are accused, they are
convicted."

The doctor seemed to have made up his mind; for he interrupted this flow
of words, saying in his kindest voice,--

"Calm yourself, my friend. There is a test which will clearly establish
your innocence. The ball that has struck Lieut. Champcey is still in the
wound; and I am the man who is going to take it out, I promise you. We
all here have rifles with conical balls; you are the only one who has an
ordinary shot-gun with round balls, so there is no mistake possible. I
do not know if you understand me?"

Yes, he understood, and so well, that his pale face turned livid, and
he looked all around with frightened glances. For about six seconds he
hesitated, counting his chances; then suddenly falling on his knees, his
hands folded, and beating the ground with his forehead, he cried out,--

"I confess! Yes, it may be I who have hit the officer. I heard
the bushes moving in his direction, and I fired at a guess. What a
misfortune! O God, what a misfortune! Ah! _I_ would give my life to save
his if I could. It was an accident, gentlemen, I swear. Such accidents
happen every day in hunting; the papers are full of them. Great God!
what an unfortunate man I am!"

The doctor had stepped back. He now ordered the two sailors who had
arrested the man, to make sure of him, to bind him, and carry him to
Saigon to prison. One of the gentlemen, he said, would write a few
lines, which they must take with them. The man seemed to be annihilated.

"A misfortune is not a crime," he sighed out. "I am an honest mechanic."

"We shall see that in Saigon," answered the surgeon.

And he hastened away to see if all the preparations had been made
to carry the wounded man. In less than twenty minutes, and with that
marvellous skill which is one of the characteristic features of good
sailors, a solid litter had been constructed; the bottom formed a real
mattress of dry leaves; and overhead a kind of screen had been made of
larger leaves. When they put Daniel in, the pain caused him to utter a
low cry of pain. This was the first sign of life he had given.

"And now, my friends," said the doctor, "let us go! And bear in mind, if
you shake the lieutenant, he is a dead man."

It was hardly eight in the morning when the melancholy procession
started homeward; and it was not until between two and three o'clock on
the next morning that it entered Saigon, under one of those overwhelming
rains which give one an id