“What did they give them to eat?” asked little Pauline, who seemed deeply interested.

“They gave them maggoty rice and foul meat,” answered Florent, whose voice grew lower as he spoke.  “The rice could scarcely be eaten.  When the meat was roasted and very well done it was just possible to swallow it; but if it was boiled, it smelt so dreadfully that the men had nausea and stomach ache.”

“I’d rather have lived upon dry bread,” said the child, after thinking the matter carefully over.

Leon, having finished the mincing, now placed the sausage-meat upon the square table in a dish.  Mouton, who had remained seated with his eyes fixed upon Florent, as though filled with amazement by his story, was obliged to retreat a few steps, which he did with a very bad grace.  Then he rolled himself up, with his nose close to the sausage-meat, and began to purr.

Lisa was unable to conceal her disgust and amazement.  That foul rice, that evil-smelling meat, seemed to her to be scarcely credible abominations, which disgraced those who had eaten them as much as it did those who had provided them; and her calm, handsome face and round neck quivered with vague fear of the man who had lived upon such horrid food.

“No, indeed, it was not a land of delights,” Florent resumed, forgetting all about little Pauline, and fixing his dreamy eyes upon the steaming pot.  “Every day brought fresh annoyances—­perpetual grinding tyranny, the violation of every principle of justice, contempt for all human charity, which exasperated the prisoners, and slowly consumed them with a fever of sickly rancour.  They lived like wild beasts, with the lash ceaselessly raised over their backs.  Those torturers would have liked to kill the poor man—­Oh, no; it can never be forgotten; it is impossible!  Such sufferings will some day claim vengeance.”

His voice had fallen, and the pieces of fat hissing merrily in the pot drowned it with the sound of their boiling.  Lisa, however, heard him, and was frightened by the implacable expression which had suddenly come over his face; and, recollecting the gentle look which he habitually wore, she judged him to be a hypocrite.

Florent’s hollow voice had brought Pauline’s interest and delight to the highest pitch, and she fidgeted with pleasure on his knee.

“But the man?” she exclaimed.  “Go on about the man!”

Florent looked at her, and then appeared to remember, and smiled his sad smile again.

“The man,” he continued, “was weary of remaining on the island, and had but one thought—­that of making his escape by crossing the sea and reaching the mainland, whose white coast line could be seen on the horizon in clear weather.  But it was no easy matter to escape.  It was necessary that a raft should be built, and as several of the prisoners had already made their escape, all the trees on the island had been felled to prevent the others from