"I do not doubt your zeal. I know that you are a loving and intelligent
barrier, placed between the prince and many guilty interests; and it is
because I have heard of that zeal, of your skill in circumventing this
young Indian, and, above all, of the motives of your blind devotion, that
I have wished to inform you of everything. You are the fanatical
worshipper of him you serve. That is well; man should be the obedient
slave of the god he chooses for himself."

"Yes, my lord; so long as the god remains a god."

"We understand each other perfectly. As for your recompense, you know
what I have promised."

"My lord, I have my reward already."

"How so?"

"I know what I know."

"Very well. Then as for secrecy--"

"You have securities, my lord."

"Yes--and sufficient ones."

"The interest of the cause I serve, my lord, would alone be enough to
secure my zeal and discretion."

"True; you are a man of firm and ardent convictions."

"I strive to be so, my lord."

"And, after all, a very religious man in your way. It is very
praiseworthy, in these irreligious times, to have any views at all on
such matters--particularly when those views will just enable me to count
upon your aid."

"You may count upon it, my lord, for the same reason that the intrepid
hunter prefers a jackal to ten foxes, a tiger to ten jackals, a lion to
ten tigers, and the welmiss to ten lions."

"What is the welmiss?"

"It is what spirit is to matter, the blade to the scabbard, the perfume
to the flower, the head to the body."

"I understand. There never was a more just comparison. You are a man of
sound judgment. Always recollect what you have just told me, and make
yourself more and more worthy of the confidence of--your idol."

"Will he soon be in a state to hear me, my lord?"

"In two or three days, at most. Yesterday a providential crisis saved his
life; and he is endowed with so energetic a will, that his cure will be
very rapid."

"Shall you see him again to-morrow, my lord?"

"Yes, before my departure, to bid him farewell."

"Then tell him a strange circumstance, of which I have not been able to
inform him, but which happened yesterday."

"What was it?"

"I had gone to the garden of the dead. I saw funerals everywhere, and
lighted torches, in the midst of the black night, shining upon tombs.
Bowanee smiled in her ebon sky. As I thought of that divinity of
destruction, I beheld with joy the dead-cart emptied of its c