English custom, had left them, M. de Vicq drew in his chair and concentrated his attention on his fellow-guest.

"I remember the Vendée, of course," he remarked, "and the great days of the Chouannerie, Cadoudal's days. You are too young to recall them, Monsieur—but you have relit the sacred fire!"

"No—only fanned the embers," said L'Oiseleur quickly. "The fire is always there. The Breton does not change. Indeed, some of mine are identically the same as those of the great days. And one has the same devotion to rely on, the same obstinacy to combat, the same superstitions to use or respect, and the same kind of warfare."

"That warfare of hedgerows and heather of which one has heard," put in Laurent, his chin on his hands, "and which needs, I imagine, a special aptitude."

"I suppose it does. At any rate, it is the only kind which the Breton really understands. You have to be always on the move; if you have very few men, as I had—at least at the beginning, when I started with twenty-five—that is easy. And if you keep moving you are not only invisible, but the enemy thinks your numbers are much greater than they are. I have never had more than six hundred men, but they were all picked, and if I had told any one of them to go immediately and cut off his hand the only delay would have been the finding of the chopper. . . . Well, that is all over now. I suppose I ought to say, Thank God. I do say it—but one does not like parting from one's comrades."

"You have disbanded them, then?"

"Not yet. But I shall do so directly the King is actually in Paris."

"The King in Paris!" exclaimed the Baron de Vicq in a rapt tone. And he began a loyal reverie on that theme, to which the two young men listened with becoming patience. Then he reverted somewhat abruptly to the question of L'Oiseleur's amulet, and asked so many questions about it, that in the end M. de la Rocheterie, beginning, Laurent fancied, to be slightly bored, offered to show it to him, and, while M. de Vicq murmured delightedly, "Monsieur, you are really too obliging!" took off his coat with an apology to his host and turned up the sleeve of his fine shirt.

Laurent, leaning back on his chair, his hands behind his head, looked on amused. Little exclamations broke from the old Royalist as, spectacles on nose, he bent over the table and scrutinized the circlet closely. "And that is really the fairy garter of the legend—dear, dear, 

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