“How will you support him?”

“He is supporting me at present.  But I would rather take my chances alone.”

“You have another follower,” said Louis Philippe.  “Your Indian has been in France, and after hearing our talk at the camp, he foresaw you might be moved to this folly, and told me he intended to guide you there, or wherever you go!”

“And Skenedonk, too!”

I shook with laughter.  It was so like Skenedonk to draw his conclusions and determine on the next step.

“What shall I do with them?”

“The old master can be your secretary, and as for the Indian, you can take him for your servant.”

“A secretary and a servant, for an outcast without a penny to his pouch!”

“You see the powers that order us are beginning well with you.  Starting with a secretary and a servant, you may end with a full household and a court!  I ought to add my poor item of tribute, and this I can do.  There is a ship-master taking cargo this month in New York bay, who is a devoted royalist; a Breton sailor.  For a letter from me he will carry you and your suite to the other side of the world; but you will have to land in his port.”

“And what will the charges be?”

“Nothing, except gratitude, if I put the case as strongly to him as I intend to do.  God knows I may be casting a foul lot for you.  His ship is staunch, rigged like the Italian salt ships.  But it is dirty work crossing the sea; and there is always danger of falling into the hands of pirates.  Are you determined?”

I looked him in the eyes, and said I was; thanking him for all his goodness to one who had so little expectation of requiting him.  The sweet heartiness of an older man so far beyond myself in princely attainments and world knowledge, who could stoop to such a raw savage, took me by storm.

I asked him if he had any idea who the idiot was that we had seen in Bellenger’s camp.  He shook his head, replying that idiots were plentiful, and the people who had them were sometimes glad to get rid of them.

“The dauphin clue has been very cleverly managed by—­Bellenger, let us say,” Louis Philippe remarked.  “If you had not appeared, I should not now believe there is a dauphin.”

I wanted to tell him all the thoughts tossing in my mind; but silence is sometimes better than open speech.  Facing adventure, I remembered that I had never known the want of food for any length of time during my conscious life.  And I had a suspicion the soft life at De Chaumont’s had unstrung me for what was before me.  But it lasted scarce a year, and I was built for hardship.

He turned to his table to write the ship-master’s letter.  Behold, there lay a book I knew so well that I exclaimed——­

“Where did you get my missal?”

“Your missal, Lazarre?  This is mine.”

I turned the leaves, and looked at the back.  It was a continuation of the prayers of the church.  There were blank leaves for the inscribing of prayers, and one was written out in a good bold hand.