed on, the Princess following me. "When I left her she was in
tears," she said in a low voice.

"She may be in tears again," I said. "But at present she wants no help
from me. She suffices entirely for herself."

Our eyes encountered, and I am sure of what I saw in hers; if we met on
no other ground we met on a curious understanding of Mademoiselle. I
took my leave ceremoniously.

CHAPTER X

LEGRAND'S WINK

As I went down the corridor the figure of little Pye sprang out upon me
from somewhere.

"Doctor," he said in a piteous voice. I stayed. "Doctor, I'm very ill.
I'm just awful."

I looked at him closely. The flesh under his eyes was blue; the eyes
themselves were bloodshot, and his hands shook. I felt his pulse, and
it was racing.

"You're in a blue funk, Pye," said I severely.

He groaned. "Anything. I'll admit anything, doctor. But for heaven's
sake let me