john-stephens-durham-diane-priestess-of-haiti-1902-fiction.txt

"Diane, Priestess of Haiti" 

by John Stephens Durham

 1902
 

MINISTER KAUFFMAN had the early-rising habit. It is easily acquired in the tropics, and Hauffman had lived in the tropics half his life. German trade had followed his long and arduous travels in Africa; and because of his success in learning the wants of the peoples who do not clothe themselves, the Emperor's advisers had advanced him in rank and sent him to Port au Prince to combat the sale of American goods in the Haïtien markets.

He stood on the porch in the early dusk of the morning, enveloped in a luxurious bath-robe. He called loudly for coffee. The scent of the roasting berry from the kitchen told him that the daily preparation of his morning refreshment was a trifle behindhand, and the daily roasting was imperatively necessary for the comfortable beginning of his day. He waited long enough to see a boy energetically begin the grinding in a rude mortar, and then he entered the bath at the side of the house. It was a great pool, like a mammoth cheese-box, and through it flowed continually a stream of clear water. Throwing off his robe and slippers, he plunged in, stuck out his head to breathe and to swear at the coldness of the water, and dived deep to enjoy it the more. He paddled around and splashed with all the abandon of a boy. After a turn or two around the bath and a hearty rub-down, he was soon again on his porch, his black coffee and his big pipe before him, the picture of European comfort and ease in an uncongenial latitude. It was now quite daylight. He drank in the wine of the air of a fine winter morning. Great curtains of gray hung along the mountains to the south, while varying shades of green down the side of the slope and along the valley rested the eye with their crumpled, velvety effects. Off to the east, masses of mist, like the smoke from the artillery of great armies, made battle against the approaching sun, a magnificent red ball, irresistibly forcing his way to daily dominion. This silent battle of the forces of day against the forces of night was accompanied by the sounds of mountain streams following their healthgiving mission down the valley through the filthy city into the sea.

"Will the Minister ride this morning?"

Alcide had served the morning coffee and was apparently familiar with Hauffman's habits. He filled the big pipe as he spoke and placed the matches close at hand. He was dressed in the blue denim of the working classes, but there was a bit of self-consciousness in his way of grooming himself. The face of the youth was most pleasing in its affable composure, and his entire make-up suggested vigor and intelligence. The natural sweetness of his voice was made more agreeable by the liquid quality of the patois and by a manner which combined deference to his employer and a manly sense of comradeship.

" Yes," said Hauffman, " but I am going to the city, and it is not prudent that you go in that direction."

" Must I serve as a soldier?" asked Alcide.

" I fear that you must." And Alcide, true to the stoicism of his people, accepted the verdict without a sign of the deep disgust which surged through him. But Hauffman knew. As Alcide turned to go the Minister detained him.

" You may ride with me at eight if your work will permit," he said. " At that time I shall be able to speak definitely. Prepare your mind, however, to do your duty like a man." And, looking up, he added, smiling: " Here comes Diane. You will have entertainment until I return."

Up the walk from the road gate came the girl, dressed in the loose gown of the country; but as she approached she attracted attention as being out of the ordinary. Her superb height and statuesque figure were the more striking because of her simple covering. Her features were almost Grecian in their outline, and the thick fleece of hair was soft and tractable. She was of a type rarely seen among the blacks, the facial angle and delicate hands and feet being almost peculiar to a few families residing near Aux Cayes on the south side of the island. She had the erect carriage of the people, but she had not the jerking movement of the hips generally seen among women accustomed to carry burdens on their heads.

" I came to see Alcide," she said, after bidding them good-morning. She sat on the steps leading to the porch, her chin resting on the palm of her hand, her eyes fixed on the ground. Alcide left to look after the horse.

"How is Pierre Louis?" asked Hauf Tmnn, for he knew everybody on the mountain side.

" He was well yesterday."

" Isn't he at home ?"

" I don't know where he is."

" And you slept alone at home ?"

" Yes."

" Perhaps there is a dance ?"

" I don't know anything."

And Hauf Tman, not finding the conversation edifying, disappeared to dress for the morning ride. He returned to find Diane in the same posture, her knee supporting the elbow, her chi^ in the palm of her hand. Alcide was coming up with the horse. As the Minister mounted she raised her head and asked,— " Is Papa Pierre right when he says that Alcide must be a soldier?" " I am not sure," said Hauffman with interest. " When did he say so ?"

" I don't know."

" How did he come to say so ?"

" I don't know.

With an impatient word to his horse, Hauffman rattled down the lane and disappeared.

" I came to talk with you," she said simply.

Together they walked into the bath-room—properly, the enclosure, for the place had no roof. They sat on a wicker couch covered with a large bath-towel, he looking at her expectantly and she contemplating a very black and shapely bare foot which obtruded from her single skirt. He awaited her words very patiently, after the habit of his people.

" Papa Louis slept out of the house last night," she said finally. He remained silent.

" I know that he had a dance somewhere."

Alcide waited.

" He didn't say anything to me."

Alcide looked at the perfect foot with its strong instep and finely developed toes.

" He said that you must be a soldier; and when I said he must not let it be, he became angry. Now he punishes me by going away without me. He knows that I want to do the cures and be a Mama-loi." Alcide frowned.

" That Meissner, 'the white German, and that Tinceau, the black Minister, have something to do with it But I don't like them. I like you."

He put his arm over her shoulder in a protecting sort of way, but said nothing. She began to cry.

" Papa Pierre has taught me all the bells for the cures and all the steps for the dances. I can do them better than he. Now he says that I must give them up or make you think as we do. He says that you are not Haïtien, but foreign."

" Think as he does! Not Haïtien, but foreign!" Alcide's tone was from the heart contemptuous; but he did not underestimate the influence of the Priest.

" That is what he says," said Diane in her simple and direct way. " He says that you have power over me. He thinks that you will take me away from the dances and the cures. He did not take me yesterday. Yet I know that he had the cures all day and a dance last night. There will be another to-night. He wants to punish me and keep me away from you. That is the reason too why he wants you to be a soldier. Minister Hauffman knows something about it, for he asked me questions just now and I lied."

" You must not lie, Diane," said Alcide gravely.

"That is just it," she said in reply. "When I am with you, I want to be good. And Papa Pierre does not want me to be good. I don't want you to be a soldier. I want to see you every day and hear you talk."

" Don't I preach too much ?" he asked, smiling his assurance of her reply.

" When you talk to me, I go home and think. And then I don't want so much to be a Mama-loi. And I don't want to do the cures and the bells and the dances—not so much."

" Is that why you came so early this morning?" he asked.

" Yes. Papa Pierre will be home soon. He may have passed already. He will scold me and say that he will not let me be a priestess. And then I will think of you and it will not be so hard. It is because I love you."

She had never spoken so to him before. His throbbing heart rose and struggled for utterance. The words would not come.

She was sobbing violently now, but Alcide only held her close and said nothing. As she became calm, he began speaking slowly, ns if searching into himself for his deepest thoughts and feelings.

" Diane, why is it such a hardship for you to give up this quackery ? You know what a fraud it all is. As children we began to learn it under Papa Pierre's roof. Since I came to the Minister I have learned better. You too know what a fraud it is. You have remained with Papa Pierre, and your ambition to shine among the people makes you deaf to me. If I must be a soldier, I can do my duty. It is a disgusting experience to anticipate, but it is nothing. What is everything to me is your own choice. Suppose you had to choose between Obi and me?"

She flung her arms around his neck and tearfully stared him in the face. He wound his powerful arms around her and drew her prostrate on the couch. He kneeled beside her and looked deep into her eyes. The great man-feeling held him. The universal husband-love possessed him. He covered her forehead with kisses, and she with open lips drank in the breath of his life. " Kiss me," she murmured.

Gently he warned and advised her as she became more composed, he told her of Minister Hauffman's family life. He pointed out in the most intimate way his dreams of their own future life together, dreams that had never before been told, if they had ever taken conscious, definite form.

It was all so new to her, this picture of herself at the head of a house, of a home life illumined by the steady, serene glow of a mutual habitual affection. She looked through her tears deep into his earnest eyes, the wonderment of a child in her gaze as her instinct read to her mind the marvel of the revelation.

" It is very beautiful," she murmured.

" Contrast it with the Voudou deception and think how happy we shall be!" he urged with quiet intensity.

" Yes, we shall be very happy," she said, looking out from within herself at the great life vision. He had raised the curtain. She had in her the woman to see and to feel its significance.

Gently he warned her of the Priest's hypnotic influence over her. He advised her to be patient and discreet. He led her to the gate at the road and returned to his work. In his exaltation he had parted with her without even a touch of her hand.

Two men met in the early dawn of the morning on the edge of the Champs dc Mars at the gate of the avenue leading up to the Hotel Bellevue. The great open space was deserted, except that a few countrywomen, their heads and shoulders burdened with vegetables, were silently striding from the Turgeau road across the park in the direction of the famous market-place of Port au Prince.

" I decided to start for the dance and to get through the city before daylight," exclaimed one of the men impatiently. " What detained you?" He spoke with a distinct German accent.

" Let us go to the hotel and put on night-clothes," replied the other, leading the way into the avenue. " We must be careful about appearances now," he continued in a satisfied tone, " for all our plans are in motion."

Silently they entered the hotel past the sleeping watchmen in the bar-room, and they relaxed their caution only on entering a large room on the second floor.

In a leisurely manner, talking about the heat of the season, the laziness of the servants, and other subjects of universal but innocent concern, they began to undress. Voices from other rooms and the noises of opening windows and doors below showed that they had had but little time to spare in entering the hotel unobserved. When they went downstairs they met several men in pyjamas and slippers, sitting at little tables on the balcony sipping their morning coffee.

After the morning salutations they selected a little table apart, at the end of the balcony, and called for coffee.

"I am dying with impatience, Tinceau," exclaimed the German; " I would expect a Haïtien to be more impulsive than a German, but I seem to be the hot-headed one of this pair."

" Well, Meissner, when you enter into a plot to make yourself President of Haïti you will keep your head cool," said Tinceau meaningly. " As we now stand, we have slept here. The devil of it all is that the President's son looked in on us at our meeting in the woods."

" Tell me what you did," said Meissner, his clear, blond complexion reddened with excited interest and his fine blue eyes looking intently into the face of his companion.

" Don't appear so serious!" warned the Haïtien. " Lounge back in your chair. Light a cigarette. Now smile. That's better! What would people say to see you talking seriously with the Minister of War at this hour of the morning? If we are laughing and chatting here— well, you and I have had one of our late nights. That laugh is all right." And the War Minister's comely black face was very bright and attractive as his teeth gleamed in response to Meissner's hearty burst of laughter.

" Now to my story," said Tinceau, still smiling. " First of all, I know that Hauffman, the German Minister, and Jules Pirot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, had a long talk about the boy Alcide yesterday."

" Yes, and Hauffman and Pirot together can prevent us from getting that boy out of the way," mused Meissner.

" Not while I am Minister of War!" exclaimed Tinceau. "I don't meddle in foreign affairs, and Pirot shall not meddle in my department."

" Well, you must get him out of the way. Papa Pierre will have no influence over her so long as she sees Alcide. Why, the old man promised me the girl and I gave him his price, but he keeps putting me off until after the boy's conscription. That is a virtual admission of Alcide's influence over Diane."

" Papa Pierre is very sensitive on that point," replied Tinceau, smiling, "and he says that he will fulfil his promise if you will go to his house to-night after dinner. He is having a great dance in the woods, and it was that which detained me from meeting you in our room here last night as arranged. He has announced the next great dance to take place near Jacmel. He promises me that, as the President has been so fascinated by Diane, she will have no trouble in persuading the Chief of State to follow her to that dance."

" That is vital," muttered Meissner.

" Don't look so serious," warned the War Minister, carelessly flipping the ashes from his cigarette. " Then after Papa Pierre had kept me waiting while he went through his antics as priest, curing the faithful in the name of the Voudou serpent and starting the dance, we had the meeting with Maillard and started him off to raise the insurrection."

" So the ball is set rolling," said Meissner in a tone of relief.

" Yes, every man has his part. I will see to the revision of the constitution, that your German capitalists may have their return for the money which you have spent. Maillard, who is a priest of the Itaner Circle as well as a brave soldier, will start the movement from Port de Paix, where you have deposited the money for him and stored the arms. He will arrive on the sixteenth. In the mean time, Papa Pierre will have brought Diane and the President together and induced him to leave the capital for the Jacmel meeting. I have sent Duport, a trustworthy man, to watch Maillard and to come on ahead to report Maillard's movements; for it is understood that the insurrection is to raise nobody's name as its candidate for President, but is merely to declare its purpose to throw out the present government." As he spoke he looked through the trees, following a figure which was passing down the Turgeau road. It was the German Minister; and when Tinceau saw that Hauffman did not cross the Champs de Mars towards the legation, but went straight on towards the National Palace, he became very pensive.

"Now you are the serious one," said Meissner. "What is the matter ?"

"Hauffman just passed, and he took the direction of the Palace. I think I will follow him."

And as the two striking figures, whose superb symmetry and power even the folds of the gaudy pyjamas could not conceal, entered the hotel, one man after another turned from his morning coffee to say a word of admiration to his neighbor.

III.

After his unsatisfactory talk with Diane the German Minister rode slowly into town, skirting the Champs de Mars towards the National Palace. He kept at prudent distance from the iron fence enclosing the grounds to avoid the challenge of sentinels stationed behind it every few feet apart. Reaching the main gate to the west, he stopped to await the coming of the officers on guard. He was immediately recognized. The guard was turned out, the gate thrown open, and Hauffman entered, stopping for a moment for a word of salutation with the officers. Word had been sent ahead, and he saw active preparations in the Palace to receive him. A highly adorned officer of the staff greeted him effusively. Of course the President would receive the Minister; and Hauffman, waiting to be announced, smiled at three spiteful-looking machine guns which pointed directly at him. A score or more of slovenly soldiers stood at attention as he followed the officer up the winding staircase. At each turn and corner sat a soldier on a three-legged stool. Hauffman remarked to himself that only one was asleep, but a sharp kick on the shin from the officer leading the way awoke the poor wretch from his nap in time for Hauffman to return the awkward salute.

They had scarcely entered one of the private rooms on the second floor when the President walked in through another door. His manner in greeting Hauffman was, as usual, cordial, but the foreigner detected something of reserve. The face of the dreaded Chief of State was comely and distinguished. The fine sphere of a head was covered with closely cropped white wool, and this, with mustache and military imperial of the same whiteness, contrasted strongly with the clear black skin. The features were uncommonly regular for one of his race. The eyes at once bespoke the character of the man—wide open, alert, the cornea as clear as that of a baby. In backing himself out of the room the officer stumbled over a chair, and the President expressed his displeasure by a glance of the eye that was like the crack of a whip. Hauffman knew the terrible man. He had given the President asylum when the game of politics was against the now successful leader, and .when the lives of the defeated conspirators depended on the precarious protection of friends or the more secure sense of humanity of foreign diplomats. He remarked that the President wore his house slippers and a long linen "duster," a friendly concession of informality from a rigorous observer of forms.

"General, I have come to try to save my boy Alcide," said Hnuff-man. " Can I succeed? Pirot has spoken for me."

" I cannot understand the interest which centres on that boy," said the President reflectively. " What is Tinceau's interest?"

" I cannot find out," replied Hauffman.

They talked twenty minutes. Hauffman pleaded. He urged the character of the boy, his training, the danger of the associations. Alcide was fit to be an officer. The President would promise only to do the best he could.

The staff-officer returned with two glasses of champagne, indicating that the time allowed by the President had expired.

Hauffman immediately arose. The President bowed formally as his visitor bolted a swallow of wine and offered his hand in parting.

" Hauffman, compare, chita encore!"

There was something pleading in the old man's voice, and a cariño in the patois which the Minister had not heard from his former protege in years.

"You have pleaded for the boy Alcide most eloquently," he continued in the language of the common people, " but you have studiously omitted one appeal which would have been your first ten years ago. You have not asked his release from service as a favor to yourself. No, don't interrupt me. For months I have wanted to say this to you, and I have not been able to bring myself to it until now. We have drifted apart since I became President. Do you suppose I forget what I owe to you? Do my worst enemies call me an ingrate? Do I forget I was hunted for weeks in this capital, that I lay in hiding, fed through a hole in the floor? Can I forget your welcome when I reached your home in disguise? Why, compere, my bath that morning was the first in weeks—one of the delicious memories of my life! Do you forget our close companionship while I was an intruder in your house, while you were arranging the amnesty?"

Hauffman's face had a responsive expression, but he was thinking behind the President's mood. He had never known the man to lie. Yet he had never seen him give way to gush. Still, whatever the thoughts might be, there was only one way to meet such a flow of sentiment. He would have no reservation. So he prepared himself as the President concluded: " You may forget your humanity in the face of your own government's technical disapproval. I cannot forget. I will do the best I can for your boy. I mean just that. Regardless of what seems to he the present policy of your government, I will serve you personally. I cannot forget. I have no reserves from you—until recently I had none."

"Why until recently? What about my present policy?" Hauffman spoke patois and with candor. The President spoke rapidly as he concluded his talk, almost hotly, and Hauffman caught his words on the wing and quickly flung them back in question form.

" You know me," continued the President, disregarding the questions with a courteous gesture. " I am a hard man. My enemies say I am a cruel man. I know my people, and I can preserve public order. Am I a cunning, a crafty man? Am I an intriguer? Do I not prefer a fight to a plot ?"

Hauffman remained silent The two men closely regarded each other. Then the President leaned forward and asked,— " Tell me how far your government is supporting the German syndicate ?"

Hauffman threw back his head and laughed. It was a laugh of relief. He had feared some intrigue involving himself. He explained that the syndicate was a combination of Hamburg capitalists who had no political designs. They merely wanted to acquire possession of lands for cultivation. Their ultimate object was to control commerce by exchanging their own Haïtien products for imports from Germany, thus protecting themselves from fluctuations in exchange. It had the legation's most hearty support.

" Is that all you know about it ?" asked the President.

Hauffman said that there was no more to be known.

" Well, I ought to have known that you would not mix in our politics. I will tell you, and I want your help. The proposition made by the syndicate is not the mere possession of the lands, but their ownership. The Constitution forbids alien ownership, and I alone stand between them and the annulment of that clause of our fundamental law. We are a nation of blacks. We prefer our independence, with all its present shortcomings, to the bonds which white civilization under the present system of commercial exploitation would bring to us. To attack that law I suspect it has been necessary to use large amounts of money. That Pirot and Tinceau, the most bitter political enemies, should unite in urging the violation of this our dearest tradition confirms my suspicion as to the use of money by the syndicate. The Congress seems to have been convinced by them. In some way the scheme centres on your boy Alcide. Have you any idea how or why ?"

Hauffman frankly said that he was puzzled. No, he had.no idea; but the President could feel assured that, while he stood ready to assist legitimate German enterprise, the legation would not countenance such corruption as the President suspected.

" Then take my way to help me," resumed the President. " Let your boy enter the army. I must give these people more rope. Let them feel that they have influence with me, and out of their confidence may come the exposing blunder. I promise you to relieve the boy of service as soon as possible."

Hauffman agreed.

"I am glad that I spoke to you, compare," said the President, smiling wearily. " You always did ring true."

" Yes," said Hauffman heartily, grasping his hand, " count on me for anything—except enjoying this hot sweet champagne at this hour of the morning."

The diplomat had scarcely reached the post of the stairs when the Minister of War was announced. The President quickly put on a pair of dark smoked glasses. They are watching Hauffman, he thought. The German told me the simple truth: he knew nothing about it.

" The German Minister was just here. He says that the syndicate is composed of estimable men," he said, opening the talk.

" So it appears," replied Tinceau, " and, strange to say, the proposition grows in popular approval. The people evidently want systematic work."

The President drew him to a chair close to his own. Tinceau tried to study the face so close to him; but the dark glasses hid the marvellous eyes nnd it seemed as though he were talking to a mask. The use of those glasses was well known, and the Minister felt uncomfortable.

" I want to talk to you, my son," said the President, and taking off the glasses he looked his man straight in the eye.

" Nous sommes deux negres, n'est ce pas ?" he said, putting a hand firmly on the knee of his listener. " The freemasonry of race affinity and loyalty requires that you be perfectly open with me. How comes it that you, a national, and Pirot, a liberal of liberals, should be so united for this thing?"

Tinceau did not like the appeal to color. He knew, and he knew the President knew, that that demagogic appeal was for leaders to followers, not for equals dealing frankly. He resented it that the President should adopt it with him. Still, the old man might be sincere as opposed to Pirot.

" Surely, President, each of us is too patriotic to oppose a good measure merely because the other supports it," he replied with dignity.

