in a French word now and then, like a sop to Cerberus, he spoke not a word; yet I saw his lips tighten, as he laid his arm over the neck of a small but well-built mule of a colour which matched its master’s clothing.  The animal rubbed a brown velvet head against the brown waistcoat which, perhaps, covered a fast-beating heart.  From that instant I knew that this was my man, and this my mule, as certainly as if they had been tattooed with my family crest and truculent motto:  “What I will, I take.”

“You’ve been a soldier, haven’t you?” I asked the muleteer in French.

He saluted as he replied that he had, and that for several years he had served a French general, as orderly.  His name was Joseph Marcoz, and—­he added—­he was a Protestant.

“And your mule?” I asked.

“Finois, Monsieur.”

“Ah, but his persuasion?  He is Protestant, too?” If Joseph had looked puzzled, I should have been disappointed, but a spark of humour lit the gloom of his sombre eye.  “Finois is Pantheist, I think you call it, Monsieur.  I am persuaded that he has a soul, for which there will be a place in the Beyond; and if he goes there first, I hope that he will be looking out for me.”

It seemed a sudden drop, after this preface, to turn to bargaining.  The landlord made the break for me, however, when he saw that I had set my mind upon Marcoz and his Finois.  It then appeared that Joseph was not his own master, but worked for the real owner of Finois and other mules.  The price he would have to ask for such a journey as I proposed was twenty-five francs a day.  This would include the services of man and mule, food for the one, and fodder for the other.  Without any beating down, I accepted the terms proposed, and the only part of the arrangement left in doubt was the time of starting.  It was not eight o’clock, yet already the diligences and private carriages going over the Grand St. Bernard had departed with a jingling of bells and sharp cracking of whips which had first informed me that it was day.  With me, it was different, however.  Speed was no longer my aim.  I would not be in a hurry about arriving anywhere, and when I learned that there were a couple of small towns on the Pass, at either of which I could lie for a night, there seemed no fair excuse for keeping Jack and Molly at Martigny.

As I was wondering when they would wake, that I might consult them on the details of my journey, I glanced up and saw Molly, as fresh as if she had been born with the morning, standing on a balcony just over my head.  In her hand was a letter, and as she waved a greeting, something came fluttering uncertainly down.  I managed to catch this something before it touched earth, and had inadvertently seen that it was an unmounted photograph, probably taken by an amateur correspondent, when Molly leaned over the railing, with an excited cry.  “Oh, don’t look.  Please, please don’t look at that photograph!” she exclaimed.