"What? General Jas.!" returned Cutts, in a tone which was not without
a certain respectful awe, and then proceeded to pour out a series of
questions in a mysterious language, which may be thus translated and
abridged: "How long have you been in England? How has it fared with you?
You seem very badly off; coming here to hide? Nothing very bad, I hope?
What is it?"

Jasper answered in the same language, though with less practised mastery
of it, and with that constitutional levity which, whatever the time
or circumstances, occasionally gave a strange sort of wit, or queer,
uncanny, devil-me-care vein of drollery, to his modes of expression.

"Three months of the worst luck man ever had; a row with the
gens-d'armes,--long story: three of our pals seized; affair of the
galleys for them, I suspect (French frogs can't seize me!); fricasseed
one or two of them; broke away, crossed the country, reached the coast;
found an honest smuggler; landed off Sussex with a few other kegs
of brandy; remembered you, preserved the address you gave me, and
condescend to this rat-hole for a night or so. Let me in; knock up
somebody, break open the larder. I want to eat, I am famished; I should
have eaten you by this time, only there's nothing on your bones."

The little man opened the door,--a passage black as Erebus. "Give me
your hand, General." Jasper was led through the pitchy gloom for a few
yards; then the guide found a gas-cock, and the place broke suddenly
into light: a dirty narrow staircase on one side; facing it a sort of
lobby, in which an open door showed a long sanded parlour, like that
in public houses; several tables, benches, the walls whitewashed, but
adorned with sundry ingenious designs made by charcoal or the smoked
ends of clay-pipes; a strong smell of stale tobacco and of gin and rum.
Another gaslight, swinging from the centre of the ceiling, sprang into
light as Cutts touched the tap-cock.

"Wait here," said the guide. "I will go and get you some supper."

"And some brandy," said Jasper.

"Of course."

The bravo threw himself at length on one of the tables, and, closing
his eyes, moaned. His vast strength had become acquainted with physical
pain. In its stout knots and fibres, aches and sharp twinges, the
dragon-teeth of which had been sown years ago in revels or brawls, which
then seemed to bring but innocuous joy and easy triumph, now began to
gnaw and grind. But when Cutts reappeared with coarse viands and t