Then the Chief of State tried another tack.

" Is it at all possible that Pirot has been approached ? The entire ambition of the man seems to be to get money."

The Minister became very grave. He had remarked that weakness in Pirot, but such a subject could never be a matter of confidence between them. All the world knew how bitterly he had denounced corruption in Haïtien politics.

" Well," said the President, rising to end the interview, " watch him and crush anything of that sort."

" By the way, President, did the German Minister make any plea for Alcide?" and he turned back to say it, as though it were an afterthought " I told him that I prefer to see your orders obeyed."

And so the visitor withdrew. The President walked to the side balcony and looked out upon his soldiers going through the morning work. Gazing wearily over the great square before his Palace, he wondered, of all the officers lounging there, how many really could be trusted.

''Has Diane gone?" asked Hauffman as he returned from the Palace.

" Yes," said Alcide, his soul still in his eyes. He mounted and they started off on their morning excursion.

The Minister told him that he must serve in the army, and, after a vigorous protest, the boy forced himself to be resigned to the experience which he so detested.

" You are a Haïtien," said Hauffman firmly. " At the moment of the general alarm, your place is at the front to defend your national government."

Alcide grasped his patron's hand affectionately on their return as they parted at the gate of Kauffman's residence. The Minister continued down the road for the work of the day at the legation. The youth returned to the house and went about his morning duties as usual. Finishing these, and taking leave of the family, he walked firmly down to the public road and turned towards the city. Then he stopped; and after some hesitation he walked rapidly up the road through the residence district of cultured Haïtiens and fashionable foreigners. Passing the " source" where a magnificent burst of water starts to join other streams from the mountain side, he struck off into a section which appeared at first glance to be uninhabited. Now and then he passed a hut of a native, and presently he stopped before one not differing from the others in material. It was larger and was surrounded by a garden in which were cultivated herbs and weeds. He stopped in the garden and called for Diane. She immediately came out to meet him. She seemed much disturbed. Before he could tell her his errand she began almost hysterically: " Papa Pierre has come. He says that he does not want to speak with me. Go in. He may talk with you."

Alcide entered and saluted the old man. Diane followed timidly and stood in the door-way. It was a large cabin of two rooms, mud walls with a roof of palm-thatch dexterously woven. The furniture was sparse, but the old man had a modern bed whose appearance indicated that Diane knew how to take care of it. Through the door-way it could be seen that her own room had been adorned with coquettish touch.

That of Pierre Louis was evidently museum, bedroom, laboratory, parlor, and consultation-room all in one. Dried snakes were very much in evidence on the walls, twisted into all sorts of shapes around large nails and staples into an effect that was absolutely artistic in its repulsiveness. Toads and lizards, impaled helter-skelter, greeted the visitor from four sides with inquisitive smiles. These, it seemed, were decorations, but they were also calculated to have their effect upon the minds of votaries and clients. Nobody but a Papa-loi would sleep in the room with all these things! Crowding these decorations on the walls and hanging from the rafters were the vital organs of animals, some in various stages of desiccation, others undergoing decomposition. No Haïtiens of the country type could enter that room without a thrill of dread. The impression which it all made on Alcide was that the odor was decidedly objectionable.

The Priest was intently watching an iron pot, the contents of which lie was stirring as it simmered over a little charcoal stove. Alcide stood watching him, and the longer he stood the more indignant he grew, the odors telling him of rotting tissues, which were to be generated into deadly poisons for the convenience of high-class clients. Alcide stood there sullenly, remembering many of the things which he had seen in this same room, the cures, the trade in poisons, the impositions on the poor people when he and Diane played there together, little boy and girl. It was the same bitter mood which had held him all the morning, but the old Priest was now the object of his resentment. Presently, without changing his position, without even raising his head, the old man grunted,— " I thought you would be in town with a gun in your hand by this time."

" I came up to bid Diane good-by," said Alcide quietly. " I am going now to report."

"You are?" and the old man left his wizard caldron to look steadily at the young man.

" You don't want to go," he said sharply, after a few seconds' study of his face.

" No," was the simple reply.

" You ought to be ashamed to say so!" The old man's voice became shrill with anger.

" Did you ever serve?" said Alcide. " You don't answer," he continued. " I know that you never did. I know that you ran away into the mountains to dodge service and that troops were sent after yon. You have no right to reproach me. I have the same aversion to it under this government as you had under Boyer, yet I never thought of running away. I remained at the Minister's house, hoping to get an honorable release. Failing in that, I am now going to do my duty." He spoke very quietly, and there was a superior ring in his voice which the Priest rarely heard when addressed by a Haïtien. He straightened up as the young man proceeded. He paused as if restraining himself, but he was studiously observing the impression on Diane.

"Your statement is not only false," he began slowly, furtively watching the girl. " hut it is positively irreverent. I possessed powers which were ordained for conservation for the good of the people. When the troops came for me, I did not ran away, I retired. I retired to the shrine of the All-Wise Serpent, and there I perfected myself in my arts. I returned to the people invisible. I knew the inner working of their hearts. I controlled their thoughts by day and their dreams by night. I then appeared to them in flesh, and they worshipped me. If they were sick, I cured them. If any desired to die, I provided the means. You, you scoffer, you have been rained by your love of the white man. You are a black imitator of white men, a dog! If it served my purpose you would drop dead where you stand. I spare you for more horrible things. To-night I shall denounce you to the faithful as accursed by the spirit of Obi. Living, you shall suffer the tortures of h*ll, and your death shall be by violence. Leave me and go to your death!"

He was now speaking rapidly with dramatic intensity, his piercing eye fixed on the youth, but he kept the girl clearly in view. She was holding to the door-post, faint with the horror of the awful curse.

Alcide's reply was a shrug of disgust. He turned to bid Diane good-by. The girl had fallen to her knee at the side of the old man's bed, her face buried in her hands.

" Don't speak to her," shrieked the Priest in a horrible tone, " she is one of the faithful."

Alcide turned and walked slowly back to the path and down the mountain side.

The old man made an impulsive spring to the girl's side and drew her to her feet. He held her head on his shoulder and called her endearing names, in which the patois so abounds. He caressed her tenderly, and gradually she became composed.

" You are well rid of him, my pet of all gentle doves," he said assuringly. * " But I don't want him to die like that," she murmured tremblingly. ' " He may not, dear, he may not. If you prove faithful, you will have power too. But go to your bed and sleep. Take this. Yes, that will make you sleep and it will refresh you. And when you awaken bright and fresh, with your devotion to ouanga as before, we will talk about your baptism."

She did sleep, and the Priest was prompt to take advantage of her waking impression.

" Ah, your rest has done you good," he said. " You see I know my medicines. You shall know too in time, and be a great priestess among the people. Already they look up to you. We are having a great meeting now and they miss you very much. Already they know you as one born with gifts. To-night you shall have your baptism, and the middle of next month, when we meet in the south, you shall make the cures for the first time. It is all arranged. The people will meet between here and Jacmel. You shall be my chief assistant."

" But your chief assistant is Maillard," she protested, showing a sudden interest in the programme.

" Maillard has gone on a long journey, my dear," he said. " He will be exposed to many perils, perils which will test his power over the people. Of late he has grown greatly in his estimation of his priestly powers. His followers have even gone so far as to proclaim him my equal. That will never do, my dear. Maillard is a great fool, my daughter, a great fool. He sets himself up as my rival and then trusts me. I have advised him to raise the insurgent standard in his own name as a priest in order to hold his men together if they should mutiny. That insurrection will fail, my love, and Maillard will be either a fugitive from justice or a dead man. You see I tell you my secrets. It is due you. Under no circumstances must you reveal them to anybody. You will be my first assistant, my dear, not Maillard. You shall make the cures and the people will worship you, Diane the Priestess, the beautiful Mama-loi."

She was under the spell. Her love of power held her, and the old man knew that he was in control.

"Go bathe and put on your best gown," he said. " This evening Meissner will be here. He is one of the faithful. He is in love with you. He is very necessary to our plans. Beautiful silver jewelry he will bring you. I have seen it, jewels for the wrist and the neck and the hair. I want you to be ready to meet him."

"I don't want to meet him," she said faintly; "he wants me to be bad."

" There you go again! There you go again!" repeated Papa Pierre patiently. " You are thinking of the dog of a black German. He has put those notions of goodness and badness into your head. If you are to be a great priestess, you must become one of us. You must enter into our plans. You and I will control great movements in the future. It will be through Meissner. He may not succeed in his present projects, but he will some day be a very rich man. You will control him as you will your Haïtien worshippers. Maillard must pass away soon, for I will have no rival. I must die some day. You will be the power in all Haïti. You will have power with the people and you will have the power of wealth, the beautiful Mama-loi."

The girl stood looking at nothing. She was thinking back into the Hauffman bath-room. The old man became furious at her indecision.

"Do as you please!" he cried. "Turn from power and love and wealth to the black scoffer whom I have cursed. Turn your back on the road which I have spent years in opening up for you! You shall see your Alcide wither as withers a man of ninety years whom they set out in the sun that he may be warmed into life. You shall see him in pain, longing for death, which I shall hold at arm's length from him. You shall see------"

" Stop! Stop!" she moaned, pressing her hands to her ears to shut out the awful prophecy. She saw vividly again Alcide's picture of their future. It was very beautiful. She shuddered at the thought of the Priest's curse. The old man was watching every change in her face. He broke the silence again to appeal to her vanity and ambition.

" You shall reign over Haïti," he said with ardor. " Presidents shall sue for your favor, for they will recognize your power. And I shall rest quietly in my grave, contented in the satisfaction that you, my disciple, you, the child whom I have reared as if you were my Vn daughter, you, whom I love so fondly, will be carrying on my great work."

The ardor in his voice had softened into caressing endearment; but the girl's face showed no response as she stood silent, looking out into the glare of the hill-side.

" I do not want to be a Mama-loi," she said sullenly.

" And there is Meissner, the German who loves you," the Priest purred on, ignoring her words. "He will be a power in Haïti and you will control him. He has beautiful jewels for you. He will come to you."

" I do not want to see him. I do not want to be bad. I want to be good." She scarcely heard her own words. The show and power of the priesthood no longer attracted her. With her live feeling, she saw Alcide suffering all the tortures of the Priest's prediction. And the old man was too quick with sympathy not to turn immediately to her dread of his powers. It was this same sympathy which impelled him to be gentle and to make a show of reasonableness ns he proceeded to play upon her fears.

" I cannot allow your Alcide nor any other man to stand in my way," he began with a quiet severity. " You know that. You have soon men meddle with my plans and you have seen them die. All of your notions that oppose my plans for you have been put into your head by Alcide. Because of his meddling, he shall die. Because of his irreverence to me, he shall writhe in torture before I let him die."

The girl fell on her knees at the side of the bed and buried her face in her hands. The Priest leaned over her, holding her shoulder in a firm grip.

"He shall die, but first he shall suffer. You shall sec him walk the streets of Port au Prince, daily withering away to nothing. He shall become a babbling idiot, He will look at you, but he will not know you. He will be a mere brute in pain and torture before I let him die."

Diane's great form trembled. She had seen men suffer so and slowly die. She did not cry. The thing was so awful. She arose from her kneeling posture and looked the Priest straight in the face. He meant all he said. She saw that. She knew that he was capable of any crime.

She decided on a plan of action. She must see Meissner.

" I will do all that you want me to do," she said in an intense calm, " but you must promise that you will not hurt Alcide."

" With you at my side I will forget the boy," said the Priest.

" You promise?" she repeated.

" I swear by the Serpent," chanted the old man fervently.

" Then I promise to do all that you want me to do."

Diane sat on a low creole chair in the door-way, looking blankly at the shadows from the edge of t Ke wood as they flowed out towards her. Her mind was alive with plans to save Alcide. She had passed the entire afternoon, passive in posture, her thoughts a tumult of hope and despair.

She heard the approach of a horse. She felt that it was Meissner on this unsought mountain path. She rose to meet him as he came up and she remarked his clear complexion, reddened by the tropical sun, the perfection of his white riding-suit and helmet, and his fine military bearing.

"Diane, Papa Pierre said that I might come," he said, smiling as he held forth his hand in greeting. " Do you approve ?"

"I want to talk with you," she replied quietly, "but I will not l)c bad."

Meissner laughed good-naturedly and turned from her to throw his reins over a staple near the door-post.

"And why this virtuous warning?" he asked in a bantering tone as he drew a chair near to hers. " Come, sit near me. See what I have brought you. Will you take them as a present from me?" She looked sadly at the box of brilliant silver ornaments and laid it on the ground at her side.

" Do you give these beautiful things to a woman who does not care for you ?" she asked calmly.

" But I purpose to teach you to care for me," said Meissner.

" But if I should never care for you ?" she asked earnestly.

"Then I will wait until never ends," he laughed back. But he began to feel uncomfortable. He had seen the girl often and had talked with her; but he had never seen her so serious before. He decided to humor her.

" I will wait till never ends," he repented. " We will have a nice little house. And you will learn to care for me when you know me. I am not a bad fellow, Diane!"

His light way of speaking did not make the impression which he sought. She was looking at him searchingly. She said with conviction: "No, you are not a bad man. You arc a good man. We will have a house as you say. I will know you. You will not make me bad. You will wait until never ends before you will do me harm. Is it not so?" She spoke so gravely that he shared her mood.

"No, Diane, whatever there may be between us will be with your consent," he said earnestly.

" Then listen," she said quietly. " We will go to our house. It will be well kept for you. The world will say that I am bad. Let that be. You will wait. It is because of Papa Pierre that I do this. Do you understand ?"

Meissner said that he understood, but he said so expectantly.

" Papa Pierre will not know. You will not tell him. You will be my friend, will you not, Meissner? And I will be your friend. Will it not be so, Meissner?"

There was a mystery behind it all, but Meissner could not resist the earnest simplicity of the appeal.

" I will do whatever you say, Diane. But tell me what it all means," he protested.

" I will tell you when we know each other better, and you will be glad that you do what you now do." She said it with a smile of sadness and relief which Meissner admired while he could not interpret it. " Now go," she added. " Do not stay. I will keep the beautiful silver things and I will wear them to-night to my baptism. Go, and soon we will meet; and when I know you better I will tell you what you want to know. But not a word to Papa Pierre or to Tinceau!"

She held his hand confidingly and smiled back into his eyes with a radiant sadness in which the eyes and the lips belied each other. Meissner mounted and gallantly saluted her as he rode away into the deepening shadows. She followed him with her eyes until he disappeared into the evening dusk near the mountain stream, and, lifting her casket of silver, she walked heavily into the hut to dress for her baptism into the Voudou priesthood.

The coercion necessary to the conversion of Diane decided Papa Pierre to act at once. He had sent a message to Meissner to come without delay. This done, he started immediately for the woods, spreading the news along the roads and through the city as he went that there would be but two nights, and that Diane's baptism that night would be the closing ceremony.

It was nearly midnight when Meissner and Tinceau arrived at the Voudou gathering. A clearing had been made in the thick brush and on two sides rude huts had been thrown up. In front of these a half-dozen or more women had set out their wares, and it was evident that eating and drinking were to be among the features of the exercises. Fresh, clay-like earth had been packed down in even layers, and the bright light from the many flaming torches along the sides showed that many bare feet had contributed to the making of the primitive flooring. This dancing-floor was enclosed by rough posts sustaining a rude but picturesque trellis or bower of leaves of the palm. The entrance to the square was open.

At the head of the square stood a small hut. Its door-way was entirely covered with palm-leaves. On one side of the hut was a large cross, intertwined about whose arms was the body of a long, thin snake well known in the neighborhood. On the other side of the portière palmire was a small tree transplanted. A woman clung to this, weeping noiselessly, the kneeling figure a most touching expression of abject self-abandonment in grief. It was the itinerant shrine of the Papa-loi, the high priest of the Haïtiens, the magician of the African Voudou. Meissner and Tinceau looked on at the waiting woman a moment, and heard the voice of Pierre Louis from behind the palm-leaf door-way and the tinkling of bells as he worked the magic of his fetichism for the benefit of the weeping woman.

Crowded outside of the enclosure were the faithful, waiting for the conclusion of the cures and the beginning of the dance. The three performers composing the orchestra were already waiting, listlessly sitting astride of their native drums. Tinceau and Meissner looked on a while, and when the dance began they went back into the shadow, where they were promptly joined by Pierre Louis. They retired to a hut near by, apparently the permanent residence of an old couple, who greeted them cordially. In the inner room of the cabin they sat at a little table and talked at length over their plans. Meissner drank heavily, Tinceau sparingly, and the Priest not at all. Every detail of the plot of the night before was checked against its seeming probability, and there seemed no possibility of failure. Maillard would raise the insurrection and make a feint movement towards the north with the capital as his objective. Tinceau would use his authority as Minister of War to send troops by sea to the north and leave the capital undefended. Diane would entice the President from the capital to sec her do her first cures. Papa Pierre would control her and the War Minister would keep Alcide in the army. On the entry of Maillard, Tinceau would make the coup d'6tat, assume the Presidency, and push the legislation required by the Hnmburg syndicate. Meissner assured them repeatedly, in maudlin voice, that there was plenty of money us he called for more rum.

" I think you and Pierre Louis are right in thinking as you do about the girl and her probable influence over the President," remarked Meissner, reflectively toying with a thick and heavy tumbler. His face was flushed and his eye uncertain. Tinceau smiled.

"You think I speak from experience, eh?" Meissner went on. " Well, what if I do? I left her only two hours ago." He spoke in a half-drunken tone of defiance. And with a complacent chuckle lie asked,— " You are not jealous, are you ?"

Tinceau's reply was that the rum had come. He poured out the grogs. He evidently wanted his companion to talk. Drunk or sober, Meissner could not discuss his conquests. He was too much a man of the world for that. He did drink deeply and frequently, however, and he did talk much. He said nothing of interest to Tinceau, however, and the Hai'tien proposed that they join the dance. The German was just about fit to be one of the faithful; and he had been so recognized bv the congregation since his initiation, when Tinceau vouched for him as a friend of the people.

The occasion was recognized as important. The men wore shoes. Some of them wore white trousers. The women uniformly wore white gowns. The skirts were cut high in front, giving the feet entire freedom of motion, while behind the stiffly starched train of a half-yard scraped and crackled over the ground.

Tinceau carefully looked around, evidently seeking someone for other reasons than mere pleasure. Meissner caught the rhythm of the drums, beaten with skilful fingers and flat of hand, and danced up to the first woman who seemed to be unaccompanied. He soon tired of her, gave her a drink, and started off with another. Such a generous patron of the booths was not ignored by the women—even though he danced like a goat, as one confidentially observed to her lover.

Roast pig, cooked over an open fire on a long pole turned as a spit by two cheerful youngsters, gros bouillon, roast plantains, cooked in ashes to an inviting brown, and white tafia were liberally consumed; and as midnight approached the crowd was in the condition to accept anything which Pierre Louis Jacques might dare to offer as a religious attraction. But Papa Pierre had long ago decided—though Diane's wilfulness for a while threatened to spoil his programme—to close this successful meeting with a very simple ceremonial, the Youdou processional and the christening of his protegee for the priesthood.

The music ceased with a startling suddenness and the dancers retired from the floor. There was an impressive pause of quite two minutes, and then the drums started again. It was a well-set movement in double measure, a slow, deep rumble, the baby drum running a rapid tattoo of variations to an obligato from one of the performers' marvellously trained great toe. From behind the palm-leaf door-way came the voice of Papa Pierre singing an inarticulate chant to the time of the drums; and the crowd, now forming into single file under an experienced leader, took up a refrain when the Priest paused. It was a curious gait with which they entered again upon the dancing-floor, making short leaps from one foot to another, their hands on their hips, their bodies bent slightly forward, the marching and the swaying in perfect time with the music of the drums. The leader made them follow a sinuous course, and the effect was not unlike that of the crawling of a great serpent. In the flare of the flambeaux the black skins under head-cloths of every combination of colors which aniline processes make possible would have been merely ludicrous if it were not for that expression of resigned sadness which had been stamped into their faces in repose through generations of pain in unrequited, hopeless labor.

Now the great line extends outside of the enclosure, the leader guiding it out under the trees into the darkness. They keep up the same refrain. The voice of Papa Pierre floats with feathery lightness above their heads. They come back into the glare, and each time they pass the head of the enclosure there are three genuflections, one for the cross and serpent, one for the shrine, and one for the sacred tree. Three times the serpentine line of humanity in a concert of mass sway winds in and out and around the circuit.

