The man took a step away. The baby's screams redoubled; he stamped with small, fat feet and brandished small, fat fists.

"You buy?" the peddler blandly insisted.

"No!" the girl panted. "Please do go. I cannot; I have no money with me. Holly, dear----!"

Adriance had found a boy to hold his horse, and came up in time to overhear the last statement. He halted the Syrian with a gesture.

"I have," he made his presence known to the combatants. "Won't you let me gratify a fellowman? Here, bring those things nearer. Which shall it be, young chap--or both?"

The girl turned to him with candid relief warming her surprise.

"Oh!" she exclaimed her recognition. "You are very good. I am afraid, really afraid it will have to be both. _Oh_----!"

Holly had deliberately lunged forward and clutched a double handful of the alluring wares. By the time calm was re-established and the amused Adriance had paid, it seemed altogether natural that he should take his place on the seat beside the girl; as natural as the peddler's placid departure. Holly lay back on his cushions in vast content, two balloons floating from their tethers at the foot of his coach and a pinwheel clasped in his hand.

"I should like to say that he is not often like this," remarked the girl, gathering together her scattered sewing, "But he likes having his own way as much as Maît' Raoul Galvez; and everyone knows what _he_ raised."

"I don't," Adriance confessed. He noticed for the first time a softening of her words, not enough to be called an accent, far less a lisp, but yet a trick of speech, unfamiliar to him. "What did he raise?"

"Satan," she gravely told him. "Maît' Raoul knew more about voodooism and black magic than any white man ever should. It is said he vowed that he would have the devil up in person to play cards with him, or never be content on earth or under it. And he did, although he knew well enough Satan never gambles except for souls."

"Who won?"

"Satan did. Yet he lost again, for Maît' Raoul tricked him in the contract so cleverly that it did not bind and the soul was free. There is a great split rock near Galvez Bayou where they say the demon stamped in his rage so fiercely the stone burst."

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