e question of a ball in
the back to-night, or a ball in the front to-morrow. If you chance to
have a tuck ready for my hand, friend, I 'll try a dash at the deck
just for the sport of it."

I shook my head emphatically.

"We will attempt passage without flashing of weapons, or not at all. I
grant a quick stroke might win us the open, yet would only serve to
rouse the ship; neither of us would ever lift head above the river
surface without a bullet in the brain."

"It is the only way fit for a gentleman."

"Confound your gentlemen!" I cried, now thoroughly aroused at this
ill-chosen trifling with time. "Either you do as I bid you, or else we
settle down without any more ado, to wait the file to-morrow. How
often does the Commandant look in?"

"On the stroke of the ship's bell."

"Then, Monsieur, the sooner you arrive at some decision the better. If
indifference is your game, I play it out with you to the end." As I
spoke I leaned carelessly back against the lower bunk, puffing away at
my pipe to get it fairly alight once more.

I could note from the corner of my eye he was watching me closely, and
with no slight degree of aroused interest, but I would have rested
there without further speech until the guard came, had he not first
broken silence.

"And she sent you?"

"So I said."

"To me, not Lafreniere, her father?"

"There was a possible chance to save one, not two."

"_Sacre_! yes, I understand that; yet it doth puzzle me why she should
have chosen as she did. Know you just why it was De Noyan instead of
Lafreniere?"

"Madame selected me for action, not advice," I answered shortly, now
thoroughly tired of his questioning. "Lafreniere, I understood,
positively refused opportunity to escape, from scruples of conscience.
Besides, the father must be near the end of his days, while you were
yet young, with long life before you. No doubt this also had weight
with her decision. As for myself I sincerely wish it might have been
some other, so I could have brought my aid to a man of sense."

He rose up, shrugging his shoulders.

"You are not especially choice in speech, yet your purpose harmonizes
somewhat with my present humor. I will risk the effort; so now tell me
your plan?"

I permitted no sign of pleasure at his decision to appear in my face.

"I did intend dressing you in this cassock so you might play priest,
and slip safely past the guard beneath its gray cover," I said quietly.
"I p