As the head of the line approached again, Papa Pierre appeared quietly leading by the hand Diane. She was in spotless white. Her hair was done in n great loose knot set low. A large silver band, sprung low just above her forehead, held the front hair close and brought out her remarkable features in striking severity. Her neck was decorated with a long string of minute silver beads, falling down on her sturdy chest, generously exposed. On her wrists jingled bangles of silver coins; and the silver, in all the glint of newness, and the plain skirt, bleached to dazzling whiteness and set against the fine satin-like texture of her skin, put her ns one apart from the other women. Surely she was born a priestess, a goddess in black, the personification of youthful strength, beauty of form, and agile grace.

Hand in hand they swung out into the enclosure. The old man was a marvel of motion; and the effect which the two made was a gliding without apparent break, which nothing short of most painstaking practice could produce. Her gown was fitted close over her body, and the modulation of her hips and the movement of her thighs attracted furtive glances from the men as all bowed their reverence and passed on. Meissner was an atom in the moving mass, but his eyes were fastened on her in half-sodden satisfaction.

Papa Pierre led the chant into a swinging chorus and suddenly dropped out from the line, taking a position under the sacred tree, leaving Diane in the lead. Higher and higher his voice rose. Swinging his body to beat time, he gradually increased the rapidity of their motion until soon he had them worked up into a frenzied mass under his complete control. His alert eye was never more calm. He saw everything; yet he too seemed to be carried away by the common ecstasy. Diane was influenced by the common impulse, drunk with the sense of realizing her most cherished dreams. Papa Pierre's eye was on her as she glided by him, making a deep bow of reverence. How graceful she was! How well he had taught her! Yes, she would control the crowd. With lips apart, her perfect teeth gleaming, her statuesque bust rising and falling, with her chest now heaving with excitement and violent exertion, she appeared again from out of the darkness into the glare of the flambeaux.

Papa Pierre uttered a command, scarcely audible, and a large white cock fell at his feet. The crowd looked on in awe as they rushed past him, fairly shouting their inarticulate song. The head of the line with Diane in the lead was only thirty feet away, winding its rapid, sinuous path outside the column, retreating from the Priest into the darkness. Quietly and firmly the Priest grasped the fowl, and leading the song in a voice like a grand organ, he began beating its body against the trunk of the sacred tree. There was only one man in that crowd who thought of the mortal agony of the sacred cock as its bones were crushed to the time of the song; but even Meissner was too thoroughly soaked in the excitement and rum to give it more than passing thought.

Diane was now only a few paces away. The Priest drew a large knife from the girdle under his gown. He stood a moment with the quivering fowl held forth towards the crowd, the blade held high above his head, quiet now, composed, the personification of the acting art. As she reached him, one sweep of the knife whipped the head from the neck of the still struggling cock and a deft swing brought the fowl aloft just over her head. She was truly a bora priestess: her upturned face caught the first rush of blood from the baptismal sacrifice. She gulped down a mouthful without losing the rapid gait. She flung it out her eyes and nostrils and it trickled down her face and over her ordination gown. She took a few paces, swept in a curve out of the line, and let it pass on, taking her place at the side of the Priest. The devotees rushed madly by, each eagerly reaching up his lips to catch some of the sacred blood. Meissner's caught him just above the forehead. It stained his blond hair and smeared his brow. He had seen service as a good soldier. His face gave not the slightest sign.

The end of the line approached, and Pierre Louis was squeezing and kneading the crushed body of the fowl that nobody should be missed. As the last one passed he suddenly raised his hand. The drums stopped on the instant The crowd stood still and was mute. In the impressiveness of this absolute silence the Priest took the hand of the Priestess and the two slowly disappeared behind the palm-leaf door-way. The silence continued a moment. Then the frenzied spell broke. Women fell in hysterics, some swooning dead away, others shrieking or laughing like fiends. Great, strong men, quivering with excitement and panting from fatigue, stood dazed and blood-smeared in a huddled crowd.

The only self-controlled one was Tinceau, who pushed his way through to look for Meissner. He had been merely a spectator, and he had looked on in cool disgust. He could afford to stand apart. He was sure of his position with the people. He looked on all sides, and, failing to find his friend, he left the enclosure to go to the meeting-place of the conspirators, the hut near by.

As he came out into the starlight he recognized the forms of the German and the girl ahead of him. Meissner's arm was around her. He followed them. They entered the hut of the old couple together. Then he turned and started at a good pace through the woods towards the city. And when he was well on his way the deep, distant rumble of the drums and the droning of the human voices told him that the dance was on again.

Alcide'8 army life was a dreary monotony of sloth and universal gambling. He had been well drilled by Minister Hauffman, and a young Colonel to whom the government had entrusted the setting up of the raw recruits took a decided fancy to Alcide the first day. This officer had been trained in France, and the novel experience of meeting a recruit who actually knew the manual of arms attracted him to Alcide at once, and the boy was constantly reminded of his personal interest by little kindnesses which only a superior officer could extend to soften the hardships of the army life.

In the gossip of the ranks there was much talk about a conspiracy in the North; but Alcide put no confidence in what his comrades said. When he approached the Colonel on the subject, the kindly but firm manner of the officer rather than his words brought Alcide back to an appreciation of military discipline.

One morning there was a serious meeting. The Generals of La Place and of the arrondissement conferred with the Chief of Police. There was general gossip among the common soldiers about conspiracy, the movement of troops, and the call of the President for volunteers. It was all new to Alcide, these details, and for the first time he found himself awakened to an interest in his new life. After the conference his company was broken into detachments, each under a lieutenant, with orders to go out and secure volunteers for the army. Each man carried a rifle. The officer wore his sword at his side and he carried in his hand a cane of cocomacaque, a walking-stick affected by foreigners and by Haïtiens of position.

The soldiers sauntered in any fashion at the heels of the officer until they reached the market-place near the Cathedral. The place was a babel of women's voices. All kinds of tropical fruits and vegetables and herbs and spices were exposed in little heaps to the fierce sun, the owners squatting beside them, talking to purchasers and neighbors at the same time. It was the friendliest kind of competition which they maintained, and there was a sturdy independence in the matter of driving bargains with the buyers. " That is my price," the seller would say, and go on talking to her neighbor about the dance in the woods with most provoking indifference to the prospect of a sale. There were many half-grown children who had helped to bring the things to market, and there was a swarm of nude babies rolling around in the glare and dust, sucking at anything within reach, models of infantile deportment.

Seeing a likely looking young fellow sitting near one of the market-women, the soldiers grabbed him under orders from the officer. Immediately the place was in an uproar. The mother, for such she proved to be, shrieking with rage, pounded the officers face with an over-ripe squash. Howls of indignation came from every side. Volleys of stones, vegetables, and eggs poured upon the wretched detachment, who formed around their capture with bayonets presented, retreating slowly as they dodged the missiles. The officer walked last, his sword in one hand and his cocomacaque with its silver head in the other, swearing vigorously at the women in all the rich and original profanity of the patois.

" He is a volunteer," yelled the Lieutenant above the cries of the women, " and if you don't stop I'll fire a volley into you."

Before they had gone the length of the market-place ten poor wretches, too curious to run away, as most of the youngsters had done, had thus entered the volunteer service of the Republic to the accompaniment of the weeping and wailing maledictions of a host of female relatives and friends. Alcide's indignation was hard to restrain, but he held his rifle firmly and obeyed orders with a military precision that elicited words of commendation from the Lieutenant.

One block before reaching the Bord de la Mer they encountered a youth standing in front of a show-case in which were exhibited wonders of cheap and showy jewelry. The youngster was feasting his eyes on the beauty before him and tearing away with his teeth the skin of a mango. He evidently had been making his breakfast off the fruit, for his hands and face were shiny and sticky with the gummy, fibrous juice. He was too deeply absorbed in his double occupation to observe the approach of the soldiers, when the Lieutenant appeared at his side, and ordered him into line with the other captured miserables, who were easily handled by two of the armed soldiers. But he sturdily refused to go. He explained that he did not belong to Port au Prince and that he did not purpose to enter the army in the capital.

" You are a volunteer," screamed the officer excitedly. " Fall in! Fall in!"

" I am not a volunteer," shrieked the boy; " I won't fall in!"

The officer raised his cocomacaque and dealt a vicious blow at the boy, but it did not land. Alcide's bayonet caught it, parried it, and deftly flung the stick into the middle of the street. He was strong in the bayonet drill. The boy turned to run, but Alcide caught him by the shoulder and swung him into the group of volunteers.

" How dare you, you--------!" cried the officer, dashing at him with drawn sword. The point of the same skilful bayonet stopped his mad rush, and the crowd which had gathered from all directions howled with delight at the spectacle. Officers ordered a-gunning for volunteers are not popular characters in the streets of Port au Prince.

" You had no right to strike that boy," said Alcide. " You have him safe with the others and your duty is done. Had you struck the child you would have injured him seriously—perhaps killed him. You ought to be glad that I saved you from what would have been the result of your anger."

"Surrender your rifle. You are under arrest. I will return you under guard." Alcide handed over his rifle, saluted, and entered the group of volunteers.

In the crowd was the Colonel who had been so pleased with Alcide's bearing and attainments several days before. He spoke quietly with the Lieutenant for some time and turned away without addressing a word to his proteg6. On their arrival at the arrondissement they found nearly the full regiment assembled and hurried preparations for a march in progress. The General was too busy to look into Alcide's case, and ordered him to prison awaiting examination. The low barracks, opening into a large square, to which he was taken contained a large number of petty criminals who enjoyed at least the sunshine and the open air. No such freedom was in store for the military prisoner, however. The openings into the barracks were from the square, and it was through one of these that Alcide was thrust and the doors were shut upon him.

The place was filthy, dark, and altogether forbidding. A few minutes after the door had closed upon him he became accustomed to the dim light which streaked in through chinks around the doors and which seemed at first to be absolute darkness. Several prisoners lay at full length on the floor, their legs fastened to an iron rod which ran the length of the room. He peered around the room and wondered what crimes his associates had committed. He at least was free to move about, the only person who enjoyed that liberty. His accuser had followed him to see him safely bestowed, but he did not ask that Alcide be chained to the wall.

His eye fell upon a man who immediately became conspicuous because of his dress. He wore the uniform black and the long coat of the professional class, and a silk hat lay on the earthen floor near by. Alcide approached him and recognized him as a man well known in society and distinguished as one of the leading lawyers in Port au Prince. He had served this man many times at the Hauffman residence. The lawyer did not recognize him at first, but he afterwards explained that he had been arrested that morning on a charge ofhon-spiracy against the government. His life was not worth thinking about, he said, as he was expecting at any moment the order for his immediate execution.

" But never mind me. Why are you here ?" asked the lawyer. " I see you are in uniform." Alcide explained that he had begun his service in the army and recited some of his experiences during his few days of army life, closing with what had happened while drumming up volunteers.

" Grave matters at this time," observed the lawyer. " They would shoot you sure if you had not Hauffman at your back. You should send for him at once."

Alcide replied that he would take the consequences, and that he was determined not to embarrass Mr. Hauffman any further. The Minister had committed himself enough in his effort to secure a reversal of the order to recruit him. The two talked on, and finally Alcide settled down to sleep, an accomplishment which he had now thoroughly acquired during his short soldier life. When he awoke it was quite dark in the cell and he was ravenously hungry.

" Ah, my boy, you sleep well. I envy you that faculty."

" Yes, but I am hungry too," replied Alcide, rubbing his eyes and trying to penetrate the darkness.

" I have been waiting to hear you move," said the lawyer. " It is infernally monotonous lying here after this fashion, and it is positively exasperating to know that you, my fellow in distress, can sleep so easily. One would think that you had seen years of service in the Haïtien army instead of a fortnight." And Alcide heard the lawyer laugh.

" Well, you have the advantage that you can be philosophic and can laugh. I can't I'm hungry." And Alcide's tone was very moody.

" You will get food. It is early yet, and my wife will bring enough for two," said the lawyer. And at that moment Alcide felt a hand grope across his body, grasp his arm firmly, and draw him in the direction of his distinguished fellow-prisoner. His head was drawn over until the lips of the lawyer touched his ear.

"Listen quietly. There may be a spy here chained to the wall to listen to me. All may not be sleeping. You must have remarked that I have talked with none of them. I have heard the voice of my wife twice. She is here in the enclosure. She has food, I am sure, but there is something else afoot to cause her delay. It may be that I am sentenced to be shot during the night. In that case she has dropped everything to go and plead for me at the Palace. Or she may be bribing the jailer, as I planned. When I go out, make no movement It may be good-by forever."

" I wish that food would come!" said the lawyer aloud. " And when a man is hungry all other subjects of conversation seem to fly away. My wife ought to have been here an hour ago. It is not yet seven o'clock. Yet I do wish she would come for your sake as well as my own.

" In no case are you to make the least sign of being awake," he said, resuming the whisper. "The food will be left where you can reach it. I will attend to that. If I get out—and, if it be by any means possible, my wife will arrange—Hauffman will know all about your situation at once. I will take refuge in a legation whether the diplomats like it or not. I'll get Hauffman by telephone. If I am to be shot—well, good-by, my fine fellow!" They grasped hands and Alcide slowly and silently withdrew to some distance, but still within reach of his friend. It was a curiously made friendship. They had met many times at the Hauffman residence, but their relationship would have continued to be that of menial and superior. Common distress and common peril had brought them in a few hours to the equality bom of mutual understanding. Thinking out into the future, thinking of his ambition to be a distinguished black scholar like his fellow-prisoner, known in the European world of scholarship, Alcide almost forgot his hunger, when footsteps approached and the door opened. It closed on a man carrying a lantern and a woman holding with unaccustomed solicitude a large bowl-like dish covered with a napkin, lie had a glimpse of starlight and a breath of the evening air.

" Where is he?" she asked in a controlled but agitated voice.

"Here, dear," said the lawyer, smiling into the feeble light of the lantern. " Be calm. I am all right."

" I bring you food. But they will not let me stay. This gentleman has been very good."

"Very good?" asked the lawyer, with an emphasis which Alcide readily noted as significant.

" Yes, very good," she said, smiling through her tears. And as she stooped to place the dish upon the floor she slipped her hand into that of her husband. They parted hurriedly. The uniformed jailer had not uttered a word. Another glimpse of the starlight, another gulp of fresh air, and again the darkness and the stench.

The lawyer's hand reached that of Alcide, pulling it towards the dish. He was not slow in fishing out a monstrous leg of turkey and a piece of firm, crisp Haïtien bread. He ate ravenously but silently. He was amazed at the gluttonous noise with which his companion attacked the food. Crunching on bones, snapping them, as it seemed, on the iron rod at his feet, the lawyer was suddenly taken with an all-devouring mania; but Alcide understood when through these noises he detected the gentle click of a lock. Then in a loud voice the lawyer offered Alcide food and passed some down to the other prisoners. Alcide understood there was no need for further silence. He talked and ate and was contented. His friend had taken the first step towards freedom. The devoted wife had done her work thus far at least.

With the exception of his coffee and eggs, Alcide had been more than twenty-four hours without food. He had eaten fine dinners at Kauffman's, but never such a feast as that meal with his fingers in the foul, dark cell. If he should live to thank that wife, how could he ever put his gratitude into words ? He thought of her beautiful devotion and of the husband's absolute confidence that she was working for him. He stretched out on the damp floor with a thought of envy for the blessedness of that happily married man. And then Diane came in, her presence diffusing a great, bright light around her. She kneeled and held his head in her arms. She kissed him fondly on the forehead and soothed him with her pure voice. How sweet she was! How tender his wife to be! How he rested on the dignity of the wife-touch, and how weak he was, after all! He stretched up his arms to her longingly. A chill draught awoke him. The door was closing. The starlight was waning and there was the smell of the dusk of the dawn. He reached out in the darkness. He felt glad. The lawyer had gone.

He reached out again, splendid animal that he was, for more food, and he found not only that but also a bottle of coffee—Haïtien coffee! Who will adequately describe it? It goes right to the heart. He took a long pull and settled down, comfortable again.

He was started to his feet by a great row, the sounds of angry voices. Among them he recognized Minister Hauffman's. " It was an infernal outrage," the German was saying—swearing in German, French, and patois in a way which Alcide recognized as indicating that his employer was dangerously angry. " Damn your orders! Open the door and let me to him. I speak for Germany! Open, I say!" That was the Minister over and over, thought the boy as he felt the hot tears start and run down his cheeks.

The door was flung open and the precious daylight flooded into the place. Kauffman was on its heels, in the full uniform of his military rank—his war paint, as his wife called it. In a moment he had the boy in his arms, sobbing over him, caressing hi in, damning him roundly.

" You infernal ass! You magnificent idiot!" he cried in the fluency of his native tongue, kissing Alcide and straining the boy's head into a mass of decorations on his breast. " Would not send me a word! You precious fool! You ought to have run your bayonet through that brute. And you were going to let them shoot you full of holes! And you parried, did you? Disarmed him, eh? And you were going to let them murder you without a word to me? You sentimental jackass! I'll bet he wondered where you learned that trick! By God"—reverting to French of a very guttural fluency—" by God, the man who touches this boy responds to me personally! Do you understand? I'll bring out a school-ship and annihilate you! Yes, all boys, clean, trained German boys, to lick the thunder out of you! He is under my protection, say what they please. You are dirty, filthy! I expect you are lousy, like the rest of them." And Hauffman held the dirt and the lice all the closer to his unblemished uniform.

Alcide was crying softly, smiling contentedly, unnerved by the excitement, all gone to pieces now that relief had come. The German tried to calm him, and in soothing the boy he regained control of himself and reflected on his incoherent outburst.

" I am making an ass of myself," he said in German, and turning to the jailer he said: " Get him a tub of water—plenty of soap. Give him all he can eat. Telephone to my house for clean linen for him. Here's money !" And that spoke for Germany too. The jailer was very reluctant to take money for doing his simple duty, and particularly from so distinguished and courteous a visitor as his Excellency, whom it was a pleasure to serve. Still, the Minister with his knowledge of all things must know' that the government had not paid any salaries to employes for six months past.

" Well," said Hauffman, drawing a long breath, now that he had to some extent relieved his pent-up feelings, " when your fellow-prisoner sent me the telephone message I was just out of bed. My first thought was to go to the President for an order to admit me here. I am glad I came without it. I see your prison and your prisoners and i see how you do your simple duty." With this parting shot at the jailer he started to go, assuring Alcide that he would at once set about his release.

"It is not necessary, Mr. Minister," said a voice at his elbow; " that has been arranged. I have been looking for Alcide." It With hammocks turned into travelling-bags and swung over shoulders, Alcide's company would have looked a troop of pedlers had their packs not been swung from rifle-barrels. They had been ordered out for night duty to guard the street-corners, for the President had declared martial law.

Alcide and two comrades were placed at the corner of two important streets. They immediately occupied the porch of the house, swung their hammocks, and then took their places on the street in order to challenge anyone who might approach. His companions were two veterans and Alcide's admirer, the rescued volunteer. They explained that it was the custom to divide the night into watches, in order that one sentry might sleep quietly in his hammock while his two comrades stood guard and watched for the coming of officers. Alcide accepted the arrangement, and as he was granted the first watch off he soon fell asleep with the " Qui vive?" still ringing in his ears.

When he awoke he was startled to find his corner quite quiet. The " Qui vive ?" was ringing through the city. He sat up sidewise on his hammock and reached for his rifle. One of the veterans lay sprawling in the street, his head resting in the mud at the edge of the rigole. The other had maintained his sitting posture and was muttering the " Qui vive ?" in his sleep.

" Qui vive?" cried Alcide as two persons approached.

" Foreigners," answered one of them, resuming the conversation with his companion in German. Alcide recognized the form and voice of Meissner.

" Be on board early in the morning," he was saying. " The Ville de Tangiers has a good cook and the Captain, an old friend of mine, is a delightful fellow."

" God! How can you talk so lightly when you are leaving the enterprise practically in the hands of Haïtiens?" The speaker was deeply in earnest.

" Of course, I am sure," was the reply, clearly heard by Alcide. " The personal ambitions involved are sufficient guarantee. Besides, I have put out a lot of money and gossip is already lively. I must get away to quiet suspicion."

was the young Colonel who spoke. Alcide introduced the two men. They had a long confab apart, and Alcide marched out with them, taking his dirt with him, the jailer holding firmly to his gold coin, as he did his simple duty in bowing the visitors out. They separated oh reaching the street, the diplomat taking his carriage and the two soldiers going afoot towards the arrondissement.

" Are you sure that your arrangements are well made and that there will be no bloodshed ? We may speak safely in German."

