stacks are dribbling smoke all day and all
night. We have orders to keep off and use Lorient when we want a
port."

"Do you know why the cruiser warns your fishing-boats from this
coast?" I inquired.

"No," he said, shortly.

"Do you know the name of the cruiser?"

"She's a new one, the _Fer-de-Lance_. And if I were not a patriot and
a Breton I'd say: 'May Sainte-Anne rot her where she lies; she's
brought a curse on the coast from Lorient to the Saint-Julien
Light!--and the ghosts of the Icelanders will work her evil yet.'"

The mayor's round, hairless face was red; he thumped the arm of his
chair with pudgy fists and wagged his head.

"We have not seen the end of this," he said--"oh no! There's a curse
coming on Paradise--the cruiser brought it, and it's coming. He! did a
Bannalec man not hear the were-wolf in Kerselec forest a week since?
Pst! Not a word, monsieur. But old Kloark, of Roscoff, heard it
too--oui dame!--and he knows the howl of the Loup-Garou! Besides, did
I not with my own eyes see a black cormorant fly inland from the sea?
And, by Sainte-Eline of Paradise! the gulls squeal when there's no
storm brewing and the lancons prick the dark with flames along the
coast till you'd swear the witches of Ker-Is were lighting
death-candles from Paradise to Pont-Aven."

"Do you believe in witches, monsieur the mayor?" I asked, gravely.

He gave me a shrewd glance. "Not at all--not even in bed and the
light out," he said, with a fat swagger. "_I_ believe in magic? Ho!
foi non! But many do. Oui dame! Many do."

"Here in Paradise?"

"Parbleu! Men of parts, too, monsieur. Now there's Terrec, who has
the evil eye--not that I believe it, but, damn him, he'd better not
try any tricks on me!

"Others stick twigs of aubepine in their pastures; the apothecary is
a man of science, yet every year he makes a bonfire of dried gorse and
drives his cattle through the smoke. It may keep off witches and
lightning--or it may not. I myself do not do such things."

"Still you believe the cruiser out at sea yonder is going to bring
you evil?"

"She has brought it. But it's all the same to me. I am mayor, and
exempt, and I have cider and tobacco and boudin for a few months
yet."

He caressed his little, selfish chin, which hung between his mottled
jowls, peered cunningly at me, and opened his mouth to say something,
but at that moment we both caught sight of a peasant running and
waving a packet of blue papers in the ai