other nodded glumly, and started for the door, followed by his companion. Brisson and his wife accompanied them, again bade them adieu, and stood for a moment watching them, as they went down the street in the direction of the quays.

"A hundred francs!" said Madame Brisson, and gazed with veneration at her lord and master. "But what was your bill, then, Aristide?"

"Ninety-six francs," said Brisson, sourly, "and, for a moment, I thought the swine was going to protest it!"

"If they had not been Americans," began Madame.

"Americans!" burst in Brisson. "Bah! They are not Americans! Germans, perhaps, or Austrians; but Americans, no! Those men, Gabrielle, have something to conceal!" and Brisson, frowning darkly, went back into the house.

Meanwhile the two pedestrians made their way rapidly along the dark and silent street without exchanging a word. There was in their faces a strange excitement, and they stared straight ahead, as though they dared not meet each other's eyes. At the end of a few moments, they came out upon the quays. Here the darkness of the narrow street gave place to the grey of the approaching dawn, and one of them took his watch from his pocket and looked at it.

"Nine minutes!" he said in guttural English, and in a voice strangely thick, as with some deep and barely repressed emotion.

The other nodded, and with common accord they turned to the right toward the great basin, where three or four men-of-war lay at anchor. The light increased from minute to minute, the horizon turned from grey to pearly white, and over the hills to the east a golden halo marked the spot where the sun would rise. They stopped to look at it, and then, stepping back into the recess of a doorway, directed their gaze toward a great battleship, anchored perhaps three hundred yards away. As the minutes passed, they seemed scarcely to breathe, and their lips were twitching with nervous excitement.

Suddenly over the trees shot a long ray of yellow light, gilding the house-tops, gilding the mast-heads of the vessels in the harbour; and then, as though in answer to a signal, came a muffled roar from the anchored battleship. There was an instant's silence, then the shrill voices of sentries sounding the alarm, the whirring of a gong....

A second roar drowned all lesser sounds, and then the high, thin notes of a bugle echoed across the water. The deck of the ship was alive with men; from her open ports wisps of angry smoke swirled upward into the morning air....

Above the babble of excited voices, rose a shout of command, the bugle shrilled "Sauve qui peut! Sauve qui peut! Sauve qui peut!" and the crew began leaping over the side; and then, straight in front of where stood the breathless watchers, a mighty column of black smoke leaped high into the air, mushroomed and drifted slowly away before the breeze. At the same instant came a frightful, rending crash, which seemed to shake the earth, and a foam-capped wave swept across the harbour and dashed angrily against the quay. For one tense instant, all nature held her breath, and then came the splash and clatter of débris falling into the water and on the docks, the rattle of broken glass from the houses along the quay; and finally, quivering through the air, rose the shrill, inhuman cry of men in mortal anguish.

The smoke, drifting lazily away, disclosed a mass of twisted wreckage where, a moment before, La Liberté, the pride of the French navy, had swung at anchor.

"Ach Gott! Es ist doch wahr!" breathed one of the men, and stared rigid, fascinated; but the other laid a trembling hand upon his arm.

"We must hasten!" he whispered. "We must not stay here!"

"True!" agreed the other, and with a last glance at the wreck, strode away along the quay.

Already the city was awake; already frightened faces were peering from shattered windows, half-clothed men were bursting into the streets, and voices shrill with fear were demanding to know what had occurred. But our travellers heeded them not. At the first corner they separated, and one of them made his way rapidly up into the town, while the other hastened along a dark and narrow lane parallel with the quay, and stopped at last before a tall, decrepit house, whose plaster, black with age, was flaking from its walls. On the door-step sat a girl of eighteen or twenty, a dark shawl about her head, from whose shadow her face peered, strangely white.

"Is it by this way one gains the Frejus road?" he asked in English.

"Straight on to the end of the street, then to the left," answered the girl in the same tongue, speaking it readily and without accent.

"Thank you. This for your father," and thrusting his hand quickly into his pocket, he drew out a fat envelope, sealed with many seals, placed it in the girl's hand, and hurried on.

An hour later, the two travellers, reunited, Toulon well behind them, strode along a beautiful road skirting the Mediterranean, which stretched, a sheet of greenish-blue, away to the south. But, strangely enough, they did not even glance at this panorama. Instead, they walked with heads down, as though still fearing to meet each other's eyes.

Back in the narrow Rue du Plasson, the girl, her face still very white, re-entered the house, closed and bolted the crazy door, and slowly mounted the dark staircase. From the street outside came excited cries, hoarse shouting, the clatter of running feet; but she did not stop to listen. Indeed, she did not seem to hear, but dragged herself up from step to step as though a weight was on her feet.

The house was of four stories, and she did not pause until she reached the top one. A stream of yellow light poured through an open door, and she entered and closed the door behind her. A lighted candle stood on a table in the centre of the narrow room, but already the rays of the sun were beating against the single window. Besides the table, the room contained two chairs, a rusty stove, and a cupboard in which were a few dishes. Against one wall stood a cot, and the back of the room was curtained off, no doubt for the girl's sleeping-chamber.

She stood for a moment staring listlessly before her, as though trying to remember what she should do next; then she laid the envelope on the table, blew out the candle, started a fire in the stove, and placed a kettle upon it. Finally she drew a chair to the window, sat down, and looked out across the harbour.

Opposite the house was a long, low building, the wine-market, so that her view of the harbour was unobstructed. It was alive with boats, circling around or speeding towards a black and shapeless mass, above which some shreds of smoke still lingered. Her lips were moving as she stared at it, and her face was bloodless; and she pressed her hands to her breast, as though in pain.

At last the singing of the kettle roused her. She seemed to pull herself together; then she rose, made the coffee and placed some rolls upon the table. Finally she picked up a knife and with the handle smote sharply against the wall. A moment later, the door opened and a man came in.

At first glance, one thought him very old, for his hair was white as snow, his body shrivelled and bent, his face lined and sallow. But at the second glance, one perceived that these were not the marks of age but of the ravages of the fiery spirit which dwelt within the body and which peered from the burning eyes. At this moment, they gleamed with a lustre almost demoniacal.

"Breakfast is ready, father," said the girl. "And—and the man came past, as you expected, and gave me that for you," she added, with a little gesture toward the sealed envelope.

The man advanced to the table, picked up the