" Sure as death," said Meissner, stopping at the corner, which they now reached, walking slowly. " Diane is a jewel. She has worked the President beautifully and he is crazy over her. He will go to see her make her first cures. Damn the cures! I am going to Jacmel to have a good time. She may go to the dance, but the rest of her time is mine. The rebels will find the city without defence and the President absent. We will come back to pay our respects to President Tinceau. Is that not simple enough ? How many times do you want me to go over the programme? You won't lose your people's money!"

Alcide sat fixed to the side of the hammock. What was this horrible thing? Was he dreaming at his post? Diane! "The rest of her time his! The cures! The President crazy over her! The city undefended ! President Tinceau!" The veterans had awakened, and they came up to the balcony vigorously crying " Qui vive ?"

" Here, you fellows, wake up and give us a chance," protested one of the veterans.

"What is the matter, are you sick?" He addressed Alcide, who was sitting doubled up on his hammock, his eyes fastened on the floor. The fellow had suggested an idea. He groaned out his reply.

" Take me across the way and call up the druggist." The volunteer helped very tenderly to lift him and fiercely admonished the veterans not to be so rough. Alcide was not ashamed of the deception. He was thinking too rapidly to have any feeling. His plans were taking shape.

The druggist was a kindly man. He came down promptly and opened his little shop. He poured a fiery cholera mixture down Alcide's throat, and the patient no longer had reason to simulate his torture. The medicine was a roaring flame within him, but he was grateful because he knew that he was a poor actor.

"Doctor, I know that you have a telephone," he said feebly.

" Won't you call up the German Minister and tell him that his boy, Alcide, is here very anxious to see him?"

"German Minister? Alcide? Why, sure, it is! I know you, boy. In the name of God, what arc you doing exposed to this horrible soldier life? Of course I'll call him up if I can get that lazy crowd at the central to connect me up." And the veterans returned to their vigil.

Alcide was really ill now. He felt a nervous chill run through his body and a ringing sound in his ears. Diane! The cures! And the rest of her time his! She had worked the President beautifully! Tinceau! So he and the Priest were the ones who had made him a soldier to get him out of her way. God, how he Buffered! Yet he smiled as he waved off the druggist's assistant, who wanted to administer another dose of the liquid fire.

Yes, the central station had answered. They were switched to the Hauffman residence. That was all right. There was a second telephone in the bedroom and, besides, the Minister heard everything through the night. The night the thieves broke into the chicken-house the Minister heard them. And he caught one too, and made him eat all the eggs on which the hens were setting—shells and all. How the Minister enjoyed poking one egg after another into the fellow's mouth whole! Alcide laughed hysterically and fell off into a doze. Then there was a sharp ring-off and the German Minister hinkelf had answered that he would be down in ten minutes.

" Give me something for my nerves," Alcide begged of the druggist. " He saw me cry this morning, and when I think of his goodness I want to cry now. He won't be long—and the sentinels won't stop him, either!"

He took the sedative and tried hard to compose himself. Long before the Minister reached him he imagined he heard the footfalls between the cries of the soldiers. Hauffman threw himself from his saddle and entered the little shop very quickly, his great woman-heart all concern for his boy. He knelt down beside him and talked to him gently, and Alcide was bursting with shame and unnerved with affection. " Well, I'll get you home if we have to call a cabinet meeting," he said quietly. " Doctor, will you certify that this young man is not fit to be exposed to this night duty?"

" Why, certainly I will, Minister," said the druggist. " At his best, he has been too well treated by you to stand it. All Port au Prince is very reconnaissant of your treatment of Alcide."

" He deserves all I can do for him. He is my son," said the diplomat feelingly. " Please make the certificate. My carriage will be here presently."

The officer of the guard in making his midnight round had missed Alcide and had come to the drug-shop. Certainly he would permit the sick soldier to accompany the Minister to the arrondissement.

The carriage drove to the arrondissement and a mob of sentinels rushed out into the street to intercept it. " Look at the lamps! See the flags! I am the German Minister and I must see the General of the arrondissement," cried Hauffman. There was a great deal of confused talking, and Hauffman remembered that he had left his pocket-book at home. A window opened in the upper balcony of the arrondissement, and then a door was thrown open violently.

" What is all that noise down there?"

It was the dreaded General, his thin legs shrinking in the night-air under his flapping night-shirt. Hauffman stuck his head forth and explained. The General removed his highly decorated smoking-cap, bowed politely, and asked the Minister to wait.

Presently he appeared on the lower balcony, wearing the coat of his full-dress uniform over his night-shirt, his legs still bare, and his feet stuck into a pair of heelless slippers.

Kauffman handed him the doctor's certificate and the General called for a light. A candle was brought, the wick protected from the wind by a neat glass globe. The Minister was once more seriously concerned for Alcide, as that young man buried his face in the lap-robe and shivered with a convulsive fit of laughter when the General took the certificate and with grave deliberation went through the motion of reading it This performance carried through to his own satisfaction and nearly to the death of Alcide, as it appeared to Kauffman, the General put on his heaviest frown and looked from the paper to the Minister a silent, profound inquiry. Hauffman answered very politely that he would like to take the boy home. Permission was accorded. The German fired an avalanche of apologies at the General for the trouble he had caused, and the General exhausted his vocabulary of patois and French mixed in assuring the Minister that he was entirely at the German's orders.

" I am not sick at all," the wretched Alcide blurted out in German, that the coachman might not understand. " I am only nervous. But it was necessary that I see you alone and at once."

Minister for Foreign Affairs Jules Pirot arrived at home one morning deeply disturbed after a talk with the President and the Minister of War. His wife said nothing, knowing that he wanted to think and that he would tell her all as soon ns he could reach a definite conclusion concerning the situation. She had passed a fortnight of great anxiety. The arrest of her husband's former law partner, the husband of her chum while at school in Europe, had seemed to confirm her worst fears. She sat sewing, and Pirot joined her. He sat looking over the pages of a law-book.

" Dearest, things are looking bad," he said presently. " Tinceau openly expressed his hostility to me this morning in the presence of the President. I kept myself fairly well in hand, however, and came out of the difficulty without violence."

" Was it as bad as that?" asked Mrs. Pirot anxiously.

" Yes, it was very threatening while it lasted. I protested against the despatch of our best troops for the north by sea and the leaving of the capital exposed to a rebel attack. Tinceau became very angry and insinuated that I should leave such details to soldiers. I replied that I could give him some lessons in the use of the sword he wears, and that, with the thought that I am the best swordsman in Port an Prince, probably calmed him. At any rate, the President interposed and we parted without further trouble. How I do wish it were all over! There is just one more claim which I want to settle before I leave the government. Then we will go to Paris."

"Why not leave now, to-morrow? The Ville de Tangiers is in port and sails to-morrow. We can connect with the St. Simon at Fort de France. I want to get away. Your life is greatly exposed." Mrs. Pirot made no effort to hide her alarm.

" No, not yet," said Pirot confidently. " I'll know when it comes to that. Hello! The telephone! It is the signal I expected. No, the moment of real danger has not come yet. No, I need a little more money. Just this one case and fifty thousand francs for my humble service!" He laughed nervously.

" I'll never enjoy that money," she said with conviction. " It is not earned. The way in which you take it is not honest. I shall never be happy, nor will you be, until you are really earning your Jjving again."

" Fault of your Teutonic education, my dear. The Europeans with their gunboats would force us to pay, right or wrong. If the beneficiary choose to give me a little gratification, why, that is his affair." He tried to speak gayly, but she shook her head dubiously and went on with her embroidery.

Pirot continued with his show of legal research. He knew that she was right. She was always right on moral questions; yet he always said to her that the man with his tastes who could patiently endure poverty is a lunatic or a god. Criticism from his wife struck deep,— he loved her so and lived in her good opinion of him. And his reflections ran on so while he turned the pages of his law-book and wondered whether he could say anything to reconcile her to his political savings. Did he really want to see her reconciled? The telephone rang again. He answered the ring, but did not touch the receiver. " Serious! Send a trusted messenger to the Palace on any errand." His wife looked alarmed. He answered the ring and went into his study. He sent the President a report concerning the international claim. It was from the Minister of Justice to the Minister for Foreign Affairs discussing the law on the case. Pirot held both portfolios.

He had to do something. He could not wait a half-hour in suspense. He would make a call on the Spanish Consul, the most guileless of all the corps. He kissed his wife good-by and rode away. When he returned the message was there. Tinceau had reported Maillard to be the leader of the rebels and that he was but the fighting man for Pirot. The President had refused permission to arrest him, but had ordered a French and an English spy to be put on him.

He slowly twisted the paper, lit a cigarette with it, and watched it reflectively as it smoked itself into a crisp cinder. " Two hundred and fifty thousand francs in two years. So much for frugality on a meagre salary!" he murmured to himself. If he could only get to the bottom of the thing. If Hauffman were in it, he had covered his tracks admirably. Yet the German would not have implicated him in such a devilish way. He would go directly to the President.

He greeted an Englishman as he went out and smiled grimly as he entered his carriage. The fellow was an over-zealous little cockney, well known as a spy, who sold the little he knew about affairs and a great deal he did not know to anybody who would buy.

The President received Pirot at once and began talking about the international claim. Pirot explained the matter at length and then exclaimed abruptly: " President, my purpose in coming is not to talk about the claim, though I am glad to have the opportunity to do so with you. What I want to do is to urge you seriously to consider the risk which we take in exposing the capital as Tinceau purposes to do. I don't pose as a soldier, but you know better than Tinceau what a good military training my father gave me. You were his friend, and you have shown your interest in me since my boyhood. I have a right to an opinion as a student of military science; but I don't urge that. I put it on the ground of ordinary common-sense that you are taking grave risks."

The President took off his goggles and wiped his eyes. " You touch me deeply," he said, " when you speak of your father and of what I knew about you as a boy. Frederick Pirot and I were strongly attached to each other, and my first meeting with you was when you played horse on my walking-stick during one of his rare visits home. I know that he was very careful in the matter of your education and that he had an eye single to your fitness to serve your country as he had done. But you, you want to get away!" He flung these parting words at the young man and looked at him earnestly to note their effect.

Pirot was very calm as he replied, for he did not know on what dangerous ground the President was leading him. " Yes, I want to go," he said; "I have told you so and I have told you my reasons. You have been my friend because you loved my father. I have shown my gratitude in every way that I could conceive, but you will never know how deeply I appreciate your kindness. I want to go because my presence here is distasteful to the leading men in public life.

" You arc the only man I know capable of preserving peace in Haïti," continued Pirot. " I don't agree with your politics. I believe in throwing the country open to foreign capital. Still, I must concede that you represent the traditional sentiment of the people. I purpose as a part of your government to do all in my power to support you to the point of dying at your side if need be. But I don't want to risk that unnecessarily, and it need not be considered if you decide to keep your best troops at your side, where they belong."

" Let me think," said the President musingly; " let me think. Leave me and come in to-morrow."

So the day passed at the National Palace. Military preparations filled the air with their sounds of horrible suggestion.

Alone in his private apartments sat this self-contained Chief of State, carefully weighing the value of men and of events. His face gave no sign of the anxiety which controlled him. He received visitors and despatched orders with the same suave gravity which had always commanded the respect of his followers. And when evening came he ate his frugal creole meal and drank his rum-and-water as heartily as if he had not a care in the world. Now the " Qui vive?" had started. He must give orders that the girl be admitted.

" Good-evening, your Excellency." Pierre Louis was actually before him.

" The devil I" exclaimed the President with emotional logic.

" At your service," replied Papa Pierre. He was dressed in the ordinary blue denim, and he might have been taken for one of a score of old men one meets on the public roads. He was perfectly self-contained as he faced the cold scrutiny of the man on whom he had intruded. Presently the President laughed.

" Up to your old tricks, Papa Pierre, up to your old tricks, I see!" he said, smiling. " I don't ask you how you managed to get in. One of your miracles, I suppose."

" I have come to cure your scoffing. I was proud when I heard that you were thinking seriously of coming to the cures. Lust is stronger than faith."

The President leaped from his chair and faced the Priest, his terrible eyes gleaming. Looking back into that murderous glare, the eyes of Pierre Louis were perfectly calm. He seemed to be speaking through inspiration.

" Yes, my black Solomon, the girl could do what I never could with you. I was proud when I heard that she had converted you. I wanted to see you at the cures. But I have had a dream. I have seen men die under fire of many guns. I have seen you helpless, at a distance, receiving the news. Much as I want to see you at one of my meetings, I tell you not to go to the cures. Tell the girl to-night that you will go. You must deceive her. Stay here and look to your defences. If my dream directs you aright,—and it cannot direct you to harm,—then, some time in the future, come to the cures as one who believes, at least as one who recognizes my power. I have spoken."

The Priest went out of the door like a shadow and down the hallway towards a back staircase. The President called an officer from the main entrance.

" Go quickly towards the rear entrance. If you see a man don't disturb him. Search for him thoroughly and merely let me know how lie gets out." The President paced the floor in an agitated way for fully twenty minutes, when the officer returned and reported that no strange person had been seen within the grounds.

Pierre Louis went rapidly down the stair and out into the night. He turned short in the shadow of the house, and reaching up to a neighboring window he mounted with agility and glided into the room. A woman servant closed the window quickly. Pierre Louis sat watching through the crack between the shutters. He saw an officer emerge from the shadow of the house, looking in every direction and finally going off towards the nearest sentry. There was a sharp " Qui vive?" and a muttered consultation. The officer moved on. After a while he came back and entered the house. Still Pierre Louis did not move. The room was quite dark, and the sound of the woman's even breathing told him that she was sleeping. He did not disturb her, but kept his place, his face glued to the crack between the shutters.

Not the slightest sign of impatience escaped him. He seemed something inanimate as he leaned there. The hours passed by and he did not stir. It was nearly midnight when he heard the quick " Qui vive?" a muttered reply, and the sound of footsteps approaching. Diane came, accompanied by an officer. The door closed on them. Papa Pierre waited some time longer.

Then he opened the door of the room and examined well the hallway. Nobody was in sight except a sentinel doubled up asleep on his little three-legged stool. He returned and bolted the shutters of the window. It would give the faithful woman something to think about in the morning. He went out into the hall, closing the door gently on the sleeper within. Reaching into one pocket, he drew out a scarlet cap and fixed it firmly on his head. From another pocket he drew out a quivering Nuremberg serpent, with glittering glass eyes and flaming tongue protruding.

Thus armed, he glided down the hall-way to the sleeping sentinel. He put himself into position to get the full value of the dim light effect, and then touched the man with the head of the toy. The startled cry was choked in the throat, held in the firm grasp of the Priest.

"Do you know me?" whispered Pierre Louis, nearly throttling his victim.

" Yes, Papa Pierre," replied the terror-stricken wretch.

"Well, follow me! Not a sound, or you will die the slow death! Come! Lock this door after me. Not a sound!" and he crept into the shadow of the house.

Diane came out, and the Priest lay in the shadow awaiting the return of the officer who accompanied her. The man safe within doors, he crouched there some time watching the sentinel. It was the same whom he had passed on entering. Closing one hand, he began playing a Voudou drum-tune upon the fist with the fingers of the other. It was a very slight noise; between the cries of the " Qui vive ?" it was quite sufficient to carry itself to the ears of the sentinel. The fellow soon heard, listened a moment intently, and then approached. Without a word he led the Priest to the next sentry, and so he passed on to the limit of the grounds. It was a high iron fence which enclosed the grounds, but he vaulted it easily and started off across the Champs de Mars. .

As he turned into the Turgeau road a carriage drove by rapidly. The flags on the lamps marked it as belonging to the German legation. " Big dinner somewhere to-night," he observed to a man who joined him. " Did you get the horses ?"

Together they went afoot up the Turgeau road out into the mountain path to his house. He lighted his lamp and began to pack up his drugs. He was preparing for the cures. Powders and herbs and roots were in abundance. These simples were for the genuine treatment of the faithful; but jumbled into the same pack were the dried snakes and lizards from the walls to play upon the imagination of the people. He collected the things and packed them with simian dexterity into a pair of paniers which his attendant held open for him.

Then a visitor came. His appearance showed that he had had a long journey in the saddle and there was blood on his bare heel, over which was strapped a large spur with a brutal rowel. Pierre Louis took the letter which the messenger presented and recognized the handwriting of Maillard.

" You are tired and hungry," he said. " Sit down and I will get you something to eat."

At this moment Diane entered. She looked around at the evidences of preparation for the journey and asked for Pierre Louis. The old man heard her voice and returned instantly.

" He will go to the cures," she said quietly; " come with me." She led the way into her own room and dropped the curtain between them and the man in the other room.

"You have done well," he said. "Now get our visitor food. He has had a hard journey."

" Papa Pierre!" Her voice was very tremulous.

"Why, what is it, child? What is the matter? You are nervous as a kitten," said the Priest.

" Papa Pierre, do you know that Alcide is very ill ?"

The old man looked at her in angry astonishment.

" Did I not tell you never to mention his name to me?" he growled. " He is a mahogany-colored German. How dare you to bring up his name at such a time? Get food for the man and prepare for your journey! The night is going."

" I will mention his name to you, and it may be for the last time," she replied, firmly but in a tone of deep grief. "You must hear me and you must answer me. The world now thinks me a bad woman— bad, bad, bad I But I love him as I never did before. I am not fit to speak to him now, but he would have made me—a good woman." The Priest turned to go, a look of deep disgust on his face.

" Stop," she hissed, catching his arm in an iron grip. " Stop! Hear me! I am going to do all you want me to do. I have left Alcide forever. Do you understand ?"

The Priest was stupefied with amazement. He had never seen her so before.

" I love him. Do you understand ?"

" Yes, I understand," he said sullenly.

" If you have harmed him, I'll kill you. Do you understand ? Yes, kill you, kill you with my own hands! Do you understand?" The girl's grip benumbed his arms as it tightened itself with her repetition of the threat.

The Priest did understand and he did not. He knew that the girl was dreadfully in earnest, that she meant all she said. He saw that she meant no rebellion against his authority. She was too strong a nature to permit herself to suffer remorse. He understood all that. He could not understand why she should so suddenly and apparently without suggestion imagine that he had harmed the foolish boy.

" Why, my dear, you must calm yourself," he said caressingly. " I have not hurt the boy. Take my word for it. I will let him alone as long as he lets me alone. What is the matter?" She was watching him with a vicious gleam in her eyes.

" Listen, and I will tell you," she 6aid more calmly. " I did not stay long at the Palace. I have been at Hauffman's. As I came up the road, I saw the house lighted up and I saw a light in Alcide's room.

I looked in at the gate. I thought it was a party and I wanted to*s Ce— the dresses of the ladies. Then I saw it was not a party. Only the servants were there and Mrs. Hauffman. They were running about.

A carriage came very fast into the yard. I hid myself behind the carriage and watched. They took a sick man out of the carriage, and it was Alcide. The Minister moved around Alcide's room. Then the Minister came down and spoke in German with Mrs. Hauffman. She went to her rooms. I was about to leave, when Celeste, the cook, came out. I called her to me and she told me all about it."

"Well, what did she tell you?" asked the Priest. The girl was crying softly, forgetting her narrative in the burden of her undercurrent of thought and feeling.

" What did she tell you?" insisted Pierre Louis.

" Why, the Minister had been called by a doctor at midnight. He said that Alcide had fallen very sick. Did you make him sick ?"

Again there came that fierce gleam in her eye and the grip on the old man's arm.

" By all the oaths to the sacred Serpent, I swear that I have done no harm to that boy except to insist that he be put into the army," said the Priest solemnly.

" Then listen and I will tell you," and she seemed greatly relieved. " He was doing the 'Qui vive?' on the Grand Rue and he suddenly fell with a pain in his stomach. That is what made me think you had given him the quick dose."

" No, I swear I never thought of it. I had forgotten him," interrupted the Priest.

" Well, the other soldiers picked him up and took him to the doctor-shop. The doctor, he talked over the wire machine to the Minister, and the Minister made a great noise and went to Alcide on his horse. Alcide vomited, and I thought that saved him from the quick dose."

" No, no, child! Get that out of your head," protested Papa Pierre. " I did the boy no harm."

" And then the Minister saw the arrondissement, and the arrondissement let him bring Alcide home. That is what Celeste told me, and the Minister called out of Alcide's window to put away the horses and lock up the house. Then I came away.

" Oh God," she moaned, " no other man will ever kiss me as he did!" and fell on the bed, burying her face and sobbing violently. The old man looked on helplessly and then approached the bed. She turned to him and drew him down to her side.

" Tell me again," she cried imploringly, " tell me again that you did not do it!"

" I did not," said the Priest.

" Promise me that you never will!" she said sternly.

" I do promise you, my dear," he replied.

" Now, then, I tell you that I will never mention his name again. I will never see him again. He thinks that I am bad, bad, bad! I shall always love him, love him, but I will never see him again. Do you understand?"

