This idea brought a little flush of colour to her thin brown cheeks, and for a few minutes she seemed lost in a pleasant reverie.

“Do you know where we are?” asked Isabelle, when Chiquita looked up at her again.

“In a chateau that belongs to the great seignior who has so much money, and who wanted to carry you off at Poitiers.  I had only to draw the bolt and it would have been done then.  But you gave me the pearl necklace, and I love you, and I would not do anything you did not like.”

“Yet you have helped to carry me off this time,” said Isabelle reproachfully.  “Is it because you don’t love me any more that you have given me up to my enemies?”

“Agostino ordered me, and I had to obey; besides, some other child could have played guide to the blind man as well as I, and then I could not have come into the chateau with you, do you see?—­here I may be able to do something to help you.  I am brave, active and strong, though I am so small, and quick as lightning too—­and I shall not let anybody harm you.”

“Is this chateau very far from Paris?” asked Isabelle, drawing Chiquita up on her lap.  “Did you hear any one mention the name of this place?”

“Yes, one of them called it—­now what was it?” said the child, looking up at the ceiling and absently scratching her head, as if to stimulate her memory.

“Try to remember it, my child!” said Isabelle, softly stroking Chiquita’s brown cheeks, which flushed with delight at the unwonted caress—­no one had ever petted the poor child in her life before.

“I think that it was Val-lom-breuse,” said Chiquita at last, pronouncing the syllables separately and slowly, as if listening to an inward echo.  “Yes, Vallombreuse, I am sure of it now.  It is the name of the seignior that your Captain Fracasse wounded in a duel—­he would have done much better if he had killed him outright—­saved a great deal of trouble to himself and to you.  He is very wicked, that rich duke, though he does throw his gold about so freely by the handfuls—­just like a man sowing grain.  You hate him, don’t you? and you would be glad if you could get away from him, eh?”

“Oh yes, indeed!” cried Isabelle impetuously.  “But alas! it is impossible—­a deep moat runs all around this chateau the drawbridge is up, the postern securely fastened—­there is no way of escape.”

“Chiquita laughs at bolts and bars, at high walls and deep moats.  Chiquita can get out of the best guarded prison whenever she pleases, and fly away to the moon, right before the eyes of her astonished jailer.  If you choose, before the sun rises your Captain Fracasse shall know where the treasure that he seeks is hidden.”

Isabelle was afraid, when she heard these incoherent phrases, that the child was not quite sane, but her little face was so calm, her dark eyes so clear and steady, her voice so earnest, and she spoke with such an air of quiet conviction, that the supposition was not admissible, and the strange little creature did seem to be possessed of some of the magic powers she claimed.  As if to convince Isabelle that she was not merely boasting, she continued, “Let me think a moment, to make a plan—­don’t speak nor move, for the least sound interferes with me—­I must listen to the spirit.”