e St. Lawrence. I lay and thought, trying to
discover where I was. It came to me at last that I was in a room of the
Chateau St. Louis. Presently I heard breathing near me, and, looking
over, I saw a soldier sitting just inside the door.

Then from another corner of the room came a surgeon with some cordial
in a tumbler, and, handing it to me, he bade me drink. He felt my pulse;
then stopped and put his ear to my chest, and listened long.

"Is there great danger?" asked I.

"The trouble would pass," said he, "if you were stronger. Your life is
worth fighting for, but it will be a struggle. That dungeon was slow
poison. You must have a barber," added he; "you are a ghost like this."

I put my hand up, and I found my hair and beard were very long and
almost white. Held against the light, my hands seemed transparent. "What
means my coming here?" asked I.

He shook his head. "I am but a surgeon," he answered shortly, meanwhile
writing with a flourish on a piece of paper. When he had finished, he
handed the paper to the soldier, with an order. Then he turned to go,
politely bowing to me, but turned again and said, "I would not, were
I you, trouble to plan escape these months yet. This is a comfortable
prison, but it is easier coming in than going out. Your mind and body
need quiet. You have, we know, a taste for adventure"--he smiled--"but
is it wise to fight a burning powder magazine?"

"Thank you, monsieur," said I, "I am myself laying the fuse to that
magazine. It fights for me by-and-bye."

He shrugged a shoulder. "Drink," said he, with a professional air which
almost set me laughing, "good milk and brandy, and think of nothing but
that you are a lucky man to have this sort of prison."

He bustled out in an important way, shaking his head and talking to
himself. Tapping the chest of a bulky soldier who stood outside, he
said brusquely, "Too fat, too fat; you'll come to apoplexy. Go fight the
English, lazy ruffian!"

The soldier gave a grunt, made a mocking gesture, and the door closed on
me and my attendant. This fellow would not speak at all, and I did not
urge him, but lay and watched the day decline and night come down. I was
taken to a small alcove which adjoined the room, where I slept soundly.

Early the next morning I waked, and there was Voban sitting just outside
the alcove, looking at me. I sat up in bed and spoke to him, and he
greeted me in an absent sort of way. He was changed as much as I; he
mov