The Priest said that he did, but he said to himself that he never did understand a woman.

"He wanted a marriage in a church and a family just like the Minister," she continued in a retrospective sort of way. " He would never look at a femme- placée like me. So you need not fear. I am all for you and your work. Go tell the man that his food will soon be ready."

It was soon ready, and she was perfectly composed when she brought it in. The man had heard the sounds of weeping and of voices that appeared angry; but the appearance of Diane dispelled all idea of a quarrel. She was all graceful attention to the visitor.

As 6he served him, the Priest took the letter which he had brought and read it carefully. Maillard told him that they had suffered great hardships, that the men had been ready to disband. While they had plenty of arms and ammunition, there had been great scarcity of food on the march. The men had talked so generally of returning to their homes, that he had adopted Papa Pierre's suggestion and raised his own name to keep them together. He had felt compelled to do this in order to use his influence as a priest of the Inner Circle. Would Papa Pierre please make this explanation to Tinceau ?

They had crossed the frontier into Santo Domingo to seek cattle for slaughter, but the people had heard of their coming and had moved everything eatable. The men were so reduced that he had stopped to give them rest. In order to keep up their spirits, he was giving a dance, and women had come in from the neighborhood. They had brought some vegetables and some rum, but not nearly enough.

He felt that he could hold them together. He urged Papa Pierre to see Tinceau at once, to show him the letter, and to assure him that the column would be there on time.

The old man knew too much to write a reply. He did not purpose to have his handwriting found on the dead body of his rival. Please make the explanation to Tinceau! That was funny! He turned to the messenger and bade him to explain to Maillard that he was about to start for the cures and that, therefore, he did not have time to write. Tell him—but what the devil could he tell him ?

The messenger protested that he must have a written answer; Maillard told him that he would give him the slow death if he failed to return with a written answer. He fell on his knees before the Priest and implored him piteously to write, if it were only a line. The attitude of the man, his demonstration of terror of Maillard, fired the old man's jealousy of the younger rival.

" Who taught Maillard ?" he asked severely.

" You, Papa Pierre."

" Who gave him his powers?"

" You, Papa Pierre," cried the man, grovelling under the angry voice of the Priest.

" Then stay right here in my house until I return. You shall sec Maillard suffer under my anger. You will sec that he has no power but by me. No harm shall come to you, my son!" The old man gave him his benediction, and the man rose with a resigned look on his face.

The pack was ready. The messenger had been sent to an outhouse to sleep, and Pierre Louis was locking up the house, when Tinceau appeared before the door. The Priest merely remarked that the Minister was an early riser, for the flush in the east announced the appearance of day.

" I received your note telling me that you would leave before daybreak," he said. " I must talk with you alone a while. Diane will wait, won't you, dear girl? What a charming woman you have grown to be! I tried to get out before evening came, but I have had awful days. Pirot is doing all he can to upset our plans, and he urges the President to keep the best troops here. I have had a terrible day, and the best I have been able to do is to have everything ready for a movement to Gonaives or to St. Marc. I tell you Pirot is a great nuisance."

" Prove him a traitor and shoot him," said the old man decisively as he struggled with an intractable padlock. " That is the best recipe for those fancy mixed bloods. Or if you would like a little sugar for his coffee, I have it right here."

The Priest was expeditious. He wanted to get away. He took a small package from the panier, selected a little folded paper pnrcel, and handed it to his visitor.

" I have about concluded that Maillard has proved false to us," resumed Tinceau hurriedly. " He has the money and he has the troops. And now I have news that he has proclaimed himself as a candidate for the Presidency." Tinceau was greatly excited, and the Priest was quite calm as he replied persuasively: " You are quite young. Don't be in too great a hurry. If you can count on the accuracy of your news, you must change your plans and stick to the President I am interested in you, and you will thank me if you follow my advice. Are you sure that he has proclaimed in his own name?"

" There is no doubt of the accuracy of my report."

"Then you must kill him too," said the Priest seriously. "You cannot become President now if he has done that. You must get Pirot out of the way, as he is your natural enemy. Then you must kill Maillard. It will be better to kill him in battle defending the President. That saves your hide from being riddled with government bullets, for the Chief will otherwise suspect because of your former plan of campaign. You will have a chance another time. I purpose to make you President."

Tinceau was frankly troubled.

"You advise the President to stay," continued the Priest earnestly.

" Tell him that your recent advices indicate Port au Prince to be Mail-lard's objective. Tell him to remain to look after the city and let you go to defend his person. Maillard's men are dure to be hungry and tired. You will have no trouble in defeating them. But you must kill Maillard or he will ruin all of us."

The War Minister accompanied the party a little way on the road, talking over details with Papa Pierre. Diane and the man with the pack rode on ahead.

" But Meissner will be angry if the thing fail," said Tinceau; " and besides, you have not received your share of the money."

" My dear Tinceau, I repeat that money is nothing to me," said the Priest. " All I want is to be able to practice my religion in peace. I did all I could for you, but the situation is against you. We fail this time, but you will go up still higher in the estimation of the people. You will lose nothing. It is true that Meissner will have lost some money, but he loses to Haïtiens—you among them."

Tinceau left the party and went straight to the Palace. Few officers were in sight. He went upstairs. The President was just coming from his morning bath.

" President, pardon my intrusion," he said, " but I could not wait. Your prudence and superior judgment in holding back orders have been justified. The attack is to be made on Port au Prince. I think I have intercepted a letter from Maillard to Pirot. They tell me it is in cipher, detailing plans, but they have yet to make ut the destinataire. I am sure of the attack on Port au Prince. I ran up to tell you this and I will report definitely later. If I can only get that letter clearly deciphered!"

The President only wrapped his bath-robe closer, and he answered, without the slightest change of countenance: "The troops are ready and so am I. If that letter prove to be important, let me see it and its translation. If I agree with you as to the implication of Pirot, I will execute him at once. As you go down, tell the officer on guard that the barber may come up."

Tinceau looked for one of the officers of the guard. None was in sight. He heard the ringing of the telephone, and went to the closet in which it hung. He found Pirot's friend there just hanging up the receiver, swearing because the telephone was out of order again.

" Where is the President's barber ?" the Minister asked. The officer replied that the man had been there a moment ago. They walked together until the barber was found.

" Now report with me at the gate," said Tinceau; " you are under arrest."

The young man turned pale, recovered his self-control in a moment, md saluted. He ungirted his sword and handed it to the War Minister.

Alcide told his story. Hauffman sat silent, smoking steadily and looking out into the darkness. The boy told all that he had heard except the references to Diane. They were his affairs—and Meissner's.

There was a characteristic medley of emotions depicted on Hauffman's face as he smoked on and listened to the recital,—paternal concern for the boy, serious fears over the political revelation, humorous appreciation of the cholera-mixture incident and of Alcide's dolorously dirty plight. He snapped out short, imperative interruptions between his pipe-puffs, but he really said nothing. The burden of his thought was the political situation; Alcide's eyes followed every turn of his patron's head, waiting for him to pronounce himself. Hauffman thought on and on. Then, turning suddenly on Alcide, he said with an affectionate sharpness: " Go and wash thyself! I will come back."

Hauffman went downstairs to explain the situation to the members of his household, who were greatly alarmed, and sent the servants to bed, allowing them to hold the impression that Alcide was seriously ill.

It was late towards morning when they separated. Hauffman had made him repeat the story of the cholera mixture and questioned him again and again as to his certainty that he had heard the name of Tinceau. The boy went to sleep, and the diplomat went to his little den, where he spent the remainder of the night studying papers bearing on the proposed German concession. Daybreak found him fresh and vigorous after his bath, sitting on his balcony, his coffee and big pipe before him. For the first time in weeks Alcide had the pleasure of serving him.

He took his usual morning ride and then went to the Palace. He was so familiar with every detail of Haïtien life that he took in at a glance any change from the routine, whether public or private. He saw at once that the President was not confining himself to merely offensive operations, as had been reported throughout the city. The little stone-and-mud fortress to the south of the gate had two little vicious-looking, rapid-firing guns mounted to command the entire block. It was crowded with soldiers, who were really actively moving about.

At the gate was a uniformed mob of not less than five hundred men, and their belts contained the full supply of cartridges. The young Colonel whom Alcide had introduced to him was drilling a squad in open-order firing upon the knee. Hauffman waited until the young man noticed him. They greeted each other pleasantly, and the German complimented him on his work.

" By the way," said Hauffman, " I know that young officer there under guard. I have met him at the house of Minister Pirot. Is he in disgrace?"

" He has been standing as you see him two hours or more," replied the Colonel. " He was put under arrest personally by the Minister of War. He is an old friend of mine, and one of our few well-drilled, well-informed officers. He says that he knows of no charge against him. None of us knows. Poor chap! I would not give a fig for his chances of being alive an hour from now. Tinceau has evidently not had things all his own way, and God help the man who crosses his path now!"

Hauffman spoke with several others of the officers, among whom he was a great favorite, and then rode slowly up the carriage-way to the Palace entrance. The little brass machine guns were no longer mere ornaments. Boxes of cartridges in all their disfiguring but business-like rudeness were stowed behind the weapons, broken and ready for use. The work of polishing had been neglected this morning. Instead a man was carefully oiling the working parts and testing the movement of each. The visitor watched the process while waiting to be announced, but he was promptly admitted to the presence of the Chief of State.

" I am so glad to see you, Hauffman," he said, greeting the German cordially. " I want to talk with you about the proposed concession. In some way the thing is connected with conspiracies here in the capital and with uprisings in the north. I cannot yet determine what the connection is, but I want to repeat to you that the concession cannot be granted."

" I did not come to talk about the concession," said Hauffman; " I came to talk about something more important."

" Nothing else can be more important at this time," said the President.

" Your life is," said Hauffman quietly. The President looked him straight in the eye.

" Go on," he said.

" Information has come to me warranting this statement to you by way of warning. I shall mention no names. I shall tell you what I think you should do. You must make your own inferences. First of all, on no errand should you leave the capital until this trouble is over; nor should you permit to leave your side those troops on whose efficiency and loyalty you can absolutely rely. Do not communicate to anyone that I have spoken to you on this subject, as you might expose the person who is the source of my information.

" Excuse me a moment," said the President. He walked from one door to another and threw each wide open. " Come to the balcony. Your habit of speaking in a low' tone of voice saved you from being overheard. As a rule, I prefer to let them hear. One side plays against the other, and I get the advantage of the result. Go on."

" Send out trusted men, without the knowledge of any member of your Cabinet, to determine the precise position of the insurgents. Concentrate your light artillery at a convenient point to enfilade any road entering the city. Hold your best troops, and plenty of them, as your reserve, and take command of them in person; let the others go to meet the rebels, their movements determined; and thus hold the entrances until the batteries can be brought in. You and your reserve can take hold of any movement which may be made in the capital itself. It should be strong enough to take care of the rebels and the troops you send out, if need be."

" I can't express my gratitude," said the President. " Will you answer one question? Is Pirot behind this thing?"

" My opinion is that he is not," was the German's prompt reply. " I have no reason to suspect him. I know him well. I know that he is very grateful for the opportunities which you have opened up for him. He is the last man I would believe guilty of such a thiri£, and, besides, with all the information which has come to me, there is nothing which points to him as possibly implicated."

The President looked over the grounds musingly, his face ns calm ns if he were merely enjoying the view over the bay.

" There is only one other man near me to suspect The others of my Cabinet are mere figureheads," said the President musingly.

" General, I beg you not to mention names to me," protested Hauffman. " My purpose in coming is to warn you. I answered your question concerning Pirot simply because silence on my part might have done him the injustice to impel your suspicion."

They talked on earnestly, the President repeating charges of ingratitude against Pirot and Hauffman warmly defending the Haïtien diplomat. The President bluntly told the German that Pirot would be arrested and probably executed if a cipher letter from the insurgent leader, Maillard, should inculpate the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

" That would be murder!" exclaimed Hauffman. " Pirot wants to make money, but he is not in this thing. Take my word for it. It appears that I know more about the affair than you do. Have you ordered his arrest ?" He asked this question suddenly, for the thought had just occurred to him.

" No, he is not under arrest," said the President, " but he is under close surveillance. I promise you this: he shall not be touched until I shall have shown you the proofs and satisfied you of his guilt."

" I thank you," cried Hauffman. He shook hands hurriedly and darted out of the room to hide his weakness.

As he went out of the grounds he remarked that the young man whom he had met under arrest had gone. Soldiers were lying around, some sleeping and others gambling; but weapons of all kinds were in evidence, and there was no mistaking the nature of the preparations. He decided to go home to be near his family instead of spending the day at the legation. The thought of Pirot's fate unnerved him, and his active imagination pictured his friend in all sorts of ghastly shapes, filled with gaping wounds. He had the President's promise. He could rely on that.

As he approached his garden gate a carriage stopped, and a young man alighted just as he came up.

" I am looking for the residence of the German Minister," said the new-comer. " Will you kindly tell me whether I have come to the right place ?"

" I have the honor to be the German Minister," said Hauffman pleasantly. " How can I serve you ?"

" I bring a letter of introduction from the German Consul at La Guayra," was the reply. " I believe that he is a friend of yours." Hauffman recognized the handwriting and invited the young man to the house.

" So you are an American journalist," said Hauffman, smiling. " I have met several correspondents here. Are you on your way north ?"

"Yes and no," replied the reporter. "I was down in Venezuela during the revolution. Fine country, Venezuela! I had enough of it, however, when the war closed. Hard work and plenty of it. It was while doing this work that I met your friend. He is an active man at La Guayra, and he has done a great deal for German commerce. Then I was ordered back to New York. I came up by way of the Leeward Islands, picking up materials for magazine articles."

" It must be very fascinating work for an unmarried man," remarked the Minister.

"Yes, it is—very," said the young man enthusiastically; "but it is not appreciated. The men who stay at home have the inside. Unless something unusual turns up off the earth somewhere, all of us who were in Venezuela will have to hustle to get regular work, even on our own papers. I am getting tired of it. I was about to say that I was in Martinique picking up snake-stories. A former Chicago reporter made himself and the snakes famous by writing them up. The stories sell well. First, because they are snake-stories. The snake has an attraction for all human beings. Eveiy religion must have its snake somewhere in its Bible. Then the Martinique snake-stories sell well in the United States because they are particularly horrible."

Hauffman was deeply interested in the readiness with which his visitor made himself at home. " I shall be glad to see your article when it is printed, Mr. Wiley," he remarked.

" You shall, Mr. Minister, you shall," cried the young man warmly. " Well, while there," he resumed, " I had a telegram to change my route and come over here to look up an uprising which was threatened. Do you know anything about it?"

Hauffman answered promptly. He knew that a moment's delay would make the keen searcher for news follow him with questions day and night. He smiled inwardly at the sudden and adroit directness of the question, but he answered at once.

" I know that many arrests have been made and that some troops have been sent off to the north. The city is full of rumors. Y*ou must have heard them. If you hear anything definite you must share with me. You know my work makes me a correspondent too. How long have you been here ?"

" Yes, I have heard rumors. I came by the Ville de Tangiers. Just had time to telegraph from Martinique to La Guayru for this introduction to you. But I want a story, something definite. Can't yon tell me something about the German concession ?"

"The details have been reported faithfully by your legation here and the facts given out by your State Department at Washington," said Hauffman. "The Haïtien Congress is now in session debating the proposition. I can give you news, however, and you may quote me. The President says that he will oppose to the last any change in the Constitution to help this concession."

" Thanks," said Wiley, in the disgust of disappointment. " That is news in Haïti. It would go for a half-stickful in New York. What I want is a story. Yoq see, in answer to your first question, if I cannot get any stories, I'll go north by the Dutch steamer. If there be any good ones in sight, I stay. It a battle likely ? Are troops in motion ?"

" It is hard to say what will happen next in this country," replied Hauffman.

" Well, how about a good Voudou story, eating babies and all that sort of thing—the 'goat without horns'? Why, they just revel in that sort of thing up north. ' Our special correspondent at Port an Prince and the Loup Garou' and that sort of thing, you know! Can't you give me a story about human sacrifices and that sort of thing? We have the cuts already in the office."

Hauffman felt very relieved when a carriage drove in at this remark, serving to check what would have been an indignant reply. He took advantage of the interruption to arise and await the arrival of the carriage, an ordinary public " bus." A lady decently dressed stepped out, paid the driver, and said that he need not return for her. She asked for the German Minister.

" I have the honor to be the German Minister," said Hauffman with quiet courtesy. " Please come up. How can I serve you?"

She walked to the balcony with a pretty, mincing step, and took a chair at some distance from Hauffman. She threw back her veil, which covered her eyes, and looked straight at him.

" Don't you remember me ?" she asked sweetly.

Hauffman was plainly embarrassed that he could not recognize her, and he began talking about his wretched eyesight. He was interrupted by uproarious laughter from the dainty one with the mincing step.

" One on you, old man!" she laughed.

" Thunder! Pirot!" cried Hauffman, rushing to him and grasping his hand.

" Only Pirot, and a refugee taking asylum in your house."

" You know that my government docs not countenance this application of the doctrine of extraterritoriality," said Hauffman severely, holding Pirot's hand all the while.

" Yes, and I know that your government will not order you to turn me out of doors to be shot down like a dog," said the refugee with composure.

" Well, how did you manage it ?" said Hauffman. In his excitement he entirely forgot the presence of his other visitor.

" I have been under the eyes of spies and a victim of lies," said Pirot. " I took precaution to be well informed. I have known more or less the charges which have been made against me and the attitude of the President. This morning the order to arrest me was proposed to the President and he promised to consider it. They probably would have sent me to kingdom come without a chance to bid you good-by, so I decided to make you a call. It may turn out to be a long visit."

" But how did you manage? These clothes? Your mustache gone as if it had never grown?" asked Hauffman with increasing interest.

" I must thank Heloise for all that. She and I are the same size nearly, you know, and our complexions arc about the same. She has done it all, and for weeks she has had this dress, wig,—the whole outfit, —ready in her wardrobe. I let her have her way and rather enjoyed the masquerade and the fun of being laced and fitted up by her at intervals. We had lots of sport out of the thing, but when my feminine wardrobe was once complete, I forgot it. But she and I thought of it at the same moment this morning, I tell you !"

" But how did you escape the spies ?"

" It was very simple, as she arranged it. The signal came over the telephone early this morning. It told me that my arrest might be ordered at any moment. I was shaving upstairs, but I heard the signals. Heloise answered the rings. Later, my informant was arrested."

" Most women would have fainted," said Hauffman.

" Not a bit of that in her!" said the Haïtien with enthusiasm.

" She just marched upstairs and told me to shave off my mustache, and I whipped it off, I tell you. She has a dress just like the one she made for me. She put that on and then began to fix me up. She put the wig on me, and the hat, and filled my face with powder till she choked me—just as all the women pile it on here. She buckled me up in this infernal corset while I held up my arms to make myself as small as possible around the waist, and then she put on the dress. She told me to wait while she went to the balcony. She called a servant and sent him for a carriage. She spoke in a loud tone of voice, bidding him hurry, as she did not have time to wait for our carriage to be hitched up. She came in. The carriage came up. I stepped out in the teeth of the spies and we drove off."

" That was splendid!" cried Hauffman. " But you have been a long time getting here."

" Yes, I did not trust myself to drive through the city. I went out into the country towards the plains. Then I came back and went around to the Petioville road and cut across to Turgeau. I took my time, as I did not expect to catch you at home. For Heaven's sake let me wash off this powder and get out of these corsets and wigs and things. I have suffered enough for my country!"

" Capital!" cried Wiley. " Capital, sir, Mr. Pirot! Oh, I know you. Sure to have your picture among our cuts! Every Cabinet officer in the world we have there. You can gamble on that. Great story! Clean scoop! Good-by, gentlemen. Excuse me, I'll see you later. This must be on the wire before two o'clock. Gad, what a beat!" and the correspondent darted down the garden path.

Meissner's trip to Jacmel on the little French steamer, the Ville de Tangiers, was a joyous yet restful experience after the excitement of his political scheming and active lobbying at the capital. The officers on board and the merchants at the ports all were eager to show their appreciation of the most hearty entertainer in all Haïti.

Koffel, the German Consular Agent at Jacmel, received him cordially, and the little foreign colony immediately set itself to planning entertainments in his honor. There was to be a ball, of course, and as they sat in the soft evening air planning the entertainments between the hands of a game of poker somebody proposed a bachelor dinner. Immediately a thought came to Meissner. He would prepare a surprise for them: he would have Diane dance!

