ested heavily along the western cliffs, and the workers in the fields
began trooping through the village, their shouts of greeting shrill and
discordant, while the grim priests found place before the draped
entrance to their dread altar-house, with blazing fagots signalling
their distant brethren on the dizzy summit. It was then De Noyan
finally returned and found me raging from wall to wall like one
distracted.

It required but a glance to note the subtile change the afternoon had
wrought in his personal appearance, yet at the time I did not greatly
marvel at it. The stains of battle and exposure, that had so decidedly
disfigured him, had disappeared before the magic of new raiment, which
had about it the color and cut of French fashion; so it was now a fair
and prosperous gallant of the court, powdered of hair, waxen of
moustache, who came jauntily forward with his greetings.

"What said I, Master Benteen?" he questioned cheerily to my stare of
surprise. "Did I not boldly contend that this would yet prove a
pleasant resting-place to relieve the tedium of a journey? Can you
gaze upon this gay attire, longer doubting the verity of my dreams?
But no happiness finds reflection in your face; 'tis gloomy as a day of
rain. Prithie, the afternoon must have been passed by you far less
pleasantly than its hours sped with me."

"I have been conversing with good Master Cairnes," I responded gravely.
"I found him in no state of mind or body to bring me pleasant thought."

"_Parbleu_! I warrant not from all I hear of that worthy servant," the
Chevalier laughed gayly. "'T is told me the grim-faced old hypocrite
sits in worshipful state, a veritable god, trussed like a bronze idol
or some mummy of the Egyptians. By my faith, I should enjoy gazing on
his solemn face, and listening to his words withal."

"'T is an unhappy experience for a Christian."

"Ay! a pity; yet it should do the canting preacher good to play heathen
god a while. She pictured to me most vividly his struggles to escape a
fit draping with which to match his hair. _Sacre_! I have not laughed
so heartily since leaving New Orleans."

"She?" I exclaimed in new interest. "Have you been with your wife?"

He stroked his moustache, gazing at me in apparent surprise.

"Nay, friend Benteen; you must be the very soul of innocence to make
such hasty guess. I rested beneath the same roof with her, so I was
informed, yet she who spake thus regarding the plig