“Nevertheless,” said I, “since I have taken a fancy—­call it a whim, if you will—­that the door remains at least unbolted. . . .”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “It will help you nothing.”

“I am an Englishman,” said I.

“Indeed?  Well, I have heard before now that it will explain anything and everything; but as yet my poor understanding scarcely stretches it to cover your presence here.”

“Faith, sir,” I answered, “to put the matter briefly, I am here because the Princess is here, whom I have followed—­though without her knowledge—­because I guessed her to be walking into peril.”

“Excuse me.  Without her knowledge, you say?” The Commandant turned to the Princess, who bowed her head but continued to gaze at me from under her lowered brows.  “Absolutely, sir.”

“And without knowledge of her errand?  Again excuse me, but does it not occur to you that you may be intruding at this moment upon a family affair?”

Here the Prince broke in with a scornful laugh.  For a minute or so his brow had been clearing, but, though he sneered, he could not as yet meet his sister’s eye.  I noted this as his laugh drew my gaze upon him, and it seemed that my contempt gave me a sudden clear insight; for I found myself answering the Commandant very deliberately—­

“The Princess, sir, until a moment ago, perhaps knew not whether I was alive or dead, and certainly knew not that I was within a hundred miles of this place.  Had she known it, she would as certainly not have confided her errand to me, mixed up as it is with her brother’s shame.  She would, I dare rather wager, have taken great pains to hide it from me.  And yet I will not pretend that I am quite ignorant of it, as neither will I allow—­family affair though it be—­that I have no interest in it, seeing that it concerns the crown of Corsica.”

The Commandant glanced at the Prince, then at the priest, who stood passive, listening, with his back to the wall, his loose-lidded eyes studying me from the lantern’s penumbra.

“What possible interest—­” begun the Commandant.

“By the crown of Corsica,” I interrupted, “I mean the material crown of the late King Theodore, at this moment concealed (if I mistake not) somewhere in this cottage.  In it I may claim a certain interest, seeing that I brought it from England to this island, and that the Prince Camillo here—­whose father gave it to me—­is trading it to you by fraud.  Yes, messere, he may claim that it belongs to him by right; but he obtained it from me by fraud, as neither he nor his sister can deny.  That perhaps might pass:  but when he—­he a son of Corsica—­goes on to sell it to Genoa, I reassert my claim.”

Again the Commandant shrugged his shoulders.  It consoled me to note that his glance at the Prince was by no means an admiring one.

“I am a soldier,” he said curtly.  “I do not deal in sentiment; nor is it my business, when a bargain comes to me—­a bargain in which I can serve my country—­to inquire into how’s and why’s.”