The more he thought of it, the more it pleased him. He had not had a real German debauch in a long while. He would take the servants into his confidence, secrete Diane in the house, and have her come out and dance in the height of the fun. He expressed such interest in the dinner suggestion as to assure its adoption, and resumed his activity in the game. All were enjoying their peaceful recreation after the hard work of the day, when they were interrupted by the cry of fire.

The players dropped their cards. No other danger carries such universal dread in Haïti as that of fire. It is the forerunner of revolution, the opportunity of robbers and assassins, the paralyzer for the time of honest human activity. Each man had his own place of business in mind, and all started downstairs in a rush. On reaching the street three shots were heard fired in a rapid but distinct succession. That meant serious trouble, and at Koffel's suggestion they returned for revolvers. Meissner went on unarmed.

He had gone only a few feet when he met Papa Pierre. The Priest seemed anxious to avoid meeting people, and he drew Meissner to the shadow of a balcony on the other side of the street. Men and women were rushing wildly in the direction of the blaze along the lateral streets and stumbling over those leading up the steep hill-side. Pierre Louis hurriedly told Meissner that there was no danger, that the blaze had been all arranged.

" What devilment are you up to now," demanded Meissner, " that you should want to scare people out of their boots ?"

" You see, it looked as though the General of arrondissement here proposed to make some kind of movement of troops. I did not know what he wanted to do. In the face of this panic he will stay right here. This fire will do no harm, and the three shots were fired by men who made off to the woods immediately. We may be sure that the General will remain at his post."

" You would die if you could not intrigue," said Meissner, laughing. " Where is Diane ?' " She is here and crazy to see you," said Pierre Louis. " But you must not have her come to you—not yet. You must go to her. We have a safe, cosey rendezvous. I will let you know in the morning."

Meissner joined the crowd of people who were making their way up the hill-side. He did not look for his friends, as he knew that they had gone to protect their stores. He observed that the fire had been set to leeward, where the prevailing night-wind would really protect the town. With the whole Caribbean to draw upon, there was not a public fire-pump in the place. He forced himself through the crowd and saw that there was no danger.

He passed within arm's length of Diane, but did not see her. She saw him, however, and kept within reach. He looked on while the excited Haïtiens fought the fire in their awkward fashion, and then decided to hunt up his friends. There seemed no possibility of returning through the streets by which he had come, for the crowd grew more compact every moment. Men, women, and children, attracted by the excitement, could scarcely move. He decided on a detour. He worked his way past the fire easily; and as he moved around the outskirts he gave himself up to the wild beauty of the place, the town and the port at his feet, silent in the soft and clear tropical moonlight. For the time he thought of nothing. His feelings were purely the rapturous response of sense. He had gone some distance from the fire in the direction of the wind. A blaze broke in on his abstraction. A small, isolated hut was on fire.

Mechanically he quickened his pace, and with accustomed skill picked his way to the wretched little shanty. Sparks from the other fire had caught on the dry palm-thatch. It was a pretty sight, he remarked to himself on approaching, as he watched the dried leaves so skilfully interwoven to resist rain and sun, twist and crackle into flame, freeing themselves into fluffy flakes of fire to be carried off into the air along the mountain side. The rude rafters were beginning to expose themselves and the edges of timber were beginning to blaze, when a woman dashed by him shrieking and burst into the burning hut.

Surprised for the moment, he stood still. Then he went rapidly forward. No human being could live long in that place. He heard no sound from within. He dashed through the blazing door-way. The stinking smoke both blinded and suffocated him. Where was the fool of a woman? He stumbled over something. It was a human body. He grasped it and dragged it out into the foot-way. How grateful was the fresh air! The woman quickly revived.

" My child !" she cried, " my poor child !"

" Where ?" demanded Meissner. And without waiting for a reply he dashed into the flaming hut again.

He knew the structure of these houses. He had slept in them too often not to know where the woman had probably left her child when attracted by the big fire. In his rush he went straight through the burning partition to the inner room of the cabin. God, what a heat! How the smoke stung the nostrils and throat! He was growing faint. He had gone to the wrong corner for the child. He must try again. He had it. Its little, bare body had not been burned. He turned to get out. He could not go back as he had come. He could kick out the side of the house. Why had he not thought of that before he had lost his strength? He kicked. He was falling. To die like this! He raised his foot. He heard his name. " Meissner! Meissner!" It was the voice of Diane. Was he going mad? He answered feebly. He kicked again and fell headlong through the side into the burning trash, holding the limp body of the child at arms' length that it might not be crushed.

Diane blindly followed the voice and fell in a heap over him, her skirts ablaze. She was on her feet at once, and with magnificent strength dragged him and the child beyond the danger line. The woman ran to them.

" My child, my child!" she cried wildly. " Does it live?"

"Take your cursed brat!" shrieked Diane. "You have killed my man!"

And there, alone with him on the hill-side, she cared for him tenderly. He was breathing in feeble and short gasps. She tore away the charred pieces of clothing and saw that the shoulder, whose skin was as soft and white as a woman's, bore an ugly mark running down the arm to the elbow. She raised his head and gently placed it on her thigh. She felt so helpless. The " cures" were no good here. What a humbug the magic of the ouanga was, after all! How she hated it all! Alcide was right. Alcide. She must not think of him. He was so good. And people had told him that she was bad, bad, bad! And then the shock of tension suddenly relaxed quite overcame her. She sobbed out her excess of feeling and covered Meissner's unconscious face with hysterical kisses.

As consciousness slowly came to him he felt the keen, pure air cutting its way into his lungs, and then a great, dreamy relaxation, a desire to sleep, overcame him. He heard his name. It was the voice of Diane again. He heard his own voice murmur a reply. Was he dying? Was this the death of suffocation? He had always heard that it was painless, even pleasant. But he felt no pain from the burning, he tried to rise. He could not move a muscle. Then he began to think more consciously. He saw clearly, and recognized the lovely hill-side, the smouldering hut, the little French steamer riding at anchor, the fading glare in the distance, and the murmur of the crowd.

He looked up into the face of Diane. It was she, and no disordered image! It was she, and she was kissing him with an abandon she had never shown before.

He stretched out his arms and drank in more air. He was safe in her arms, too weak to raise himself. He tried to speak, but the words seemed crushed with soot and they stuck in his throat. She was rocking his head gently and stroking his face and humming a curious, crooning song. It was very grateful in his helpless condition, the touch of this strong, magnetic woman.

He felt himself completely under the spell of her presence. He felt his strength rapidly returning. He knew that he was not seriously hurt. She pressed her finger firmly and gently on the artery near his throat and noted eagerly the uniform improvement in the strength and regularity of pulsation. She saw that he was conscious and that he was observing her closely. She drew back within herself. She shrank instinctively from revealing herself to him. She became quite calm. She kissed his check gently and smoothed the hair from his brow.

" Diane, yon have saved my life," he said at last with effort; " how can I thank you ?"

" I saved my own," she said, smiling. " If you had died, I would have swallowed the quick death. You are all I have."

" But you do not love me," he said.

She looked deep into his eyes, a hunted, searching look. Her face betrayed to him her doubt, her absolute uncertainty of herself for the moment. Candor, an uncivilized directness and simplicity, was among the great charms which she had for Meissner; and after his own misgivings and perplexities concerning their future he readily understood her feeling.

" It is true that I did not love," she said finally, " but now—won. now I don't know. When I saw you in the crowd I followed you. I was right behind you. Yet I did not know whether to call you or not. I was not sure of you or myself. Then when I saw you bring out that woman and go back for the child I felt differently. I wanted to be with you in the fire. You are a brave man."

He felt flattered by what she said in her simple way. Yet he did not want her to fall in love with him. It was a mental struggle between his desire to free himself and his love of the chase.

" But you loved Alcide," he persisted. " You have really loved him while you have been placée with me."

" Yes, I loved him. That is true. But I have left him behind. You are all I have left. When you go back to Germany I will kill myself. WTien I came to you I left Alcide behind. It is all so different. And you do not love me as you will love a German woman."

She said it all very calmly, but he felt a desire to get out of it all. She was submitting to him an analysis. He could not stand that. He looked out over the quiet bay and wondered what he should say. It was a perfect panorama, and the little French steamer lay quietly where he left her, the messenger to the outside world he loved so. How could civilized men be contented here? How different that world! She could not share it, even though it were possible to ask her to do so. She could barely read and write. Though she spoke the patois with such picturesque simplicity, she scarcely knew French. What right had she to reproach him, to compare herself with German women? He had bought her and paid well for her. He had been generous with her—lavish even. She had accepted the bargain, even though she had maintained her absurdly virtuous attitude. How did she differ from other Haïtien women? What idiocy to talk about suicide! She could not reproach him with having wronged her. He had humored her notions and amused himself watching her learn things. A strong feeling of resentful irritability took hold of him; yet beneath it was I he consciousness that he was not entirely satisfied with himself.

"You may have deceived yourself," he heard himself say, "but I have not deceived myself. You have loved that boy Alcide from childhood. You love him now. You and I have had some good times together and we will have more of them. But some day you will be placée with Alcide and you will be very happy. Though the deep waters be between us, I shall never let you want for anything."

His gaze was on the little French steamer, and his heart on the weird scene in which he was defying the promptings of his better nature. How he despised himself! He, himself, it was who had pursued the girl, he who had tried to betray her through the influence of Pierre Louis. Instead of meeting a mistress, he had found a woman making the vital sacrifice for the man she loved. She was a woman,— he had to confess it,—a bigger woman than he had ever dreamed of finding her. He did not look at her, but he felt from sheer sympathy the shock of pain he was causing her. She said with a quiet intensity: " You do not mean what you say. You hope for it because you would not care. You know Alcide and you know me. He would never be placé with any woman. He thought of me as you foreigners think of your women. I promised to become placée with you to save him. I told you, and you were good to me. I am not bad; but people think me bad and they will tell him. He will never look at me. You are all I have, and some day we must leave each other."

On that same deck, he thought, this same question had forced itself upon him, and here was this crude, unlettered woman reading his very soul as though it were an open book. If she would only accuse him and rail at him, he might get angry and answer her in kind. If she would only threaten him, as she with the resources of Pierre Louis could threaten, he could defy her and leave her. But she clung to him ! How could he throw her off? With twenty thousand marks a year he would be able to go by that steamer and leave Haïti forever. Could he forget her? Would her dead face haunt him through life? He had not harmed the girl. How could he reproach himself for what people thought of her own voluntary act ?

" Diane, why borrow trouble?" he asked. " We are happy together. Why look into the future ?"

" Because now I know why I was sent to the President. Pierre Louis has told me about your big machines which you will buy for Haïti. And you will make money and go home and forget me. Then I must die, for I am already tired of the dances and the cures. You will go and there will be nobody else."

" There is Alcide, who worships you," he said with relentless cruelty and for the want of anything else to say.

" I am a different woman in these weeks. I know so many things which I did not know before. So long as you are with me I shall like them, for you taught me to like them. When you go, though somebody else should offer me dresses and jewelry and wines and gay nights, I shall not want them. I shall be tired of them too. They would not be the same without you."

He was sitting at her side now, holding her hands. He looked steadily over the bay at the little ship, the sign and token of his life that was to be. He could not bear to look at her face. The. thought of another man offering her what he was giving her stirred him deeply. In his vanity over the appearance of conquest, he had allowed his friends to believe her his mistress. He could have protected her in the beginning. In his heart he respected the simple beauty of her character. He felt so small before her when he thought that to save the man she loved she had made the greatest sacrifice possible in human experience, that of the loved one's esteem and respect. She detested Pierre Louis and she was tired of the charlatanism. She was right. He was all that was left to her. She had thought it all out too. Yes, almost all of his friends would be rivals, jumping at the chance to teach her all the refinements of civilized vice. He knew that she would not be placée with any other man.

She had drawn up her knee and was leaning forward, her chin supported by the palm of her hand—her accustomed attitude when thinking seriously or deeply moved. He sat by her side tracing out line by line the curves of her body, always marvellously beautiful to him. Her neck, a powerful column, was exposed to him by the turn of her head. He looked a moment longer and then buried his lips in the firm, resisting throat.

She did not respond to the unfamiliar caress. He was disappointed. The abandon of grief which she had shown while he lay half unconscious there would have its corresponding feeling, he thought, if he should appeal to it. Instead, she threw her arm about him in a tender, clinging way, and looked him straight in the face. He could not help looking at her now. That strained, sad, yet resigned expression had a terrible fascination for him. He was in an inextricable position. What could he say? She came to his relief.

" It is getting chilly," she said, " and you must be careful and not be sick after what has passed. We had better go. Don't fail to cover jour shoulder well. Take this shawl."

He rose as she did. It was with a helpless, guilty feeling that he did so. The fire was out. The little streets were deserted. On the outside of the town a few soldiers cried their " Qui vive ?" but the streets of Jacmel were not infested by the noisy guardians of the public peace who make life in Port au Prince a burden. The hut, the scene of the rescues, was ashes and a few coals.

Hand in hand they walked, he leading her down the mountain path as though this were her first experience in Haïtien footways. It never occurred to him to be other than polite to a woman, whatever her station, but he felt particularly deferential to Diane now. He could have protected her if he had believed her capable of remaining faithful to her black lover. Was she about to fall in love with him? He did not want that now. She had not lived with him. And yet he let the world believe her to be his mistress. They walked on silently. He was at high tension with excitement and the burden of helplessness before this strong nature. Disgust with himself, which he could generally so easily subdue, *his man of the world, mastered him for once. They came to a street leading up and along the mountain side.

" I am living here. Good-night!" she said.

"Stop!" he said fervently. "Is that all? Will you not kiss me? Shall we not make an appointment for to-morrow ?"

She smiled as he kissed her, and she told him to come during the day, as she was making the cures at night, and she did not know but that the President would come ahead of time.

" And I want to send up some wines and other nice things," said Meissner. " You must tell me too the name of the people with whom you are stopping. And I want to bring some friends for a gros bouillon. We must have a good time while we are here, Diane."

" You know that I am ready for anything with you," she said, " but you must promise me one thing."

" Why, certainly; what is it?"

" You must tell me before—long time before—when you make up your mind to go."

" I promise," he said.

" Then you have not made up your mind yet?" she asked timidly.

"No, you goose!" She kissed him heartily and told him that she would look for him.

He held her back. He drew her to him and kissed her lips again. She tapped his cheek in coquettish reproof and disappeared in the shadow of the houses.

As he turned to go home a woman stopped him. He turned on her with an angry exclamation. She had seen him caress Diane.

" I only want to thank you, M'shay," she said, shrinking from him. It was the mother of the rescued child.

" Did the child live?" he asked eagerly.

" Yes, M'shay, and M'shay saved him. M'shay brav' blanc li," she said with such genuine gratitude that he wanted to make amends for his rudeness of a moment before.

"Will M'shay accept this? It is very little, but it is from my gran'-gran and it is all I have. I give it to you because it has no price. It was blessed by the Papa-loi."

It was a dagger sheathed. He did not examine it. He merely remarked that it was very heavy. He protested that she should not give away a heritage from her grandparents, but he soon saw that to refuse the gift would wound her deeply. So he thanked her and told her to bring their baby to see him at the German Consul's, at Mr. Koffel's private house, the next morning.

He walked slowly home, trying to think it all out. He decided to consult Papa Pierre. The old man could engage the girl in some of his ambitious schemes, and perhaps she would not take the prospect of this separation so seriously.

The house was still brightly lighted. The servants said that the gentlemen had not returned. He took the news gladly and hurried to his room.

He stripped and examined the burn thoroughly. It would leave a bad scar, but it was not serious. He applied a soothing mixture and put on his pyjamas. He stretched out on a lounge under a lamp and tried to read. Nothing interested him.

Then the men came in. All were intent on the discussion of the probable cause of the fire. Meissner did not want any of that talk and decided to remain quiet in his room. Koffel was the last to come. Unbelting his revolver and laying it on the table, he remarked that it would be wise to remain awake until morning. He had been investigating. The men who probably had set the blaze had made off up the mountain side. They must have come from the dances in the woods. They could not have known Jacmel well, or they would have started the fire at the other end of the town.

" Do you think we had better stand by the stores?" asked one.

" No," answered Koffel. " We have reliable people stationed around. We need only to be ready in case there is another alarm."

Somebody suggested that they resume their game. They called for beer and cold luncheon and took their seats.

" Where's Meissner ?" asked Koffel.

" Here I am," he called out. " I might have dropped overboard and you would not have missed me had you stayed away from the poker-table."

He came out laughing heartily. The prospect of having something to do until morning was a relief.

Hauffman settled himself at the porch table to enjoy, as usual, his pipe and his early morning reflections. He noticed that the waiter-bov served the coffee. He asked for Alcide. The boy had not seen him. A strict disciplinarian, Hauffman gulped down his coffee impatiently and sent the boy to find the derelict favorite. He reached for his pipe, which had been set at the centre of the table. Under it lay an envelope addressed to himself. He opened it hurriedly, his fears anticipating its contents: "Dear Minister: Please pardon my going without asking your permission. I am going to do my duty. I am a Haïtien and I belong at my post. If I live through the battle, I trust that you will take me back.

" Your affectionate and obedient " Alcide."

Hauffman read and re-read the little, simple note and smoked furiously. Presently Pirot came down. Kauffman heard him splashing in the swimming-pool, and his good-humor annoyed him. When Pirot came out he joined Hauffman at the table to take his coffee. The boy served him.

" Where is Alcide?" asked Pirot.

" Gone to be a soldier, damn him!" snapped Hauffman, pulling away at his big pipe. The Haïtien saw that it would not be prudent to push inquiries for the present.

"Infernal ass! Schafskopf!" muttered Hauffman. Instinctively Pirot remained silent that Hauffman might work off his fit.

" Not a cowardly bone in his body! Sentimental jackass! Sure to be shot full of holes!" Pirot knew that the young man had acted simply in accord with Hauffman's teachings, but this was not the moment to remind him of the fact.

" Under the protection of the legation too! I registered him myself last week." Not a sound from Pirot. Only the chirping of birds and the rippling of the mountain streams and the voices of the refugees in the grass-piece and the whiff-whiff from Hauffman's pipe.

" Going after him! Legation registration must be respected!'' And the German Minister, purple with excitement, was not a very dignified figure as he pounded away into the house and up the stairs in bath-robe and felt slippers.

Pirot hastened to his room to dress that he might be ready to watch developments. If there was to be a promiscuous street firing, it would be dangerous to go in search of the boy. As Wiley had remarked, the Haïtien bullet has no respect for the person of the German Minister. When he returned he found Hauffman in boots and spurs, ready to start, but seated on the porch, Mrs. Hauffman at his side talking quietly. The face of the old soldier had an obstinate set, but the hands belied it. They were hanging limp between his legs, most eloquent in their irresoluteness.

" I have suggested to the Minister," she said, turning to Pirot, " that, he wait until the clerks shall have opened the consulate general.

He can then learn precisely what is going on in the city. Do you not think so?"

Pirot did agree with her heartily, but she knew that she did not need his support to convince Hauffman. The German gave way with poor grace, and immediately began to torture the switchman at the central telephone station. Of course, nobody had arrived at the consulate. He had little to say as he chafed under the delay. Then he went off to the stable to look after his horse. He trusted nobody but Alcide and himself to girth a saddle for him.

It was only a minute or two after eight o'clock when he received an answer from the consulate. There had been a general jail deliver. The political prisoners had all found refuge. There had been a short panic, but order had been restored. The President had taken charge of the streets in person, and more than one hundred men were already reported dead—killed on sight. They were rapidly rounding up the liberated criminals. Several of these had been shot also. Tinceau had won a decisive victory the night before, and had expected to capture the fleeing rebels at daybreak.

At this moment Wiley, the tireless correspondent, trotted up the garden path. He had seen the entire military movement and was impatient to get to the telegraph office. As he took his coffee he told how Tinceau had beaten back the rebels by moonlight, slept in the woods, and captured all the enemy at daybreak.

" The end was most dramatic," he said; " nothing but a shot from one of the government rifles saved Tinceau's life. By a clever bit of night scouting, Tinceau located the enemy, and he surprised them just at dawn before they were thoroughly awake. The rebel pickets gave the alarm, but he was on their heels with his entire force."

" So they were captured without a struggle," exclaimed Pirot. " Now people will know from Maillard's own lips whether I had any understanding with him."

" No; Maillard was killed in a duel with Tinceau. As each saw the other about the same time, they drew and fell to fighting furiously, calling each other ' trompeur' and 'traitre' in a way that bespoke deadly personal hatred. Neither handled his sword very well, but both were giants in strength. The soldiers of both sides stopped fighting and crowded around to see the duel.

" Haïtians do not want to fight one another if they can avoid doing so," observed Pirot.

