t kills the one does not kill the other. Take away from
some people one thing, and they will not care; from others that same,
and there is nothing to live for, except just to live, and because a man
does not like death."

He paused. "You are right, Voban," said I. "Go on."

He was silent again for a time, and then he moved his hand in a helpless
sort of way across his forehead. It had become deeply lined and wrinkled
all in a couple of years. His temples were sunken, his cheeks hollow,
and his face was full of those shadows which lend a sort of tragedy to
even the humblest and least distinguished countenance. His eyes had a
restlessness, anon an intense steadiness almost uncanny, and his thin,
long fingers had a stealthiness of motion, a soft swiftness, which
struck me strangely. I never saw a man so changed. He was like a vessel
wrested from its moorings; like some craft, filled with explosives, set
loose along a shore lined with fishing-smacks, which might come foul
of one, and blow the company of men and boats into the air. As he stood
there, his face half turned to me for a moment, this came to my mind,
and I said to him, "Voban, you look like some wicked gun which would
blow us all to pieces."

He wheeled, and came to me so swiftly that I shrank back in my chair
with alarm, his action was so sudden, and, peering into my face, he
said, glancing, as I thought, anxiously at the jailer, "Blow--blow--how
blow us all to pieces, m'sieu'?" He eyed me with suspicion, and I could
see that he felt like some hurt animal among its captors, ready to
fight, yet not knowing from what point danger would come. Something
pregnant in what I said had struck home, yet I could not guess then what
it was, though afterwards it came to me with great force and vividness.

"I meant nothing, Voban," answered I, "save that you look dangerous."

I half put out my hand to touch his arm in a friendly way, but I saw
that the jailer was watching, and I did not. Voban felt what I was about
to do, and his face instantly softened, and his blood-shot eyes gave me
a look of gratitude. Then he said:

"I will tell you what happen next I know the palace very well, and when
I see the Intendant and M'sieu' Doltaire and others leave the ballroom
I knew that they go to the chamber which they call 'la Chambre de la
Joie,' to play at cards. So I steal away out of the crowd into a passage
which, as it seem, go nowhere, and come quick, all at once, to a bare