me la
Vicomtesse, but you give me something of a surprise. Is there another
conspiracy at Terre aux Boeufs, or--does somebody live there who has
never before lent Auguste money?"

Madame la Vicomtesse laughed. Then she grew serious again.

"You did not know where he had gone?" she said.

"I did not even know he had gone," said Nick. "Citizen Lamarque and I
were having a little game of piquet--for vegetables. Eh, citizen?"

Madame la Vicomtesse laughed again, and once more the shade of sadness
came into her eyes.

"They are the same the world over," she said,--not to me, nor yet to any
one there. And I knew that she was thinking of her own kind in France,
who faced the guillotine without sense of danger. She turned to Nick.
"You may be interested to know, Mr. Temple," she added, "that Auguste is
on his way to the English Turn to take ship for France."

Nick regarded her for a moment, and then his face lighted up with that
smile which won every one he met, which inevitably made them smile back
at him.

"The news is certainly unexpected, Madame," he said. "But then, after
one has travelled much with Auguste it is difficult to take a great deal
of interest in him. Am I to be sent to France, too?" he asked.

"Not if it can be helped," replied the Vicomtesse, seriously. "Mr.
Ritchie will tell you, however, that you are in no small danger.
Doubtless you know it. Monsieur le Baron de Carondelet considers that
the intrigues of the French Revolutionists in Louisiana have already
robbed him of several years of his life. He is not disposed to be
lenient towards persons connected with that cause."

"What have you been doing since you arrived here on this ridiculous
mission?" I demanded impatiently.

"My cousin is a narrow man, Madame la Vicomtesse," said Nick. "We enjoy
ourselves in different ways. I thought there might be some excitement in
this matter, and I was sadly mistaken."

"It is not over yet," said the Vicomtesse.

"And Davy," continued Nick, bowing to me, "gets his pleasures and
excitement by extracting me from my various entanglements. Well, there
is not much to tell. St. Gre and I were joined above Natchez by that
little pig, Citizen Gignoux, and we shot past De Lemos in the night.
Since then we have been permitted to sleep--no more--at various
plantations. We have been waked up at barbarous hours in the morning and
handed on, as it were. They were all fond of us, but likewise they were
all afraid of the