" Maillard was the stronger and he forced the fighting. Tinceau, cautiously retreating, stumbled. Maillard would have run him through, but a shot from the government side broke the rebel's sword-arm. Tinceau's men rushed forward to seize him, when he drew his revolver with his left hand and killed himself."

The group on the porch were excitedly talking over Wiley's report, and Hauffman had even delayed his start for town to hear it.

" Where is Alcide ?" nsked Wiley, as he noticed the serving-boy. Pirot explained.

" I shall go, dear," said Hauffman, turning to his wife. He had repeated, sentence for sentence, the telephone message. He held her hand a moment in a shy, surreptitious way and walked quickly to his horse. Wiley mounted too, and they paced briskly down to the road gate. Mrs. Hauffman went to the telephone and called up the legation. The attach^ happened to be early at his desk and answered in person.

" Please mount at once," she said, " and go to meet the Minister in the Champs de Mars. He has just started down. Don't fail to take the national colors with you. Please let there be no delay."

Through the dreadful night of suspense Alcide had not slept. He had put out his light and watched over the city, expecting at any moment to see the capital burst into flames. He had heard the firing on Chemin Lalue early in the evening and the comments which the gentlemen had made concerning the attack; but the night had been quiet enough, a painful contrast to the storm of questionings which convulsed him. Occasionally an irresponsible shot was fired, and all through the city the wind carried the shrill tones of the " Qui vive?" but there was no exciting incident. It was evident that the government troops had checked the advance of the rebels.

No bitterness of material warfare, however, could approach the moral struggle through which he was passing. If he could only get to Jacmel! He should now be at his post. Any excitement would be welcome, now that he could get no news of Diane. But that should not be his motive, mere thirst for excitement. At the moment of general alarm, his place was at the front to defend the national government. The Minister was right. And Diane would wait for him. Pierre Louis might drive him from his house, but he could not drive him from her heart.

How beautiful she was! And how she clung to him and begged him to kiss her! He would make a home for her. He would convince her of the folly of the priestess quackery. Meissner had called her a jewel and had said that her time was his. She would never forsake the playmate of her childhood for a foreigner! No foreigner could love her as he loved her. Dear Diane! What a child she was! If he could only know what she was doing at Jacmel!

And if he should go to his post he might attract the attention of the President and be promoted. He might have a chance to carry out some of the reforms which he had planned for Haïti. And Papa Pierre would have to admit that he was a true Haïtien. And Diane would love him all the more if she could see him do great things. How he despised these politicians! What a mockery to die fighting for them! "At the moment of the general alarm, your place is at the front to defend the national government." He made a light and wrote u note to tell the Minister his decision.

Diane had looked so pained when Papa Pierre had called him no Haïtien. She must have learned since that he had served in the ranks and that he had gone to prison for doing his duty. He had arranged the Minister's cup and pipe and had left the house noiselessly and was now cautiously making his way down the Turgeau road. If she could see him now actually stealing away to do his duty! They must marry as soon as this trouble should be over. He was so sure of her trust in him. He would not let her deny him. He would kneel at her side and plead with her until she would give up that ouanga for the great love she bore him.

" Qui vive ?" He had stumbled on a new outpost.

" Haïtien!" replied Alcide calmly.

" Au poste !" muttered the sentry. He walked over to the post and saluted the officer in command.

" Where are you going ?" demanded that bundle of decorations.

" I am on my way to my post. It is at the Glacierre," replied Alcide.

" You lie!" said the officer, on general principles.

" If I wanted to escape duty, I should the other way."

" All right," said the officer, convinced by the argument. " Don't go through the city. They are shooting all delinquents on sight."

The warning came at a good moment. It was easy to go off to the right and pass by the Petit Four to make a complete detour of the city. He passed along the road rapidly, for the early-morning air was uncomfortably chill to one who had not slept. His heart was thumping with excitement as at short intervals he heard small volleys in the city.

He was passing the house of an English resident, a frequent visitor at the house of the German Minister. A great British ensign floated lazily over the roof. There he would be safe. Why not enter and remain until after the fighting? If Diane should see him now, hesitating before a foreign flag, she would remember all of Papa Pierre's bitter reproaches.

He hurried past the house, by the Post Marchand, where he was recognized and allowed to pass on, back again through Bel Air road to avoid the built-up portions of the city, and after a short turn by the Hotel de France to the extreme north of the Bord de la Mer near the Post of the Glacierre, where he belonged before the Minister had arranged the registration. A cloud of dust and the noise of the trumpets and drums announced the approach of the President. Officers were shouting their orders and troops were running out to receive the Chief of State. Alcide wanted to join the line which was forming. He ran towards the military post to secure a gun. An officer stopped him.

" Where are you going ?" he demanded.

" To the post to get my gun."

"You lie! You were about to run. You ought to have reported last night."

" You saw the direction in which I was going," answered Alcide hotly.

" Insolent! Go ahead of my horse! You are under arrest."

The President had arrived. He was consulting with the officer in command. Two ragged blacks stood by looking sullenly at the ground.

" Who are they ?" asked the President.

" Two criminals who escaped when the enemy liberated the political prisoners, your Excellency."

" Execute them!"

The condemned were backed to the side of the street and a firing party told off for each.

"Whom have we here?" asked the President as Alcide approached ahead of his captor.

" A vile Haïtien who has learned French to insult his superiors, your Excellency. I stopped him as he was about to desert."

" Execute him!"

The words came to Alcide as though from a great distance. The quick movement of things had benumbed every nerve of sense and action. What had happened ? Would he awaken and find himself safe at the Minister's house?

The preparation for the execution of the two criminals brought him to his senses. They faced the soldiers with a stolid sullenness.

"Fire!"

Alcide was thoroughly awake now. One of the men was apparently dead. The other seemed to be in great pain. He raised himself on his elbow and beckoned for an officer to come and end his agony. A young lieutenant sprang forward and drove his sword into the breast of th'e criminal. He turned to the President and saluted.

" Brav' ga'çon!" murmured the Chief of State.

" It is a brutal outrage! It is violence to every human right!" A terrified silence followed Alcide's ringing protest.

" You speak French, my fine Haïtien," said the President, looking intently at the boy, who was trembling with passion before him. " The patois of your fathers was not good enough for you, you vile deserter!"

"Shoot the deserter!" cried the soldiers, taking their cue from the officers. "Vive le President! Vive la Republique! A bas la Revolution!"

" Execute him!" repeated the President quietly. He started down the street, followed by his troop of aides and cavalry and the infantry from the Palace guard and discords of drums and trumpets.

The eyes of the crowd followed the movements of the President. Alcide saw nothing. One word with Diane before dying! She must not remember him as a deserter. The humiliation was maddening. He must live.

He made a dash for life. The noise of the firing and the ping-ping of the bullets gave him wings. He seemed scarcely to touch the ground as he sped on, the soldiers in full cry. As he reached the Bureau du Port he ran straight on, dodging around the head of Hauffman's horse. He heard his name, but he thought he had been headed off. He recovered his balance and dashed down the long wharf. The troops were on him. He leaped into the water. The foul, sticky mud made underwater swimming impossible. He raised his head for more breath.

How they missed the target! The bullets struck all around him, but not one touched him. Were they really trying to miss him? To die like this! Diane! He was a deserter! Papa Pierre! He must have more breath. He raised his head, escaped another shower of bullets, and rolled over under the water again. How the vile mud stank!

Hauffman was at his heels and leaped from his horse.

" No you don't," cried Wiley, kicking off his shoes. " Undignified for you! My job! You stop the damned firing. I'm off!"

Hauffman wheeled and ordered the soldiers to cease firing. When he returned again towards the water he saw two figures rise to the surface, exchange violent blows, and disappear. He dismounted to join in the rescue, but Wiley's form soon appeared. He was holding the limp body of Alcide and confidently making for the shore.

News travelled slowly from the capital to the south coast, and the regular couriers who brought the routine mails to Jacmel were almost overtaken by the express messengers sent out to announce the defeat of revision and the downfall of the German syndicate. Meissner's disappointment bore down heavily upon him. He had spent a considerable sum of other people's money on the working up of the scheme. He was mixed up with the conspiracies in the capital too, and that relationship might cause his expulsion from the country any day.

He had talked the whole question over with Papa Pierre. The Priest could give him but little explanation. He believed that their scheme had failed because the President had refused to leave the capital. Beyond that he could explain nothing. There had been no hope of success unless Diane had succeeded in drawing the old man away.

If he had come to the dance and the cures, as he had promised Diane to do, revision would now be a fact and Tinceau President of Haïti. Just what had induced Tinceau to run to cover, as he clearly had done, nobody had as yet explained.

"By the way, what about Maillard?" asked Meissner. "If you feel sure of Tinceau's change of front, I trust that Maillard was warned in time."

"Oh, I did not tell you?" purred the Priest. "My memory gets worse and worse as I get older. Just before I left Port au PrinceI I heard that Maillard had raised his own name in the interior and that he proposed to make himself President. Tinceau was about to investigate when I left."

" Odd trick for him to play on our money!" said Meissner. " And you had such confidence in him too."

"Yes, it was, my dear, very odd. I did have confidence. Still, ambition is a canker which breeds on the conscience of men, and that consumed eats on to their destruction. I merely suspend judgment. Tinceau will find out. will determine what course is best to bo pursued with reference to Maillard."

Meissner had not mentioned the matter again to the Priest. He was a good loser, and there was little change in his demeanor. He apparently enjoyed the various entertainments prepared in his honor; and if he could have been persuaded to get out of his martyr mood, he would have admitted that he had entered into them with his accustomed vim. With his intimate friends he had entered upon a course of dissipation but little short of luxurious. All of this gayety centred on Diane. It was she who did the entertaining, and it was she who made the punches. She had indeed been an apt pupil. Her unusual beauty and her quick wit, her taste in selecting her gowns and her stylo of wearing them, were the admiration of the foreign colony. This appealed to the vanity of Meissner and excited the envy of the native girls of Jacmel.

So the time had passed with him while he awaited the arrival of the Dutch steamer from Curagoa. He was impatient to get back to Port au Prince to have an explanation from Tinceau. His engagements would not permit him to gain time by going overland, even if he had not been too lazy to make the trip in the saddle. He did not expect that skilful politician to commit himself to writing. The bachelor dinner was to be the last of the entertainments, and he had looked forward to it with most pleasurable anticipation. The announcement of the death of the President's son caused a postponement until after the day fixed for the funeral; but it was not a thing to be missed, and he was glad that all insisted upon having it.

Knowing that the greater part of the afternoon would be devoted to preparations for the feast, Meissner decided not to remain at the house after the early breakfast. He bade his friends not to expect him at noon, as he had another engagement. He spent the entire day with Diane. Since the news of the defeat of the revision had been communicated to her by Papa Pierre there had been a great change in the girl. Her moods of wistfulness and abstraction did not come to her. She was as light-hearted as a child and delighted with everything.

He remarked the change, but he did not take the trouble to analyze the cause of it. He was inwardly dejected and continually bored with the necessity of appearing indifferent. It was enough that Diane asked no questions, that she was always cheerful and bright and glad on seeing him. She was his salvation in these days, he often remarked to to himself. This morning on his arrival, after the early breakfast, she was absorbed in her work upon a filmy silk which she had decided to wear in her dance at the bachelors' banquet. He was not permitted to examine it. At every approach he was driven away with an exaggerated cry of alarm. He understood that he was to let her alone, that he was to know nothing about it, and that when it should be spread before him he was to make a great show of surprise and admiration.

So he idled away the morning, reading magazines which he had sent up from Koffel's, talking with Diane,—always at a respectful distance from the gown,—smoking, and otherwise doing his utmost to get away from the persistent burden of his own thoughts. The defeat of his project, he thought, meant years more of this hell of waiting. He could not content himself, as his friends seemed to content themselves, setting aside a few thousand marks a year squeezed out in the handling of coffee and drafts. Yet wait he must, or return to the drudgery of a desk in Hamburg. This he would never do! He must wait, that was all, and Papa Pierre said that only gods know how to wait; and in waiting he must make himself as comfortable as possible. He looked into the adjoining room of the cabin. Diane was still bending over her finery, as busy as a child with a new toy.

His reflections and his struggle to get away from them were interrupted by the call to the mid-day breakfast. His own boy had prepared it, and Diane had already acquired the art of presiding at a meal. Only a few weeks before he had taught her her forks; and now he watched her admiringly as she directed the boy, whom he had trained thoroughly. He marvelled at the adaptability of the woman, the ease with which she made it all natural to her. At that rude table, in the unfinished cabin, the arrangement of linen and silver and glass was all that could be required by even his fastidious taste.

He slept after breakfast, as was his custom, and on awakening he found the fluff of silk ready for his admiring comment. He was dutiful in his enthusiasm, and he did not tell her that he found more keen enjoyment in her own manifestation of delight than he did in the thing itself. He had only an hour or so to spare before returning, and he passed most of the time planning with her for the return to Port au Prince.

" I have fixed my mind on a house of my own," she said. " You must build it for me. It must be near Papa Pierre. Papa Pierre has plenty of land, and he will give me enough for a house and a garden."

Meissner consented with an indulgent smile. He was in for a long wait, and he might as well do the thing thoroughly, he thought. The little money which he would spend for the house and its furniture, some good wines, and other liquors would be saved, for he would spend less time at the club gambling, and less in what was at least his ostensible residence in Port au Prince, where he was a lavish entertainer. It did not require a moment's thought to calculate the real economy of the project.

And so they arranged it all—rather she did the arranging. She was to have her little house—all her own i And he was to spend much of his time there. And when he was not there, she would have Papa Pierre for company. And she would fill the house with pretty things. She must have a brass bedstead and a long mirror like Mrs. Hauffman's. And he would bring his friends and they would have good times. He looked at his watch. He had actually killed off two hours listening to the ecstasies of her charming prattle.

" Well, I must go, mon chérie," he said, rising. " Be ready when the boy comes for you. You can put on your new dancing-dress here and come just so in the carriage. Throw a warm shawl around you. The boy will come early. You must hide, you know. He will serve you your dinner and all the champagne you want—I know your capacity for that! When the drums begin, you wait for him, as I will give him the signal. Don't forget!" She was too eager for the fun with the foreigners to forget.

He hurried over to Koffel's to dress for the frolic. His friends were still busy with the decorations. Growing palms, young cocoanuts, and luxuriant little cocomacaques had been set around in a charmingly promiscuous way; and screens of varying greens had been put at windows and doors to permit free movement of air while giving a sense of privacy as well. The large centre lamp of the room had been draped with slender vines. The table had been set at one side of the large room near the rear balcony for the convenience of service. The side table, on which extra silver and china had been placed, was out on the balcony and out of sight of those seated at the table. A little chandelier of beaten iron with spreading branches, exquisitely wrought, holding oval lamps of polished brass, had been suspended over the middle of tin-table. From the centre of this was suspended a portrait of the German Emperor. Koffel was at work balancing two swords to complete the decoration.

Meissner had been walking around expressing his pleasure over everything, but the two swords balanced under the portrait of the Emperor particularly caught his fancy. The chandelier was strikingly favorable for the effect which Koffel had sought and secured. Meissner watched him as he worked the wire with skilful fingers, balancing the two swords, one of ancient French pattern and the other Koffel's own, which had seen active service. He gave the finishing touches and then made a running border of small ferns around the table.

" That is fine, Koffel!" exclaimed Meissner. " Where did you get the idea ?"

" I don't know," said Koffel, smiling appreciatively. " We raked up everything at hand for decoration, and I stumbled over these two swords."

" Of course, I know yours, and you have reason to be proud of it, old man!" said Meissner heartily; "but this old one interests me curiously." He examined it closely, fearing to touch it. The wires were practically invisible, and the weapons seemed to be balanced in air. The others, attracted by Meissner's comments, came to look at the work.

" Yes, I bought that old sword from an old coffee-buyer here in the mountains. Do you know that some the poorest of the country people preserve very interesting things, handed down from the days of the French? And they guard sacredly these heirlooms as a rule— from their ' gran'-gran,' as they say."

" By the way, that reminds me that I have a curiosity," exclaimed" Meissner. " It came to me recently, and I have not examined it thoroughly. I'll bring it out."

He returned from his room with the dagger which the mother of the rescued child had forced upon him. The handle was apparently silver, oxidized nearly black by age. It fitted snugly to the grasp of the hand, and it was so heavy that it must have been loaded with lead. While time had been permitted to work its mark on the handle, there had been no neglect of the blade. It was a long, slender bodkin of the poignard type, a firm yet flexible body glancing off to almost a needle-point, a thing of grace with all its suggestions of possible kinetic deadliness. The men were all fascinated by the vicious little weapon, and they urged him to leave it in front of his plate that he might show it to the guests of the evening.

They had changed their original plan and had invited a few men who had been attentive to Meissner during his stay, and Koffel had but little time to jump into his evening suit and receive them. Meissner took his time, and from the seclusion of his room he listened to the bright talk of men who seemed actually contented in this isolation. Besides, he had had a heavy Burgundy at breakfast, the mid-day meal which is really a luncheon, and he was glad to escape the cocktails which were repeated with every new arrival. They were all in for a good time —that was evident. And they had spared no pains to make everything nice. Well, he would have them in Port au Prince some day and get even with them.

It was quite eight o'clock when they sat down to dinner, a fine company, fresh-skinned, clear-eyed, bearing all the marks of vigorous young manhood. The effective arrangement of the lights, the tasteful decorations of the room, and the dainty setting of the table were in perfect keeping with the correct evening dress of every man present. The soup was served as they sat down, a clear consomm6 accompanied by a Château Yquem reserved for special occasions. The beginning of the meal was marked by the touches of formality which nearly all young Germans bring with them from the army. Koffel raised his glass to the level of his chin, and sat bolt upright and looked around the table. Every other man sat bolt upright, raised his glass, and looked over its edge at Koffel. Then Koffel turned to Meissner, the guest of the evening. It was a nice, deferential bow with which the host greeted his friend, though a bit stiff, and every other man jerked his head forward in a cordial nod of welcome and sipped from his glass. Thus was the dinner begun, and its manner of starting indicated that there were to be no speeches.

With a magnificent red snapper came the German white wine. The course was not quite served when Koffel arose: "Gentlemen, to the Emperor!" he said quietly.

" To the Emperor!" came the hearty response, and every man stood to drink the toast. Koffel went to the piano, ran off a little prelude, and the entire company took up the Emperor's hymn: " Heil Dir im Sicgerkranz, Herrscher dcs Vaterlands, Heil, Kaiser, Dir!"

The choral which the patriotic hymns of three nations have made familiar around the world was sung with deep feeling, and the effect of the trained voices attracted an audience from the street. With tropical freedom and assurance they grouped themselves at the head of the stairs, entering the balcony to enjoy the merrymaking of the foreigners and to share the feast later on. The courses seemed to them like so many independent meals, for after each the foreigners lighted their cigarettes and sang and even left the table to group themselves around the piano. Instinctively they sang the songs of their youth, the Volkslieder which have done more to make the German nation than laws or courts. As the dinner progressed, however, the moods changed, until drinking-songs, and patriotic choruses were sung in seemingly exhaustless repertory. They had just done " Im kühlen Keller sitz ich hier," when Meissner's boy entered and deferentially awaited the chance to speak with his employer.

" Diane is impatient," he said, when Meissner joined him. " She says she has eaten and drunk enough and that she is tired of being alone."

"When comes the Haïtien course?" cried Meissner.

" It is the next," said Koffel, " and they are bringing it in."

And the company resumed their places, while the gaping Haïtiens marvelled that the foreigners could eat and drink so much.

Meissner arose and started the song: " Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?"

There was a rollicking effect in their singing of the several verses with the refrain: "Oh nein! Oh nein! Oh nein!

Sein Vaterland muss gr Ssser sein!"

But when they came to the last verses they seemed to sober themselves and to steady themselves for the solemn invocation: " Das ganze Deutschland soil es sein.

Oh Oott vom Himmel steh^Threin, Und gieb uns cchten deutschen Muth, Dass wir es lieben treu und gut!

Das soli es sein! Das soli es sein!

Das ganze Deutschland soil es sein!"

" The Gros Bouillon!" cried Koffel, pointing to the Haïtien dishes for which they were waiting. This course was evidently the Haïtien feature of the evening. Knives, forks, and large spoons were passed and deep soup-plates piled at the head of the table. Chicken and goat and plantains and sweet potatoes were skilfully portioned out by Koffel, and a waiter started around the table with an immense dish of " the national," rice and red beans, the rice garnished off with minute purple mushrooms much prized throughout the Republic. ' As they now began the course, skilfully using knife, fork, and spoon, decanters of native white rum were passed around and an orchestra of Haïtien drums, hidden somewhere in the palms, started up the rhythmical invitation to the dance.

