lmets bound with
leopard-hide and their horsehair plumes whipping the breeze, and their
sun-bronzed, alert faces and pleasant eyes. I had had enough of the
supercilious, near-sighted eyes of the Teuton.

As for the young Countess, she sat there smiling, while the clumsy
dragoons came rattling up, beaming at my red riding-breeches, and all
saluting the Countess with a cheerful yet respectful swagger that
touched me deeply as I noted the lines of hunger in their lean jaws.

And now the brief ceremony was over and our rusty vehicle moved off
down the hill, while the Uhlans turned bridle and clattered off,
scattering showers of muddy gravel in the rising wind.

The remains of our luncheon lay in a basket under our seat--plenty of
bread and beef, and nearly a quart of red wine.

"Call the escort--they are starving," I said to Buckhurst.

"I think not," he said, coolly. "I may eat again."

"Call the escort!" I repeated, sharply.

Buckhurst looked up at me in silence, then glanced warily at the
Countess.

A few moments later the gaunt dragoons were munching dry bread as they
rode, passing the bottle from saddle to saddle.

We were ascending another hill; the Countess, anxious to stretch her
limbs, had descended to the road, and now walked ahead, one hand
holding her hat, which the ever-freshening wind threatened.

Buckhurst bent towards me and said: "My friend, your suggestion that
we deprive ourselves to feed those cavalrymen was a trifle peremptory
in tone. I am wondering how much your tone will change when we reach
Paris."

"You will see," said I.

"Oh, of course I'll see," he said,... "and so will you."

"I thought you had means to protect yourself," I observed.

"I have. Besides, I think you would rather keep those diamonds than
give them up for the pleasure of playing me false."

I laughed in a mean manner, which reassured him. "Look here," said I,
"if I were to make trouble for you in Paris I'd be the most besotted
fool in France, and you know it."

He nodded.

And so I should have been. For there was something vastly more
important to do than to arrest John Buckhurst for theft; and before I
suffered a hair of his sleek, gray head to come to harm I'd have hung
myself for a hopeless idiot. Oh no; my friend John Buckhurst had such
colossal irons in the fire that I knew it would take many more men as
strong as he to lift them out again. And I meant to know what those
irons were for, and who were the g