he is
dead, don't you remember, Fra Diavolo said so?"

"Stupid! Fra Diavolo is Don Rodrigo himself."

"Not dead then? And I'll meet him yet! But," and his sudden hope as
suddenly collapsed, "Dupin will get him first."

"I think not, because Rodrigo did not take the trail."

"Then which way did he go? Quick, please, mademoiselle, which way?"

"He turned off into that arroyo."

"Oh, what chance, what luck!" But the boy stopped with his foot in the
stirrup. "No, mademoiselle, I can't leave you!"

"Oh yes you can. I daresay there's another champion about." She glanced
up at the cliff. "And besides, all danger is past. The donkey caravan is
still here, and for company, I have Berthe, of course."

"Really, mademoiselle?"

"Yes, Michel, really."

"Good, I'm off! But we will meet you at--Dupin just told me--at the next
village on this same trail. Now I'm off!" He was indeed. "I say,
mademoiselle," he called back, "I'm glad we left the ship, aren't you?"

Jacqueline turned hastily her gaze from the cliff. He startled her,
expressing her own secret thought.

Chasseur and steed vanished in the ravine, and she smiled. "The God of
pleasant fools go with him," she murmured.

CHAPTER XII

PASTIME PASSING EXCELLENT

"Il y a des offenses qui indignent les femmes sans les deplaire."
--_Emile Augier._

Like another Black Douglas, Din Driscoll rose among the crags, the dark
tufts curling stubbornly on his bared head. He looked a sinewy,
toughened Ajax. But he only spoiled it. For, raising his arms, he
stretched himself, stretched long and luxuriously. His very animal
revelling in the huge elongation of cramped limbs was exasperating. Next
he clapped the slouch on his head, and clambered down.

Jacqueline might have been surprised to see him. Her brows lifted. "Not
killed?" she exclaimed. "But no, of course not. You gave yourself air,
you ran away."

Driscoll made no answer. He was thinking of what to do next. She knew
that he had run because of her, and she was piqued because he would not
admit it. "So," she went on tauntingly, "monsieur counts his enemy by
numbers then?"

"Didn't count them at all," he murmured absently.

"But," and she tapped her foot, "a Frenchman, he would have done it--not
that way."

She was talking in English, and the quaintness of it began to create in
him a desire for more. "Done what, miss?" he asked.

"He would not have