cause of the people. You know the rest. The
bourgeoisie conquered. I was taken red-handed, as the Versaillais
said--my pistol in my grasp--an open revolutionist. They tried me by
court-martial--br'r'r--no delay--guilty, M. le President--hard labor to
perpetuity. They sent me with that brave Louise Michel and so many other
good comrades of the cause to New Caledonia. There, nine years of convict
life was more than enough for me. One day I found a canoe on the shore--a
little Kanaka canoe--you know the type--a mere shapeless dug-out. Hastily
I loaded it with food--yam, taro, bread-fruit--I pushed it off into the
sea--I embarked alone--I intrusted myself and all my fortunes to the Bon
Dieu and the wide Pacific. The Bon Dieu did not wholly justify my
confidence. It is a way he has--that inscrutable one. Six weeks I floated
hither and thither before varying winds. At last one evening I reached
this island. I floated ashore. And, _enfin, me voila_!"

"Then you were a political prisoner only?" Felix said, politely.

M. Jules Peyron drew himself up with much dignity in his tattered
costume. "Do I look like a card-sharper, monsieur?" he asked simply, with
offended honor.

Felix hastened to reassure him of his perfect confidence. "On the
contrary, monsieur," he said, "the moment I heard you were a convict from
New Caledonia, I felt certain in my heart you could be nothing less than
one of those unfortunate and ill-treated Communards."

"Monsieur," the Frenchman said, seizing his hand a second time, "I
perceive that I have to do with a man of honor and a man of feeling.
Well, I landed on this island, and they made me a god. From that day to
this I have been anxious only to shuffle off my unwelcome divinity, and
return as a mere man to the shores of Europe. Better be a valet in Paris,
say I, than a deity of the best in Polynesia. It is a monotonous
existence here--no society, no life--and the _cuisine_--bah, execrable!
But till the other day, when your steamer passed, I have scarcely even
sighted a European ship. A boat came here once, worse luck, to put off
two girls (who didn't belong to Boupari), returned indentured laborers
from Queensland; but, unhappily, it was during my taboo--the Month of
Birds, as my jailers call it--and though I tried to go down to it or to
make signals of distress, the natives stood round my hut with their
spears in line, and prevented me by main force from signalling to them or
communicating with th