The turnkey's candle made a star-point in the corridor. He walked ahead of the priest and I walked behind. We descended to the entrance where the man with the big book sat taking stock of another wretch between officers. I saw as I shaded my face with the load, that his inattentive eye dwelt on my surplice, which would have passed me anywhere in France. "Good-night, monsieur the cure," said the turnkey, letting us through the outer door. "Good-night, good-night," the priest responded. "And to you, sacristan." "Good-night," I muttered, and he came a step after me. The candle was yet in his hand, showing him my bulk, and perhaps the small clothes he had longed to vend. I expected hue and cry, but walked on after the priest, and heard the heavy doors jar, and breathed again. Hearkening behind and in front, on the right and the left, I followed him in the direction of what I have since learned to call the Jardin des Plantes. It is near Ste. Pelagie. The priest, wearied by his long office, spoke only once about the darkness; for it was a cloudy night; and did not attend to my muttered response. I do not know what sympathy the excellent old man might have shown to an escaped prisoner who had choked his sacristan, and I had no mind to test it. He turned a corner, and with the wall angle between us, I eased down the sacred furniture, drew off the surplice and laid that upon it, and took to my heels up the left hand street; for the guard had brought me across the river to Ste. Pelagie. I had no hat, and the cut of my coat showed that I had lost a waistcoat. Avoiding the little circles of yellowness made by lamp posts, I reached without mishap of falling into the hands of any patrol, a bridge crossing to an island point, and from the other side of the point to the opposite shore. At intervals along the parapet dim lights were placed. Compared to Lake George, which wound like a river, and the mighty St. Lawrence as I remembered it, the Seine was a narrow stream. Some boats made constellations on the surface. The mass of island splitting it into two branches was almost the heart of Paris. There were other foot passengers on the bridge, and a gay carriage rolled by. I did not see any gendarmes, and only one foot passenger troubled me. I was on the bridge above the left arm of the river when an ear trained in the woods caught his footstep, pausing as mine paused, and hurrying as mine hurried. If the sacristan had been found in Ste. Pelagie a pursuer would not track me so delicately, and neither would Skenedonk hold back on the trail. I stopped in the shade when we two were alone on the second span, and wheeled, certain of catching my man under the flare of a cresset. I caught him, and knew that it was Bellenger following me. My mind was made up in an instant. I walked back to settle matters with him, though slaughter was far from my thoughts. I had done him no harm; but he was my enemy, and should be forced to let me alone. The fellow who had appeared so feeble at his cabin that I opened the door for him, and so poor-spirited that his intellect claimed pity, stood up as firm as a bear at my approach, and met my eyes with perfect understanding. Not another thing do I remember. The facts are simply these: I faced Bellenger; no blows passed; my mind flashed blank with the partial return of that old eclipse which has fallen upon me after strong excitement, in more than one critical moment. The hiatus seems brief when I awake though it may have lasted hours. I know the eclipse has been upon me, like the wing-shadow of eternity; but I have scarcely let go of time. I could not prove that Bellenger dragged me to the parapet and threw me into the river. If I had known it I should have laughed at his doing so, for I could swim like a fish, through or under water, and sit on the lake bottom holding my breath until Skenedonk had been known to dive for me. When next I sensed anything at all it was a feeling of cold. I thought I was lying in one of the shallow runlets that come into Lake George, and the pebbles were an uneasy bed, chilling my shoulders. I was too stiff to move, or even turn my head to lift out of water the ear on which it rested. But I could unclose my eyelids, and this is what I saw:--a man naked to his waist, half reclining against a leaning slab of marble, down which a layer of water constantly moved. His legs were clothed, and his other garments lay across them. His face had sagged in my direction. There was a deep slash across his forehead, and he showed his teeth and his glassy eyes at the joke. Beyond this silent figure was a woman as silent. The ridge of his body could not hide the long hair spread upon her breast. I considered the company and the moisture into which I had fallen with unspeakable amazement. We were in a low and wide stone chamber with a groined ceiling, supported by stone pillars. A row of lamps was arranged above us, so that no trait or feature might escape a beholder. That