cation. With a total unexpectedness there had come
to him in this town a call that he could not ignore. He could not
explain the nature of it, but a man of honor would feel it imperative.
But it would take nicely all his gold and so many pieces besides. He
asked the loan of these, together with an additional amount sufficient
to bring him through to Paris. Once there he could make repayment. In
the mean time his personal note and word--The Englishman made no
trouble at all.

"I'll take your countenance and bearing, Mr. Jardine. But I'll make
condition that we do travel together, after all, as far, at least, as
Tours, where I mean to stop awhile."

"I agree to that," said Glenfernie.

The secretary counted out for him the needed gold. In the narrow room
in which he had slept he put this with his own in a bag. He put with
it no writing. There was nothing but the bare gold. Carrying it with
him, he went out to find the horses saddled and waiting. With Gil
behind him, he went from the inn and out of the town. The letter to
Senor Nobody had given explicit enough direction. Clear of all
buildings, he drew rein and took bearings. Here was the stream, the
stump of a burned mill, the mountain-going road, narrower and rougher
than the way of main travel. He followed this road; the horses fell
into a plodding deliberateness of pace. The sunshine streamed warm
around, but there was little human life here to feel its rays. After
a time there came emergence into a bare, houseless, almost treeless
plain or plateau. The narrow, little-traveled road went on upon the
edge of this, but a bridle-path led into and across the bareness.
Alexander followed it. Before him, across the waste, sprang cliffs
with forest at their feet. But the waste was wide, and in the sun they
showed like nothing more than a burnished, distant wall. His path
would turn before he reached them. The plain's name might have been
Solitariness. It lay naked of anything more than small scattered
stones and bushes. There upgrew before him the tree to which he was
bound. A solitary, twisted oak it shot out of the plain, its
protruding roots holding stones in their grasp. Around was shelterless
and bare, but the heightening wall of cliff seemed to be watching.
Alexander rode nearer, dismounted, left Gil with the two horses, and,
the bag of gold in his hand, walked to the tree. Here was the stone
shaped like a closed hand. He put the ransom between the stone fingers
and