on that rascal, Raphael Llorient!"

And so, with these excellent intentions he turned his face resolutely to
the south--a determination which completely threw his pursuers off the
scent. For it was a natural axiom in Spanish Roussillon, that whosoever
embroiled himself with the powers-that-were in that province made
instantly, by sea or by land, for the nearest French border.

Thus was John d'Albret saved by the Bourbon blood of his mother, or by
his own native cross-grained temper. In short, he sulked. And for the
time being, the sulking saved his neck.

CHAPTER XL.

THE MAS OF THE MOUNTAIN

It was a day of "mistral" in the valley of the Rhone--high, brave,
triumphant mistral, the wind of God sent to sweep out the foul odours of
little tightly-packed towns with tortuous streets, to dry the good rich
earth after the rain, and to call forth the corn from the corn-land, the
grapes from the ranged vines, and to prove for the thousandth time the
strength and endurance of the misty, dusty, grey-blue olive trees, that
streamed away from the north-east like a faint-blown river of smoke.

A brave day it was for those who loved such days--of whom was not Claire
Agnew--certainly a brave day for the whirling wheels, the vast
bird-pinions of Jean-Marie's new windmills on the mountain of
Barbentane.

Jean-Marie found his abode to his taste. At first he had installed
Claire with a decent Provencal couple at the famous cross-roads called
in folk-speech "Le Long le Chemin," till he should find some
resting-place other than the ground-floor of the creaking and straining
monsters where he himself spread his mattress, and slept, bearded and
night-capped, among his rich farina dust and the pell-mell of bags of
corn yet to be ground.

By the time, however, that Madame Amelie with Professor Anatole was able
to reach France (thanks to the care of the good Bishop of Elne, and the
benevolence of the more secular powers set in motion by the Viceroy of
Catalonia), a new Mas had been bought. The gold laid carefully up with
Pereira, the honest Hebrew of Bayonne, had been paid out, and the
scattered wanderers had once more a home, secure and apart, in the
fairest and quietest province of France.

Nay more, though the way was long, the cattle-tracks across the lower
Canigou were so well known and so constantly followed, that
Jean-aux-Choux had been able to bring forward the most part of Dame
Amelie's bestial. Even her beloved goat