was mad, obsessed, a monomaniac.  It was grotesque; it troubled the senses as a Harlequin’s dance troubles the eyes.  A great-grandson of Napoleon, and plotting to enter France!  And, good Lord! with what?  Two million francs and half a dozen spendthrifts.  Never had there been a wilder, more hopeless dreamer than this!  Whatever antagonism or anger he had harbored against Breitmann evaporated.  Poor devil, indeed!

He understood M. Ferraud now.  Breitmann was mad; but till he made a decisive stroke no man could stay him.  So many things were clear now.  He was after the treasure, and he meant to lay his hands upon it, peacefully if he could, violently if no other way opened.  That day in the Invalides, the old days in the field, his unaccountable appearance on the Jersey coast; each of these things squared themselves in what had been a puzzle.  But, like the admiral, he wished that there were no women on board.  There would be a contest of some order, going forward, where only men would be needed.  Pirates!  He rolled into his bunk with a dry laugh.

Meantime M. Ferraud walked the deck alone, and finally when Breitmann approached him, it was no more than he had been expecting.

“Among other things,” began the secretary, with ominous calm, “I should like to see the impression of your thumb.”

“That lock was an ingenious contrivance.  It was only by the merest accident I discovered it.”

“It must be a vile business.”

“Serving one’s country?  I do not agree with you.  Wait a moment, Mr. Breitmann; let us not misunderstand each other.  I do not know what fear is; but I do know that I am one of the few living who put above all other things in the world, France:  France with her wide and beautiful valleys, her splendid mountains, her present peace and prosperity.  And my life is nothing if in giving it I may confer a benefit.”

“Why did you not tell the whole story?  A Frenchman, and to deny oneself a climax like this?”

M. Ferraud remained silent.

“If you had not meddled!  Well, you have, and these others must bear the brunt with you, should anything serious happen.”

“Without my permission you will not remain in Ajaccio a single hour.  But that would not satisfy me.  I wish to prove to you your blindness.  I will make you a proposition.  Tear up those papers, erase the memory from your mind, and I will place in your hands every franc of those two millions.”

Breitmann laughed harshly.  “You have said that I am mad; very well, I am.  But I know what I know, and I shall go on to the end.  You are clever.  I do not know who you are nor why you are here with your warnings; but this will I say to you:  to-morrow we land, and every hour you are there, death shall lurk at your elbow.  Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly.  So well, that I shall let you go freely.”

“A warning for each, then; only mine has death in it.”