we were put there for show entered my mind slowly and brought indignation. To be so helpless and so exposed was an outrage against which I struggled in nightmare impotence; for I was bare to my hips also, and I knew not what other marks I carried beside those which had scarred me all my conscious life. Now in the distance, and echoing, feet descended stairs. I knew that people were coming to look at us, and I could not move a muscle in resentment. I heard their voices, fringed with echoes, before either speaker came within my vision. "This is the mortuary chapel of the Hotel Dieu?" "Yes, monsieur the marquis, this is the mortuary chapel." "Um! Cheerful place!" "Much more cheerful than the bottom of the river, monsieur the marquis." "No doubt. Never empty, eh?" "I have been a servant of the Hotel Dieu fourteen years, monsieur the marquis, and have not yet seen all the marble slabs vacant." "You receive the bodies of the drowned?" "And place them where they may be seen and claimed." "How long do you keep them?" "That depends. Sometimes their friends seek them at once. We have kept a body three months in the winter season, though he turned very green." "Are all in your present collection gathering verdure?" "No, monsieur. We have a very fresh one, just brought in; a big stalwart fellow, with the look of the country about him." "Small clothes?" "Yes, monsieur." "Buckle shoes?" "Yes, monsieur." "Hair light and long?" "The very man, monsieur the marquis." "I suppose I shall have to look at him. If he had to make himself unpleasant he should have stayed at the chateau where his mother could identify him. He is one of my peasants, come to Paris to see life! I must hold my nose and do it." "It is not necessary to hold the nose, monsieur." "After fourteen years, perhaps not." I heard the snap of a snuff-box lid as the marquis fortified himself. My agony for the woman who was to be looked at turned so sharp that I uttered a click in my throat. But they passed her, and merely glanced at my next neighbor. The old marquis encountered my fixed stare. Visibly it shocked through him. He was all gray, and curled and powdered, instead of being clipped close and smooth in the style of the Empire; an exquisite, thin-featured man, high of nose and eyebrows, not large, but completely turned out as ample man and bright spirit. The slightest fragrance of scent was in his presence, and a shade of snuff on his upper lip appeared fine supercilious hairs. I did not look at the servant of the Hotel Dieu. The old noble and I held each other with unflinching gaze. "Do you recognize him, monsieur?" "I do," the old noble deliberately answered. "I should know this face anywhere. Have him taken to my carriage directly." "Your carriage, monsieur! He can be sent--" "I said take him to my carriage." "It shall be done. His eyes have opened since he came in. But they sometimes look as if they would speak! Their faces change constantly. This other man who is grinning to-night may be quite serious to-morrow." "And by the end of the month sorry enough, eh?" The servant of the Hotel Dieu tittered amiably, and I knew he was going for help to lift me off the slab, when he uttered a cry of surprise. The old marquis wheeled sharply, and said: "Eh, bien! Is this another of them, promenading himself?" I felt the Oneida coming before his silent moccasins strode near me. He did not wait an instant, but dragged me from the wet and death cold marble to the stone floor, where he knelt upon one knee and supported me. O Skenedonk! how delicious was the warmth of your healthy body--how comforting the grip of your hunter arms! Yet there are people who say an Indian is like a snake! I could have given thanks before the altar at the side of the crypt, which my fixed eyes encountered as he held me. The marble dripped into its gutter as if complaining of my escape. "Oh, my dear friend!" cried the servant. Skenedonk answered nothing at all. "Who is this gentleman," the marquis inquired, "that seems to have the skin of a red German sausage drawn tight over his head?" "This is an American Indian, monsieur the marquis." "An Indian?" "Yes, monsieur; but he understands French." "Thank you for the hint. It may save me from having a German sausage drawn tight over my head. I have heard that American Indians practice giving their friends that appearance. How do you know he understands French?" "I think it is the man who used to come to the Hotel Dieu years ago, when I was new in its service. He was instructed in religion by churchmen in Paris, and learned the language. Oh, my dear monsieur--I think it is Iroquois that he is called--I am aware the Americans have different manners, but here we do not go into the mortuary chapel of the Hotel Dieu and disarrange the bodies without permission!" Skenedonk's eyes probably had less of the fawn in them than usual. I felt the guttural sound under his breast. "I have found him, and now I will take him." "But that is the marquis' servant!" "The marquis is his servant!" "Oh, my dear monsieur the Indian! You speak of a noble of France, the Marquis du Plessy! Be satisfied," pleaded the servitor of the Hotel Dieu, "with this other body, whom no one is likely to claim! I may be permitted to offer you that, if you are determined--though it may cost me my place!