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Some men lose their minds in the Cachot Noir, though its horrors have been mitigated of late years. But Dalahaide's brain did not fail; and he has proved a valuable man at secretarial work. Also during the plague, three years ago, he volunteered as a nurse, and was admirable.

But something shot into sight round the point, something big, and black, and swift, with a gleam of fiery eyes and a belching stream of smoke streaked with fire. "By thunder!" stammered George. "It's not the Cuba. It's the Government boat, coming down on us. We're trapped, sure as fate." The words rang in Maxime Dalahaide's ears and reached his dimmed consciousness.

But all he could compass was not to let himself be guided by its promptings. If he had desired Dalahaide's escape as whole-heartedly as before, he could have worked for it no harder than he did; still, he experienced no warmth of gladness at sight of the dark figure silhouetted for an instant against a moonlit haze.

She daren't come where we are, for she'd be ripped to pieces on the reef, and she knows that." "Hark! They've spotted us. She's hailing!" cried Roger Broom. "Halte! halte!" came harshly across the moonlit space of water, as, obedient to Dalahaide's quick hint, the course of the launch was changed. The three fugitives were mute, and again a raucous cry broke the silence of the sea.

Virginia was as sure as ever that Manuela de Mattos was Liane Devereux; even Roger Broom's contrary opinion had been somewhat shaken by the woman's horrified shriek at sight of Max Dalahaide's white face and tragic eyes in the moonlight.

Madeleine Dalahaide's pale, sad face became ashen, her great eyes dilated, and there was something of fear, perhaps even of distrust, in the look she turned upon Virginia. "You know him?" she exclaimed, her voice suddenly sharp. "Yes," admitted the American girl. "Then I think that you and I cannot be friends." "Not friends? But if I give up the Marchese Loria for you?"

There was an even deeper mystery about that murder than Maxime Dalahaide's best friends guessed." Roger Broom shrugged his shoulders with a despairing laugh. "For light-hearted trampling on established facts, give me an American girl!" he exclaimed. "A woman is murdered, her body found, identified, buried. Four or five years afterward another woman appears, a brunette, while Number One was blonde.

I could not sleep last night. I got up before any one else was awake, because I because I wanted so much to see you, that I couldn't wait: and I wanted to come to you alone." Madeleine Dalahaide's faint frown relaxed. Virginia in that mood was irresistible, even to a woman. Still the girl in black did not smile.

He consulted maps, and saw that the most likely place for the Bella Cuba to proceed on leaving New Caledonia was Samoa. It seemed to him that she must go there, in any case. Loria did not wish to appear as an active enemy of Maxime Dalahaide's. It was largely owing to his efforts on the prisoner's behalf that Max had been saved from the guillotine, and all the Dalahaides must have known that.

How can you bear to stay here, when you have a chance to be a free man even if not a happy man to stay here, and let your enemy, who sent you to this place, laugh and think how his plot against you has succeeded?" The dreamy look of weary resignation on Maxime Dalahaide's face changed to alertness. "Why do you speak of an enemy, and a plot against me?" he asked.