friend," he added graciously, and we descended into a narrow ditch, its end blocked by a small, safe-like door leading into a subterranean hut, its roof being the mound, shelving out to a semicircular, overhanging eyebrow skirting the edge of the circular pool some ten yards back of the line of live decoys.

"Ah!" exclaimed Monsieur le Curé, "you should have seen the duck-blind I had three years ago. This gabion of mine is smaller, but it is in better line with the flights," he explained as he opened the door. "Look out for the steps—there are two."

I now stood shivering in the gloom of a box-like, underground anteroom, provided with a grated floor and a low ribbed ceiling; beyond this, through another small door, was an adjoining compartment deeper than the one in which we stood, and in the darkness I caught the outline of a cot-bed, a carved, high-backed, leather-seated chair, and the blue glint of guns lying in their racks. The place was warm and smelled, like the cabin of some fishing-sloop, of sea-salt and tar.

It did not take me long to get out of my clothes. When the last of them lay around my heels I received a rubbing down with a coarse sailor's shirt, that sent the blood back where it belonged.

"Allons! Into bed at once!" insisted the curé. "You'll find those army blankets dry."

I felt my way in while he struck a match and lighted a candle upon a narrow shelf strewn with empty cartridges. The candle sputtered, sunk to a blue flame, and flared up cheerfully, while the curé poured me out a stiff glass of brandy, and I lay warm in the blankets of the Armée Française, and gazed about me at my strange quarters.

Back of my pillow was, tightly closed, in three sections, a narrow firing-slit. Beside the bed the candle's glow played over the carved back of the leather-seated chair. Above the closed slit ran a shelf, and ranged upon it were some fifty cartridges and an old-fashioned fat opera-glass. This, then, was Monsieur le Curé's duck-blind, or rather, in French, his gabion.

The live decoys began quacking nervously. The curé, about to speak, tip-toed over to the firing-slit and let down cautiously one of its compartments.

"A flight of plovers passing over us," he remarked. "Yes, there they go. If the wind will only hold you shall see—there will be ducks in," his gray eyes beaming at the thought.

Then he drew the chair away from the firing-slit and seated himself, facing me.

"If you knew," he began, "how much it means to me to talk to one of the outside world—your country—America! You must tell me much about it. I have always longed to see it, but——" He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "Are you warm?" he asked.

"Warm?" I laughed. "I never felt better in my life." And I thanked him again for his kindness to a stranger in distress. "A stranger in luck," I added.

"I saw you at mass this morning," he returned bending over, his hands on his knees. "But you are not a Catholic, my friend? You are always welcome to my church, however, remember that."

"Thank you," I said. "I like your little church, and—I like you, Monsieur le Curé."

He put forth his hand. "Brother sportsmen," he said. "It is a brotherhood, isn't it? You are a Protestant, is it not so?" And his voice sank to a gentle tone.

"Yes, I am what they call a blue Presbyterian."

"I have heard of that," he said. "'A blue Presbyterian.'" He repeated it to himself and smiled. Suddenly he straightened and his finger went to his lips.

"Hark!" he whispered. "Hear their wings!"

Instantly the decoys set up a strenuous quacking. Then again all was silent.

"Too high," muttered the curé. "I do not expect much in before the late afternoon. Do you smoke?"

"Yes, gladly," I replied, "but my cigarettes are done for, I am afraid; they were in the pocket of my hunting coat."

"Don't move," he said, noticing my effort to rise. "I've got cigarettes." And he fumbled in the shadow of the narrow shelf.

I had hardly lighted my own over the candle-flame, which he held for me, when I felt a gentle rocking and heard the shells rattle as they rolled to the end of the shelf, stop, and roll back again.

"Do not be alarmed," he laughed, "it's only the water filling the outer jacket of my gabion. We shall be settled and steady in a moment, and afloat for the night."

"The night!" I exclaimed in amazement. "But, my good friend, I have no intention of wearing out my welcome; I had planned to get home for luncheon."

"Impossible!" he replied. "We are now completely surrounded by water. It is always so at high tide at this end of the bay. Come, see for yourself. Besides, you don't know how glad I am that we can have the chance to shoot together. I've been waiting weeks for this wind."

He blew out the candle, and again opened the firing-slit. As far as one could see the distant sea was one vast sweep of roaring water.

"You see," he said, closing the firing-slit and striking a match—"you must stay. I have plenty of dry clothes for you in the locker, and we shall not go hungry." He drew out a basket from beneath the cot and took from it a roasted chicken, two litres of red wine, and some bread and cheese, which he laid on the shelf. "A present," he remarked, "from one of my parishioners. You know, I have no bonne."

"I have heard so," said I.

He laughed softly. "One hears everything in the village. Ah! But what good children they are! They even forgive my love of shooting!" He crossed his strong arms in the rusty black sleeves of his cassock, and for some moments looked at me seriously. "You think it strange, no doubt, irreverent, for a curé to shoot," he continued. "Forgive me if I have shocked the ideas of your faith."

"Nonsense!" I returned, raising my hand in protest. "You are only human, an honest sportsman. We understand each other perfectly."

"Thank you," he returned, with sincerity. "I was afraid you might not understand—you are the first American I have ever met."

He began taking out an outfit of sailor's clothes from the locker—warm things—which I proceeded to get into with satisfaction. I had just poked my head through the rough jersey and buckled my belt when our decoys again gave warning.

Out went the candle.

"Mallards!" whispered the curé. "Here, take this gun, quick! It is the marquis's favourite," he added in a whisper.

He reached for another breech-loader, motioned me to the chair, let down the three compartments of the firing-slit, and stretched himself out full length on the cot, his keen eyes scanning the bay at a glance.

We were just in time—a dozen mallards were coming straight for our decoys.

Bang! thundered the curé's gun.

Bang! Bang! echoed my own. Then another roar from the curé's left barrel. When the smoke cleared three fat ducks were kicking beyond our deceivers.

"Take him!" he cried, as a straggler—a drake—shot past us. I snapped in a shell and missed, but the curé was surer. Down came the straggler, a dead duck at sixty yards.

"Bravo, Monsieur le Curé!" I cried.

But he only smiled modestly and, extracting the empty shell, blew the lurking smoke free from the barrels. It was noon when we turned to half the chicken and a bottle of vin ordinaire with an appetite.

The northeast wind had now shifted to the south; the bay became like glass, and so the afternoon passed until the blood-red sun, like some huge ribbed lantern of the Japanese, slowly sank