here but in Brazil. I will administer it
to Cydalise, who will give it to me; then by the time when death is a
certainty to Crevel and his wife, I shall be beyond the Azores with your
cousin, who will be cured, and I will marry her. We have our own little
tricks, we savages!--Cydalise," said he, looking at the country girl,
"is the animal I need.--How much does she owe?"

"A hundred thousand francs," said Cydalise.

"She says little--but to the purpose," said Carabine, in a low tone to
Madame Nourrisson.

"I am going mad!" cried the Brazilian, in a husky voice, dropping on to
a sofa. "I shall die of this! But I must see, for it is impossible!--A
lithographed note! What is to assure me that it is not a forgery?--Baron
Hulot was in love with Valerie?" said he, recalling Josepha's harangue.
"Nay; the proof that he did not love is that she is still alive--I will
not leave her living for anybody else, if she is not wholly mine."

Montes was terrible to behold. He bellowed, he stormed; he broke
everything he touched; rosewood was as brittle as glass.

"How he destroys things!" said Carabine, looking at the old woman. "My
good boy," said she, giving the Brazilian a little slap, "Roland the
Furious is very fine in a poem; but in a drawing-room he is prosaic and
expensive."

"My son," said old Nourrisson, rising to stand in front of the
crestfallen Baron, "I am of your way of thinking. When you love in that
way, and are joined 'till death does you part,' life must answer for
love. The one who first goes, carries everything away; it is a general
wreck. You command my esteem, my admiration, my consent, especially for
your inoculation, which will make me a Friend of the Negro.--But you
love her! You will hark back?"

"I?--If she is so infamous, I--"

"Well, come now, you are talking too much, it strikes me. A man who
means to be avenged, and who says he has the ways and means of a savage,
doesn't do that.--If you want to see your 'object' in her paradise, you
must take Cydalise and walk straight in with her on your arm, as if the
servant had made a mistake. But no scandal! If you mean to be revenged,
you must eat the leek, seem to be in despair, and allow her to bully
you.--Do you see?" said Madame Nourrisson, finding the Brazilian quite
amazed by so subtle a scheme.

"All right, old ostrich," he replied. "Come along: I understand."

"Good-bye, little one!" said the old woman to Carabine.

She signed to Cydalise to go