The fool's outcry startled me less than Madame de Ferrier. She fell against me and sank downward, so that I was obliged to hold her up in my arms. I had never seen a woman swoon. I thought she was dying, and shouted to them below to come and help me. The potter sat sprawling on the ground, and did not bestir himself to do anything. As soon as my hands and mind were free I took him by the scruff of the neck and kicked him behind with a good will. My rage at him for disregarding her state was the savage rage of an Iroquois. The other man laughed until the woods rang. Madame de Ferrier sat up in what seemed to me a miraculous manner. We bathed her temples with brandy, and put her on a cushion of leaves raked up and dried to make a seat by the fire. The other man, who helped me carry her into the ravine, stood with his hat off, as was her due. She thanked him and thanked me, half shrouding her face with her hood, abashed at finding herself lost among strangers in the night; which was my fault. I told him I had been a bad guide for a lady who had missed her way; and he said we were fortunate to reach a camp instead of stumbling into some danger. He was much older than I, at least fourteen years, I learned afterwards, but it was like meeting Skenedonk again, or some friend from whom I had only been parted. The heartening warmth of the fire made steam go up from our clothes; and seeing Madame de Ferrier alive once more, and the potter the other side of his wheel taking stock of his hurt, I felt happy. We could hear in the cabin behind us a whining like that uttered by a fretful babe. My rage at the potter ending in good nature, I moved to make some amends for my haste; but he backed off. "You startled us," said the other man, "standing up in the clouds like ghosts. And your resemblance to one who has been dead many years is very striking, monsieur." I said I was sorry if I had kicked the potter without warrant, but it seemed to me a base act to hesitate when help was asked for a woman. "Yet I know little of what is right among men, monsieur," I owned. "I have been learning with a master in Count de Chaumont's manor house less than a year. Before that my life was spent in the woods with the Indians, and they found me so dull that I was considered witless until my mind awoke." "You are a fine fellow," the man said, laying his hands on my shoulders. "My heart goes out to you. You may call me Louis Philippe. And what may I call you?" "Lazarre." He had a smiling good face, square, but well curved and firm. Now that I saw him fronting me I could trace his clear eyebrows, high forehead, and the laughter lines down his cheeks. He was long between the eyes and mouth, and he had a full and resolute chin. "You are not fat, Lazarre," said Philippe, "your forehead is wide rather than receding, and you have not a double chin. Otherwise you are the image of one--Who are you?" "I don't know." "Don't know who you are?" "No. We heard all that you and the potter were saying down here, and I wondered how many boys there are in America that are provided for through an agent in New York, without knowing their parents. Now that is my case." "Do you say you have lived among the Indians?" "Yes: among the Iroquois." "Who placed you there?" "No one could tell me except my Indian father; and he would not tell." "Do you remember nothing of your childhood?" "Nothing." "Did you ever see Bellenger before?" "I never saw him before to-night." "But I saw him," said Madame de Ferrier, "in London, when I was about seven years old. It made a stronger impression on me than anything else that ever happened in my life, except"--she stopped. "Except the taking off of my mother and brothers to the guillotine." The man who told me to call him Louis Philippe turned toward her, with attention as careful as his avoidance when she wished to be unobserved. She rose, and came around the fire, making a deep courtesy. "My family may not be unknown to his royal highness the Duke of Orleans. We are De Ferriers of Mont-Louis; emigres now, like many others." "Madame, I knew your family well. They were loyal to their king." "My father died here in America. Before we sailed we saw this man in London." "And with him--" "A boy." "Do you remember the boy well?" "I remember him perfectly." The wailing in the cabin became louder and turned to insistent animal howls. Instead of a babe the imprisoned creature was evidently a dog. I wondered that the potter did not let him out to warm his hide at the fire. "Did you ever see the boy again?" "I did not see him again until he was brought to Count de Chaumont's house last summer." "Why to De Chaumont? Le Ray de Chaumont is not one of us. He is of the new nobility. His chateau near Blois was bought by his grandfather, and he takes his name from the estate. I have heard he is in favor with Bonaparte." "Even we of the old nobility, prince, may be reduced to seek favor of Bonaparte." "Heaven forbid, madame. I say nothing against him; though I could say much." "Say nothing against Count de Chaumont. Count de Chaumont befriends all emigres." "I have nothing to say against Count de Chaumont. He is not of our party; he is of the new. Fools! If we princes had stood by each other as the friends of the Empire stand by their emperor, we could have killed the Terror." The animal in the cabin by this time was making such doleful cries I said to the potter. "Let him out. It is dreadful to be shut in by walls." The potter, stooping half over and rolling stiffly from foot to foot in his walk, filled me with compunction at having been brutal to so pitiful a creature, and I hurried to open the door for him. The animal clawed vigorously inside, and the instant I pushed back the ill-fitted slabs, it strained through and rushed on all fours to the fire. Madame de Ferrier fled backward, for what I liberated could hardly be seen without dread. It was a human being. Its features were a boy's, and the tousled hair had a natural wave. While it crouched for warmth I felt the shock of seeing a creature about my own age grinning back at me, fishy eyed and black mouthed. "There!" Bellenger said, straightening up in his place like a bear rising from all fours. "That is the boy your De Ferriers saw in London." I remembered the boy Madame Tank had told about. Whether myself or this less fortunate creature was the boy, my heart went very pitiful toward him. Madame de Ferrier stooped and examined, him; he made a juicy noise of delight with his mouth. "This is not the boy you had in London, monsieur," she said to Bellenger. The potter waved his hands and shrugged. "You believe, madame, that Lazarre is the boy you saw in London?" said Louis Philippe. "I am certain of it." "What proofs have you?" "The evidence of my eyes." "Tell that to Monsieur!" exclaimed the potter. "Who is Monsieur?" I asked. "The eldest brother of the king of France is called Monsieur. The Count de Provence will be called Monsieur until he succeeds Louis XVII and is crowned Louis XVIII--if that time ever comes. He cannot be called Louis XVII"--the man who told me to call him Louis Philippe took my arm, and I found myself walking back and forth with him as in a dream while he carefully formed sentence after sentence. "Because the dauphin who died in the Temple prison was Louis XVII. But there are a few who say he did not die: that a dying child was substituted for him: that he was smuggled out and carried to America, Bellenger was the agent employed. The dauphin's sister is married to her cousin, the nephew of Monsieur. She herself believes these things; and it is certain a sum of money is sent out to America every year for his maintenance. He was reduced to imbecility when removed from the Temple. It is not known whether he will ever be fit to reign if the kingdom returns to him. No communication has been held with him. He was nine years old when removed from the Temple: he would now be in his nineteenth year. When I last saw him he was a smiling little prince with waving hair and hazel eyes, holding to his mother's hand"-- "Stop!" The frenzy of half recollection came on me, and that which I had put away from my mind and sworn to let alone, seized and convulsed me. Dreams, and sensations, and instincts massed and fell upon me in an avalanche of conviction. I was that uncrowned outcast, the king of France! WANDERING