The white rum was not slow in manifesting its power. Before the course had well begun, the entire party were passing from exhilaration to a noisier stage. Meissner asked permission to be master of ceremonies at this point, as he wanted to contribute his part of the entertainment. Evidently the servants had been coached privately by Meissner, for at a signal from him they began putting out the lights. The low mumble of the drums continued, and the guests watched with amused curiosity as they sipped their tafia.

The room was dark except for one lamp, which was left burning in the chandelier over the table, and for the large lamp in the centre of the room, which was draped to throw a brightly illuminated spot on the floor beneath it.

The spectators on the balcony joined the party at the table in applauding Diane as she floated out of one of the side rooms to the rhythm of the drums. Her arms were raised in graceful posings as she performed a sort of gyromancy back in the shadow. She made the circle of her movements smaller and smaller until it became a merely pivotal movement, the entire body supported by the toes. The men applauded frantically as she continued this movement back in the shadow, sustaining the strain with an easy grace, fairly swirling around, her arms extended, her body in perfect poise. And as the applause reached its height, she made a quick run, still on her toes, down from the shadow into the bright projection under the centre lamp, and stopped with a sweeping courtesy to the men at the table.

Koffel stepped to the centre of the room and led her to the table. The men had all become acquainted with her during her stay in Jacmel, and they crowded around her chair to compliment her. Champagne was thrust upon her from all sides. One toast after another was proposed, her grace, her gown, her beauty—anything, everything, so long as it served to require more drinking. And though in the adjoining room she had followed the changes of wines, she drank every toast with a gaillardise befitting the occasion.

All were now in the mood for an orgie, and Diane herself was the one to give the cue for throwing off all restraint. She left her chair and went over to Meissner, throwing her arm around him as she lighted a cigarette. He drew her down towards him, and she sat on his knee nonchalantly smoking and chatting. Wine was not wanting, and presently Meissner continued his part of the entertainment by starting a patois song. The foreigner sang the thing with gusto, but not naturally. His accent and the really musical quality of his voice made the effect artificial. She made up all for him, however, taking up the refrain after each line with voice, gesture, and facial expression. She sat on the foreigner's knee as she sang and she looked into his face with the irresponsible leer of partial drunkenness.

Meissner watched her curiously as he followed her lead with the song. He had never before seen her so affected by wine, and it was with a twinge of conscience, even in his own exhilarated condition, that he remarked how undefiled she was. In spite of the pace which he had led her, she was still the same simple child of nature. How long could she stay so under his influence? It was only a passing twinge, however, though disgusting enough while it lasted. He was soon carried away in the swirl of sense which carried all, even the street audience on the balcony, along with the swing of the song.

The excitement grew. The musicians swayed their bodies to the movements as they bent over their drums. The men were swaying and singing. The native on-lookers were swaying in sheer physical sympathy. And Diane, her arms loosely curved forward, was swaying with a sensuous grace that was the permeation of the spirit possessing them all.

She leaped from Meissner's knee as if she could restrain herself no longer. The drummers caught her feeling, and their music graded itself down to a softly modulated rhythm. They were all under the spell of her physical sympathy and her marvellous grace. She was drunk with the consciousness of her power. She abandoned herself to the feeling, and just back of the centre lamp in the dark shadow began the body-dance of the country revels. There was no perceptible motion below the hips. Ease and power were eloquent in their expression. The place was silent except for the low, voluptuous rumble of the drums. She was moving forward. There seemed to be no movement of her feet, yet she was appealing in the light with a curious gliding. The men were straining forward in their chairs, held by the apparition, so ethereal in its drapery, in its motion without movement, so carnal in its suggestiveness to them.

Because it was so suggestive to the men Meissner found himself gradually growing more disgusted with himself. He knew what was carrying away the girl, and he knew what the men did not know, what, in his vanity, he had withheld from them. As he watched her, his mind went back to the hill-side beside the smouldering hut. The same helpless, guilty feeling came over him. Again he looked out at the little French steamer riding at anchor at the foot of the hill. She had said that no other man could offer her wines and gay nights. They would not be the same without him.

She was still gliding towards him. God, that half-drunken leer! Yet how clean she was, the simple child of nature! But his friends did not see her so. It was he who had brought her to this, and she was clinging to it because it was a part of him.

The reflection sobered him. He would redeem himself as best he could, redeem her as best he could. Here before his friends he would confess his crime. He would lead her away from the debauch into which he had led her.

Firm in his resolve, he turned his chair to rise, to go to her, and before his friends to do his duty by her.

" The devil of it all is that it was the President whom he insulted before that crowd !" Hauffman was very serious as he talked over with Pirot the encounter of Alcide and the President. Wiley had been an hour in the bath. Alcide had scrubbed himself and gone to bed. " I cannot protect him here. What could I say to the President? The boy told the truth. He would not apologize even if I should ask him to do so. Now, Pirot, help me out. What can I do? I must decide at once." " Yes, all Port au Prince is talking about the incident, you may be sure of that. And the rescue identifies him with you. For some reason or other Tinceau is determined to persecute Alcide. Could you not see the President, bring up the incident, and let your course be governed by the drift of the conversation ?"

"No, I have thought of that," said Hauffman, inwardly amused that Pirot knew his method so well. He had often followed that plan with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. " If I see him, the burden of the explanation would have to be of the nature of an apology. That I will not make. I could speak for Alcide and for myself. I might say that he is young, that he is pursuing his studies, that he is still in the visionary stage, and that he docs not see all things clearly. I might even go so far as to say that the President's method of striking terror throughout the community is probably the only way he can govern Haïti now, that the two or three hundred deaths of to-day probably obviate the necessity for two or three thousand to-morrow. I might say all that, but that would not be an apology. I cannot see my way out of it."

Just then Wiley joined them. He looked bright and cool in fresh linen and flannels, but he was still intently working away at his fingernails.

" Did you get it all off?" asked Pirot, laughing.

" Yes, and half of my skin with it," exclaimed Wiley. " Of all the foul mud ! If I had known, I would have gone feet first. But I dived! Ugh! It must have taken quite ten seconds to get my head clear of the stuff. Then when I tried to look around under the water I was blind." "How did you manage to find him?" asked Pirot, for this was the first chance to talk that had presented itself.

" Well, I stuck my head out for air. He did the same. We were side by side. I had judged my distance right enough. But he had rolled over to dodge the bullets. As he saw me coming he grabbed me by the throat and began to pommel me. I thought he was crazed, and I jammed his head under water a half-minute to weaken him a bit.

That boy is as strong as a bull. On the way up in the carriage he explained that he thought I was one of the soldiers. The truth is that I was as black as he, I guess."

" It was a fine rescue, however disagreeable the mud," said Pirot heartily. " I envy you that you have been able to do something. I, who ought to have been one of the most active down there, have had to chafe here holding my hands. The boy was right. If it were not for the violence, if we had law here, I would have had a chance to do my duty. I should have liked to see the old man when Alcide poked that hard truth down his throat."

" I'll bet he looked the same sphynx carved out of anthracite," said Wiley; " but he was doing some tall thinking, you may depend on that I'll bet he will not sleep until he does something about it What are you going to do, Minister?"

" I don't know," said Hauffman gravely; " there are some things which a diplomatic agent cannot do."

"Get wet and black with mud before a crowd, for instance, and look dignified though bedraggled. I couldn't stand that thought That's why I took the dip. Gad ! I can taste the stuff yet 1"

"You see," said Hauffman very seriously as he continued expressing the thoughts that troubled him, " you see I cannot intervene for a Haïtien citizen who has grossly insulted or at least gravely attacked the head of this government. As yet, of course, I have no official knowledge of the incident and so have time to think. I can see no way of avoiding compliance when they ask me to deliver him over for punishment."

Wiley took no further part in the conversation, and presently he went off to his room. He did not remain long, however. He stole upstairs to Alcide's room and found the young man well scrubbed and resting.

" Well, my chased patriot, how do you feel?" asked Wiley.

" All right,—a bit unstrung, but all right," replied Alcide cheerily. " You are in a bad fix," said Wiley. " You must get out of it, and the Minister must not know anything about your movements."

" Yes, he is seriously compromised," said Alcide sadly. " I feel I owe it to him to give myself up."

" Don't be an ass!" exclaimed Wiley. " You have added a yard to your ears already this morning. Do you know the road to Jacmel? Does the German Consul there know you?"

" Oh, yes," said Alcide, " his name is Koffel. He knows me well. Besides, I have my paper from the legation which identifies me. It has the visa of the Foreign Office here and takes me everywhere." "Good. Can you get on the road without passing through the city?"

" Yes, I can work my way around to the south over the hill-side and . come out below the Bisoton."

" Good! Now you must describe a safe place where I may meet you and tell me how long it will take you to reach it afoot." So they hurriedly planned their meeting. They were to have no words. On the approach of Alcide, Wiley was to start back to the city afoot. Alcide would mount his horse and get off.

" Here are ten twenty-dollar pieces," said Wiley. " The money will see you through to New York and support you for a while. Get the German Consul to secure you a transport as a Dominican or as any old thing. Get on board either the Royal Mail for Jamaica or the Dutch steamer for New York. If you pass here on the Dutchman, keep in your cabin while in port—deadly sick, you know. It may be that I will join you here. If not, use this card on your arrival in New York and you will not want for anything until I get up. Then I'll look out for you and get you off to the German school you are so crazy about" Wiley wrote on one of his cards: "Dear Taylor: Spread on bearer's story. You may believe every word he says. Scareheads for a week. Thanks for complimentary telegram. Copy goes.

" WlLEY."

" Of course, if I meet you on board, you will not send it. Not at all! Swap the story for the service. Good-by, dear boy! Not another word until we meet in New York or on board ship. Good-luck!"

Alcide wrung his friend's hand and immediately began his preparations. Wiley joined the party on the porch, where the ladies were waiting to hail him as the hero of the day. He laughingly complied with their demand that he tell them all about the rescue. He protested that it was only the making of a story, and remained on the porch long enough not to appear lacking in appreciation of their approval. He asked for his horse and started for the city.

Alcide had calculated that by hard riding he could be safe in Jacmel by dark. Fort Bisoton lay before him, a little fortress built three or four hundred feet above the sea level. No trouble was expected from the south, and the fort, as seen from the road, seemed deserted. He did not try to bring himself to realize that he was fleeing from home to a strange country. His heart was in Jacmel. Diane was there.

Little houses began to show themselves along the trail and small patches of coffee, legacies from the days when the French had such a grand cultivation throughout this district. He passed several men and women on foot and overtook quite a party on donkeys. None of them knew him, and he joined them to kill the time into Jacmel.

"We ought to be in town in an hour," he remarked for want of something more informing to say.

" In town ? We are not going to town," replied one. " We are going to the dance. It is right off this road and only a half-hour from here." "The dance?" exclaimed Alcide. In the instant his whole being was possessed of Diane.

" Yes, Papa Pierre himself is here and he has done great things. Why, my brother had a big swelling in his neck and Papa Pierre gave him nothing but a blue grease to rub on his legs. Think of curing the neck by rubbing the legs! But brother is better already. Then he has a Priestess with him, Maman Diane. She is beautiful, and she has a devotion so that nothing can kill her. The devotion is so powerful that it makes her stronger than the strongest man."

Every word struck deep. So, after all, Diane had gone in for the quackery! And she had done it as she did everything, thoroughly. She had even taken advantage of her phenomenal strength to delude these poor people. He groaned inwardly as the others took up the conversation and told of the marvellous things she had done. The familiar yearning to lead her out of it seized him again. He would go to her. He would see her in her role of priestess. He would take her aside and expose to her her own charlatanism. He would open her own eyes and awaken her from her own self-deception.

He would rebuke her with the severity born of rational fondness. He would plead with her. She would not resent it. She loved him. He no longer heard the talk of his companions. He pressed his horse forward and they changed place with him. What though Papa Pierre should interfere! He would talk boldly to him and tell her to make her choice. She would not prefer Papa Pierre! He smiled confidently at the thought. Again he saw her sad, strained face as the old fraud had hurled him curses. The old wretch! Dear Diane!

" And Maman is not like the others," said a woman who rode over in order to address him directly. " She will not take money nor anything else until we tell her that her cure is good. My little Henriette had such pains that she cried every night and could not sleep. I took my best goat, a beautiful goat that gives two bottles of milk every day, and I offered it as a promise to the Serpent if she would cure Henriette. She told me to take the goat home and bring the child. I took Henriette, and she gave Henriette a little white pill and Henriette fell asleep in her arms. And she gives me a pill every night to give Henriette the next night. And I give "her the pill and she has no pain and she sleeps. And to-mdrrow night I am going to tell her that her cure is good and I am going to take her the goat"

They approached the enclosure. Alcide had seen the celebration often and he had no difficulty in entering. He knew no password, but the word of one passed all. The drums lay idly at one side of the enclosure and the little booths had not begun business. A large Depressed with the thought that he must wait to see Diane, Alcide at once mounted and started for the Jacmel road. Alone in the woods, he became conscious of the excitement with which he had awaited seeing her. It was too late to hope to see her that night, and he would be in hiding during the day. He made a few more fordings of the serpentine Oranger and skated down the hill-side into the town of Jacmel. Two or three sentinels stopped him, but they passed him as the messenger of the German " Consit." Everybody knew Koffel as the German Consul and liked him. Though only a commercial agent for the consulate-general at Port au Prince, he had a way of making the consulate known and respected.

He found Koffel's house, usually ablaze with lights, almost in darkness. There was no sound from within except the low murmur of native drums. He cautiously made his way to the rear stairway. At the top he stumbled into the group of native loiterers, who recognized him as one of themselves. He took in the scene at a glance. It was a dinner-party, and a woman was dancing.

In order to see well he arose and stood by the little side table. Back in the shadow he saw a tall woman in a loose, soft gown dancing with marvellous grace. The figure reminded him of Diane. It could not be Diane! It must be Diane! There was Meissner, easily recognized, though his back was turned. It must be Diane!

As she approached the half-light his heart stood still in dread of the impending confirmation of his fears. It was her face, He had never seen it relax under the spell of alcohol.

The dead silence of the place, except the deep, low rumble of the drums, intensified the magic in which that woman held them all. It was Diane! He could deny it no longer. Meissner was right. She might go to the cures, but the rest of her time was his! She had fallen to this!

In their excitement the Haïtien on-lookers rose to their feet. Alcide was standing too, transfixed, hugging to his breast his death-stricken husband-love. She was coming, coming towards him. She was on the edge of the spot of light. She was in it, the marvel of suggestive undulation, holding everybody to absolute silence. He could number of sick and lame had assembled; and the tinkling of the bell within the shrine and the incantations of Papa Pierre told him that they were making the cures. He stood at the side of the enclosure, holding his bridle and nervously trying to decide what he should next do. One of his companions of the road, the mother of little Henriette, came to him.

" She is not here," she said in a tone of disappointment. " She stayed in Jacmel to-night. She will make the last cures to-morrow night."

see her distinctly now. Her head thrown back, her eyes drooping, her lips apart, her pure mouth a lingering smile of passionate invitation.

Alcide seized a carving-knife which lay on the side table near him and took an excited step forward. There he stood irresolute, fascinated by the horrible ghost of his love. A servant grasped his hand. That decided him. He threw the man violently from him.

Meissner was about to rise from the table. As he turned his chair he heard the noise and looked towards Alcide. In the faint light on the balcony he saw the boy, his face, the knife. He knew. Instinctively he readied for something with which to defend himself.

He grasped the ancient stiletto and rose from his chair. He stumbled slightly over it. Before he could recover, Alcide had silently darted forward and was upon him.

But his murderous blow did not fall upon Meissner. Diane had rushed forward, and the ugly blade in Alcide's hand was buried in her shoulder as, with power and precision, she swung Meissner out of reach.

In his fury the boy leaped over her falling body to resume his attack. He was promptly seized and held by the guests, while Koffel knelt beside the unconscious woman and examined the wound.

" It was an ugly cut," he said finally, " but it does not extend beyond the muscles of the shoulder and back. My God ! It is Alcide !"

On rising he had recognized the Minister's favorite for the first time. Meissner was busily at work reducing the hemorrhage from the wound while waiting the coming of the doctor. He had recognized Alcide and he would have killed him in self-defence. But now his whole heart went out to the boy, who, firmly held as he was, stood with every muscle quivering deadly hatred.

" I am sorry, my boy. This is bad work that you have done," said Koffel. "It is my duty to hand you over to the police. Have you despatches from the Minister?" Alcide did not reply. He merely regarded the entire group with sullen defiance.

The doctor came. His orders were that Diane should not be removed from the house. He confirmed Koffel's diagnosis. Tenderly she was lifted and carried to a room, where the doctor was left alone with her.

" You must not arrest Alcide, Koffel," said Meissner on returning from Diane's bedside. ."Nor may your guests leave until I tell you a story. It is a story of the beautiful devotion of a pure woman. And I want to get on my knees and beg that boy to believe me while I confess myself the infernal villain that I am."

The day after the battle and the death of Maillard all Port au Prince was in holiday dress. Tinceau's return in the afternoon was a triumphal entry. The Palace had been thronged with citizens profuse in their felicitations over the victory and the restoration of order. The President had been unsparing in his praise of his brilliant Secretary of War, and the community made the satisfying inference that there was an end to present intrigue.

In addressing the crowd the President was brief. He formally announced the suppression of the insurrection and the suicide of its leader. He assured his hearers that the policy of the administration would be free from any suggestion of the spirit of retaliation, that even ex-Minister Pirot, who had sought asylum at the critical moment, would be accorded safe escort on board the first steamer sailing for Jamaica.

Hauffman waited his opportunity to draw the President aside in order to thank him for his clemency to Pirot.

" I did think of your friendship for him," said the President, " but I owe it to you to say that I would have let him go had he been friendless. I know all about this affair now; but Pirot must leave the country innocent while I draw the guilty closer to me. This is to you and to you only, Hauffman," he concluded, as he grasped the German's hand cordially. Hauffman thanked him and started to go.

" Don't go yet," said the President. " I want to tell you about Alcide."

" I have not the remotest idea where he is," said Hauffman with embarrassment " I know that you have not. They have kept the secret from you. That American reporter helped him out of the city and he took the road for Jacmel. Send for him. I want to know that boy. I like him. I will want him near me soon if you will let him come." Hauffman could only look his gratitude as he grasped his hand and turned away to marvel again at the strangeness of the character which all Haïti dreaded as the Chief of State.

The last of the voluble congratulators had gone. The smart breeze from the sea brought rest after the terrible work of the day. The President and War Minister sat near the balcony, facing the breeze and the glory of the setting sun in sea and cloud. The President sat silently looking out, and presently he turned to Tinceau with his quiet, wistful smile. He said: " Eh, bien, mon fils! nous sommes deux negres, n'est ce pas ?"

Hauffman had come over the mountain from Port au Prince as fast as his horse could bring him, and it was he who had dissipated the shadowy doubts which had lingered with Alcide in spite of Meissner's explanation.

Alcide and Diane were the theme for Jacmel during the three weeks which she spent in the Koffel house. The boy's protest in the face of the President and the clemency which had been extended him unsought aroused public curiosity for a look at him; but he did not leave the home of the Consul. He had been a devoted nurse, and his patient had promptly responded to the treatment directed by the skilful Haïtien surgeon of the town.

One day he sat by the side of her bed reading as she lay sleeping, drinking in the tonic breeze from the sea. She awoke slowly, and she reached out her hand for his, her smile speaking her confidence that he was there. ' " The doctor has been here, Diane," he said, returning her caressing hand-clasp. " He says that we may start for Port au Prince by the French steamer to-morrow. Meissner went by the last Dutch boat. You were too weak and I could not telllyou. He explained everything to me. You are a fine, strong woman, Diane."

She smiled in a contented way, and then they suddenly started. Hauffman's voice was ringing through the house as he pounded up the stairs, his jangling spurs punctuating every sentence.

" I have been off to see the woman whose child you rescued, Diane," he cried admiringly on entering the room. And reaching forth a boot for Alcide, who bent to remove the beaming German's spurs, he added to the boy,— " And I tell you, sir, you are getting a fine, strong woman!"

" I was just telling her so," said Alcide, radiant, " and in precisely the same words."

And as he set Hauffman's big pipe on the table and turned to take the inevitable mug of beer from the servant, who had soon learned the penalty of delay in extending this attention, Diane looked out through the open door-way, over the quiet green harbor, out to the leaping, glistening southern sea. The French steamer, now on her return trip to Port au Prince, lay riding at anchor. The little vessel was now bright and clear in the glint of the setting sun, and she was bound for home.