a fair game, and I am winning now. I've only used
means which one gentleman might use with another. Had you been a lesser
man I should have had you spitted long ago. You understand?"

"Perfectly. But since we have played so long, do you think I'll give you
the stakes now--before the end?"

"It would be wiser," he answered thoughtfully.

"I have a nation behind me," urged I.

"It has left you in a hole here to rot."

"It will take over your citadel and dig me out some day," I retorted
hotly.

"What good that? Your life is more to you than Quebec to England."

"No, no," said I quickly; "I would give my life a hundred times to see
your flag hauled down!"

"A freakish ambition," he replied; "mere infatuation!"

"You do not understand it, Monsieur Doltaire," I remarked ironically.

"I love not endless puzzles. There is no sport in following a maze that
leads to nowhere save the grave." He yawned. "This air is heavy," he
added; "you must find it trying."

"Never as trying as at this moment," I retorted.

"Come, am I so malarious?"

"You are a trickster," I answered coldly.

"Ah, you mean that night at Bigot's?" He smiled. "No, no, you were to
blame--so green. You might have known we were for having you between the
stones."

"But it did not come out as you wished?" hinted I.

"It served my turn," he responded; and he gave me such a smiling,
malicious look that I knew sought to convey he had his way with Alixe;
and though I felt that she was true to me, his cool presumption so
stirred me I could have struck him in the face. I got angrily to my
feet, but as I did so I shrank a little, for at times the wound in my
side, not yet entirely healed, hurt me.

"You are not well," he said, with instant show of curiosity; "your
wounds still trouble you? They should be healed. Gabord was ordered to
see you cared for."

"Gabord has done well enough," answered I. "I have had wounds before,
monsieur."

He leaned against the wall and laughed. "What braggarts you English
are!" he said. "A race of swashbucklers--even on bread and water!"

He had me at advantage, and I knew it, for he had kept his temper. I
made an effort. "Both excellent," rejoined I, "and English too."

He laughed again. "Come, that is better. That's in your old vein. I love
to see you so. But how knew you our baker was English?--which he is, a
prisoner like yourself."

"As easily as I could tell the water was not made by Frenchmen."

"Now I have