“I foresaw it all and I warned her; but she was so perverse!  It is my duty to avenge her, and to see that the same blunder is not made by—­no matter!  Enough that my science—­at which you smile, I see—­points out to me that your greatest enemies and mine are in that house.”  She gestured toward the hotel, which the major had been studying.

“Do you say enemies in the plural?” he said, ceasing to curl his lip in mocking of the witch.

“In that house are the Jewish couple, father and daughter, who played at the Harmonista, La Belle Stamboulane and the Turkophonist Daniel, and the young man who belabored your excellency so that he almost died of the drubbing.”

“Hang you for being so profuse in your explanations!  How do you know all this?”

“The servant-maid is a customer of mine.  I tell her fortune and she tells me all that goes on in her master’s house.  The young man has been cared for there these five or six days, and they only await the chance to smuggle him out of the city.  Have him seized and secure him in prison, where he shall rot—­for I declare to you, as surely as there are stars above, these letters of the divine volume in which soothsayers read, he will be your death in the end unless you are his.”

“I would not be contented with that.  I want to return him blow for blow—­and yet you say I cannot fight him in duello.”

“Listen, my officer.  He has been brought up in ignorance of his name and origin, in my country Poland.  He is French by birth, and his name is Felix Clemenceau.  It was his father, a celebrated sculptor, who married my daughter Iza, after decoying her to Paris from her mother’s side, and he murdered her on some frivolous pretext when they were living separated and he, heaven knows, had no farther claim upon her—­his existence was pure indifference to her.  I answer for it!  They tried his father for the atrocity.  Even a French jury could not find extenuating circumstances for that kind of cold-blooded assassin who slays in the small hours the wife of his bosom—­after having cast her off and driven her to evil ways, poor, spotless angel!  They brought him in guilty of a foul murder and he was guillotined—­gentleman and artist of merit though he was.  They were kind to his young son; his friends made up a purse and sent him afar to be educated and reared in ignorance.  But the shadow of the guillotine is projected afar, and I saw its red finger point to the assassin’s offspring.  I have found him.  If my hand is not too feeble to strike, it may anticipate yours.”

“I cannot measure swords with a felon’s son!” muttered Von Sendlingen.  “But I shall not cease aching in the heart until he is in the shameful grave he imprudently snatched me from.”