--and after fourteen years' service! It you would appease him, monsieur the marquis--though I do not know whether they ever take money." "I will appease him," said the old noble. "Go about your errand and be quick." The servant fled up the stairs. "This man is not dead, my friend," said the Marquis du Plessy. Skenedonk knew it. "But he will not live long in this cursed crypt," the noble added. "You will get into my carriage with him, we will take him and put him in hot sheets, and see what we can do for him." I could feel Skenedonk's antagonism giving way in the relaxing of his muscles. But maintaining his position the Oneida asserted: "He is not yours!" "He belongs to France." "France belongs to him!" the Indian reversed. "Eh, eh! Who is this young man?" "The king." "We have no king now, my friend. But assuming there is a man who should be king, how do you know this is the one?" If Skenedonk made answer in words it was lost to me. The spirit sank to submergence in the body, I remember combating motion like a drugged person. Torpor and prostration followed the recurring eclipse as that followed excitement and shock. I was not ill; and gathered knowledge of the environment, which was different from anything I had before experienced. De Chaumont's manor was a wilderness fortress compared to this private hotel of an ancient family in the heart of Paris. I lay in a bed curtained with damask, and looked through open glass doors at a garden. Graveled walks, bosky trees and masses of flowers, plats of grass where arbored seats were placed, stretched their vista to a wall clothed in ivy, which proved to be the end of a chapel. For high over the curtain of thick green shone a rose window. The afternoon sun laid bare its fine staining, but only in the darkness when the church was illuminated and organ music rolled from it, did the soul of that window appear struck through with light. Strange servants and Doctor Chantry by glimpses, and the old noble and the Oneida almost constantly, were about me. Doctor Chantry looked complacently through the curtains and wished me good-morning. I smiled to see that he was lodged as he desired, and that his clothes had been renewed in fine cloth, with lawn to his neck and silk stockings for his shrunk calves. My master was an elderly beau; and I gave myself no care that he had spent his money--the money of the expedition--on foppery. Skenedonk also had new toggery in scarfs and trinkets which I did not recognize, and his fine buckskins were cleaned. The lackeys appeared subservient to him, and his native dignity was never more impressive than in that great house. I watched my host and my servant holding interviews, which Skenedonk may have considered councils, on the benches in the garden, and from which my secretary, the sick old woman, seemed excluded. But the small interest of seeing birds arrive on branches, and depart again, sufficed me; until an hour when life rose strongly. I sat up in bed, and finding myself alone, took advantage of an adjoining room where a marble bath was set in the floor. Returning freshened from the plunge, with my sheet drawn around me, I found one of those skilled and gentle valets who seem less men than he-maids. "I am to dress monsieur when monsieur is ready," said this person. "I am ready now," I answered, and he led me into a suite of rooms and showed me an array which took my breath: dove-colored satin knee breeches, and a long embroidered coat of like color, a vest sprigged with rosebuds, cravat and lace ruffles, long silk stockings and shoes to match in extravagance, a shirt of fine lawn, and a hat for a nobleman. "Tell your master," I said to the lackey, "that he intends me great kindness, but I prefer my own clothes." "These are monsieur's own clothes, made to his order and measure." "But I gave no order, and I was not measured." The man raised his shoulders and elbows with gentlest dissent. "These are only a few articles of monsieur's outfit. Here is the key. If monsieur selects another costume he will find each one complete." By magic as it seemed, there was a wardrobe full of fineries provided for my use. The man displayed them; in close trousers and coats with short fronts, or knee breeches and long tails; costumes, he said, for the street, for driving, riding, traveling, for evening, and for morning; and one white satin court dress. At the marquis' order he had laid out one for a ball. Of my old clothes not a piece was to be seen. The miracle was that what he put upon me fitted me. I became transformed like my servant and my secretary, and stood astonished at the result.