on his soul when Fate itself was claiming him? It would
be murder now, not righteous execution!

Moreover, he had another task to execute ere it was too late.

"Wretch," he exclaimed, "die as you are--find hell at last without my
intervention! Yet, if you value a few more minutes of existence, gain
them thus. Tell me, ere you go, where you have hidden my child--what
done with----"

Before he could finish there came another roar from an exploding
transport, the sound of beams and spars falling in the water round; a
darkness over the cabin produced by the volumes of smoke; the screams
of wounded and burnt Frenchmen hurled into the sea; the loud huzzas
and yells of the British sailors. Then, as that roar and shock died
away, there rose in the air another sound--a paean of triumph that must
have reached the ears of those on shore as it also reached the ears of
those two men face to face in that cabin. From hundreds of throats it
pealed forth, rising over all else--crackling wood, guns firing, the
swish of oars, orders bawled, and shrieks of dead and dying.

It was the English sailors singing Henry Carey's song, almost new
then, now known over all the world:

"God save our gracious king!
Long live our noble king!
God save the king!"

"Answer," St. Georges cried, "ere your master, the devil, gets you!
ere I send you to him before even he requires you!"

The man had sunk down upon a locker outside the bunk, his two hands
flattened out upon the lid, his face turned up in agony. From either
side of his mouth there trickled down a small streak of blood looking
like the horns of the new moon; the lips were drawn back from the
teeth, as though in agony unspeakable. And did he grin mockingly in
this his hour--or was it the pangs of approaching death that caused
the grin?

Then he gasped forth:

"You are deceived. The woman who stole--your child--was Aurelie----"

"What!" from St. Georges.

"Aided by--servant--Gaston. Her--servant--not mine----"

"My God!" In that moment there came back to him a memory. The lad,
Gaston, had his arm in a sling the morning he learned the child was
missing; the woman, who lived in the hut and saw the child taken from
Pierre, had said, "His arm hung straight by his side, as though stiff
with pain."

Had he found the truth at last?

"Go on," he said.

"The bishop's man--had--got it safe. Aurelie and Gaston--caught--slew
him--took the child. She--knew--your birth--and