st except the general, appears to have been bounteously
treated and promptly set free. Some twenty years afterwards this man,
then Lieutenant-Colonel Keith, published a sort of autobiography called
'A British Officer in Burmah and Brazil.' In the place where the reader
looks eagerly for some account of the mystery of St. Clare's disaster
may be found the following words: 'Everywhere else in this book I
have narrated things exactly as they occurred, holding as I do the
old-fashioned opinion that the glory of England is old enough to take
care of itself. The exception I shall make is in this matter of
the defeat by the Black River; and my reasons, though private, are
honourable and compelling. I will, however, add this in justice to the
memories of two distinguished men. General St. Clare has been accused
of incapacity on this occasion; I can at least testify that this action,
properly understood, was one of the most brilliant and sagacious of
his life. President Olivier by similar report is charged with savage
injustice. I think it due to the honour of an enemy to say that he acted
on this occasion with even more than his characteristic good feeling. To
put the matter popularly, I can assure my countrymen that St. Clare was
by no means such a fool nor Olivier such a brute as he looked. This is
all I have to say; nor shall any earthly consideration induce me to add
a word to it.'"

A large frozen moon like a lustrous snowball began to show through the
tangle of twigs in front of them, and by its light the narrator had
been able to refresh his memory of Captain Keith's text from a scrap of
printed paper. As he folded it up and put it back in his pocket Flambeau
threw up his hand with a French gesture.

"Wait a bit, wait a bit," he cried excitedly. "I believe I can guess it
at the first go."

He strode on, breathing hard, his black head and bull neck forward, like
a man winning a walking race. The little priest, amused and interested,
had some trouble in trotting beside him. Just before them the trees fell
back a little to left and right, and the road swept downwards across a
clear, moonlit valley, till it dived again like a rabbit into the wall
of another wood. The entrance to the farther forest looked small and
round, like the black hole of a remote railway tunnel. But it was within
some hundred yards, and gaped like a cavern before Flambeau spoke again.

"I've got it," he cried at last, slapping his thigh with his gre