Did Agricola believe in the supernatural potency of these gimcracks?  No, and yes.  Not to be foolhardy, he quietly slipped down every day to the levee, had a slave-boy row him across the river in a skiff, landed, re-embarked, and in the middle of the stream surreptitiously cast a picayune over his shoulder into the river.  Monsieur D’Embarras, the imp of death thus placated, must have been a sort of spiritual Cheap John.

Several more nights passed.  The house of Palmyre, closely watched, revealed nothing.  No one came out, no one went in, no light was seen.  They should have watched in broad daylight.  At last, one midnight, ’Polyte Grandissime stepped cautiously up to one of the batten doors with an auger, and succeeded, without arousing any one, in boring a hole.  He discovered a lighted candle standing in a glass of water.

“Nothing but a bedroom light,” said one.

“Ah, bah!” whispered the other; “it is to make the spell work strong.”

“We will not tell Agricola first; we had better tell Honore,” said Sylvestre.

“You forget,” said ’Polyte, “that I no longer have any acquaintance with Monsieur Honore Grandissime.”

They told Agamemnon; and it would have gone hard with the “milatraise” but for the additional fact that suspicion had fastened upon another person; but now this person in turn had to be identified.  It was decided not to report progress to old Agricola, but to wait and seek further developments.  Agricola, having lost all ability to sleep in the mansion, moved into a small cottage in a grove near the house.  But the very next morning, he turned cold with horror to find on his doorstep a small black-coffined doll, with pins run through the heart, a burned-out candle at the head and another at the feet.

“You know it is Palmyre, do you?” asked Agamemnon, seizing the old man as he was going at a headlong pace through the garden gate.  “What if I should tell you that by watching the Congo dancing-ground at midnight to-night, you will see the real author of this mischief—­eh?”

“And why to-night?”

“Because the moon rises at midnight.”

There was firing that night in the deserted Congo dancing-grounds under the ruins of Fort St. Joseph, or, as we would say now, in Congo Square, from three pistols—­Agricola’s, ’Polyte’s, and the weapon of an ill-defined, retreating figure answering the description of the person who had stabbed Agricola the preceding February.  “And yet,” said ’Polyte, “I would have sworn that it was Palmyre doing this work.”

Through Raoul these events came to the ear of Frowenfield.  It was about the time that Raoul’s fishing party, after a few days’ mishaps, had returned home.  Palmyre, on several later dates, had craved further audiences and shown other letters from the hidden f.m.c.  She had heard them calmly, and steadfastly preserved the one attitude of refusal.  But it could not escape Frowenfeld’s notice that she encouraged the sending of additional letters.  He easily guessed the courier to be Clemence; and now, as he came to ponder these revelations of Raoul, he found that within twenty-four hours after every visit of Clemence to the house of Palmyre, Agricola suffered a visitation.