ships. But it is dirty work
crossing the sea; and there is always danger of falling into the hands
of pirates. Are you determined?"

I looked him in the eyes, and said I was; thanking him for all his
goodness to one who had so little expectation of requiting him. The
sweet heartiness of an older man so far beyond myself in princely
attainments and world knowledge, who could stoop to such a raw savage,
took me by storm.

I asked him if he had any idea who the idiot was that we had seen in
Bellenger's camp. He shook his head, replying that idiots were
plentiful, and the people who had them were sometimes glad to get rid of
them.

"The dauphin clue has been very cleverly managed by--Bellenger, let us
say," Louis Philippe remarked. "If you had not appeared, I should not
now believe there is a dauphin."

I wanted to tell him all the thoughts tossing in my mind; but silence is
sometimes better than open speech. Facing adventure, I remembered that I
had never known the want of food for any length of time during my
conscious life. And I had a suspicion the soft life at De Chaumont's had
unstrung me for what was before me. But it lasted scarce a year, and I
was built for hardship.

He turned to his table to write the ship-master's letter. Behold, there
lay a book I knew so well that I exclaimed----

"Where did you get my missal?"

"Your missal, Lazarre? This is mine."

I turned the leaves, and looked at the back. It was a continuation of
the prayers of the church. There were blank leaves for the inscribing of
prayers, and one was written out in a good bold hand.

"His Majesty Louis XVI composed and wrote that prayer himself," said
Louis Philippe. "The comfort-loving priests had a fashion of dividing
the missal into three or four parts, that a volume might not be so heavy
to carry about in their pockets. This is the second volume. It was
picked up in the Tuileries after that palace was sacked."

I told him mine must be the preceding volume, because I did not know
there was any continuation. The prayers of the church had not been my
study.

"Where did you get yours, Lazarre?"

"Madame de Ferrier gave it to me. When I saw it I remembered, as if my
head were split open to show the picture, that my mother had read from
that very book to me. I cannot explain it, but so it was."

"I am not surprised she believes, against Bellenger's evidence, that you
are Louis of France."

"I will bring my book and show it to you."