o sight, signalling the flag-ship. Then the French
admiral for the first time learned the heart-breaking news of Sedan,
and as the tempest-tortured battle-ship drove seaward the signals went
up: "Make for Brest!" The blockade of the German coast was at an
end.

On the 4th of September the treasure-laden trains had left Paris for
Brest. On the 5th the _Hirondelle_ steamed out towards the fleet with
the news from Sedan and the orders for the detachment of a cruiser to
receive the crown jewels. On the 6th the news and the orders were
signalled to the flag-ship; but the God of battles unchained a tempest
which countermanded the order and hurled the iron-clads into outer
darkness.

Some of the ships crept into English ports, burning their last lumps
of coal, some drifted into Dunkerque; but the flag-ship disappeared
for nine long days, at last to reappear off Cherbourg, a stricken
thing with a stricken crew and an admiral broken-hearted.

So, for days and days, the treasure-laden trains must have stood
helpless in the station at Brest, awaiting the cruiser that did not
come.

On the 17th of September the French Channel squadron, of seven heavy
iron-clads, unexpectedly steamed into Lorient harbor and dropped
anchor amid thundering salutes from the forts; and the next day one of
the treasure-trains came flying into Lorient, to the unspeakable
relief of the authorities in the beleaguered capital.

Speed and I already knew the secret orders sent. The treasures,
including the crown diamonds, were to be stored in the citadel, and an
armored cruiser was to lie off the arsenal with banked fires, ready to
receive the treasures at the first signal and steam to the French
fortified port of Saigon in Cochin China, by a course already
determined.

Why on earth those orders had been changed so that the cruiser was to
lie off Groix I could not imagine, unless some plot had been
discovered in Lorient which had made it advisable to shift the
location of the treasures for the third time.

Pondering there at the tent door, amid my heap of musty newspapers, I
looked out into the late, gray afternoon and saw the maids of Paradise
passing and repassing across the bridge with a clicking of wooden
shoes and white head-dresses glimmering in the dusk of the trees.

The town had filled within a day or two; the Paradise coiffe was not
the only coiffe to be seen in the square; there was the
delicate-winged head-dress of Faouet, the beautiful