m Adele
but from everyone of the party, at the sight which met their eyes.

The top of the man's head was gone. Not a vestige of hair or of white
skin remained, but in place of it was a dreadful crinkled discoloured
surface with a sharp red line running across his brow and round over his
ears.

"By the eternal!" cried Amos, "the man has lost his scalp!"

"My God!" said De Catinat. "Look at his hands!"

He had raised them in prayer. Two or three little stumps projecting
upwards showed where the fingers had been.

"I've seen some queer figure-heads in my life, but never one like that,"
said Captain Ephraim.

It was indeed a most extraordinary face which confronted them as they
advanced. It was that of a man who might have been of any age and of
any nation, for the features were so distorted that nothing could be
learned from them. One eyelid was drooping with a puckering and
flatness which showed that the ball was gone. The other, however, shot
as bright and merry and kindly a glance as ever came from a chosen
favourite of fortune. His face was flecked over with peculiar brown
spots which had a most hideous appearance, and his nose had been burst
and shattered by some terrific blow. And yet, in spite of this dreadful
appearance, there was something so noble in the carriage of the man, in
the pose of his head and in the expression which still hung, like the
scent from a crushed flower, round his distorted features, that even the
blunt Puritan seaman was awed by it.

"Good-evening, my children," said the stranger, picking up his pictures
again and advancing towards them. "I presume that you are from the
fort, though I may be permitted to observe that the woods are not very
safe for ladies at present."

"We are going to the manor-house of Charles de la Noue at Sainte Marie,"
said De Catinat, "and we hope soon to be in a place of safety. But I
grieve, sir, to see how terribly you have been mishandled."

"Ah, you have observed my little injuries, then! They know no better,
poor souls. They are but mischievous children--merry-hearted but
mischievous. Tut, tut, it is laughable indeed that a man's vile body
should ever clog his spirit, and yet here am I full of the will to push
forward, and yet I must even seat myself on this log and rest myself,
for the rogues have blown the calves of my legs off."

"My God! Blown them off! The devils!"

"Ah, but they are not to be blamed. No, no, it would be unchari