on? Who is everybody? Such is the ignorance
of a woman! Madame la princesse," added he, in a graver tone, "if it
be your fortune to turn your footsteps to Montpellier, walk into the
churchyard there, and see the tomb of Jules de Besancon, late major of
the 8th Cuirassiers, and whose inscription is in these few words,--'Tue
par M'Caskey.' I put up the monument myself, for he was a brave soldier,
and deserved his immortality."

Though self-admiration was an attractive pastime, it palled on him at
last, and he sat down and piled up the gold double ducats in two tall
columns, and speculated on the various pleasures they might procure,
and then he read over the draft on Parodi, and pictured to his mind some
more enjoyments, all of which were justly his due, "for," as he said to
himself aloud, "I have dealt generously by that woman."

At last he arose, and went out on the terrace. It was a bright starlit
night, one of those truly Italian nights when the planets streak the
calm sea with long lines of light, and the very air seems weary with its
burden of perfume. Of the voluptuous enervation that comes of such
an hour he neither knew nor asked to know. Stillness and calm to him
savored only of death; he wanted movement, activity, excitement, life,
in fact,--life as he had always known and always liked it. Once or twice
the suspicion had crossed his mind that he had been sent on this distant
expedition to get rid of him when something of moment was being done
elsewhere. His inordinate vanity could readily supply the reasons for
such a course. He was one of those men that in times of trouble become
at once famous. "They call us dangerous," said he, "just as Cromwell was
dangerous, Luther was dangerous, Napoleon was dangerous. But if we are
dangerous, it is because we are driven to it. Admit the superiority that
you cannot oppose, yield to the inherent greatness that you can only
struggle against, and you will find that we are not dangerous,--we are
salutary."

"Is it possible," cried he, aloud, "that this has been a plot,--that
while I am here living this life of inglorious idleness the great stake
is on the table,--the game is begun, and the King's crown being
played for?" M'Caskey knew that whether royalty conquered or was
vanquished,--however the struggle ended,--there was to be a grand scene
of pillage. The nobles or the merchants--it mattered very little which
to him--were to pay for the coming convulsion. Often and often