One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope, in such a manner that it would drop but when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each following day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under the cedar-tree to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But there had been nothing there.
"Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie.
And the old man said, from a little distance: "It is turned, Monsieur. I see nothing. Monsieur throws little stories at the birds to amuse himself. It does not concern me."
Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling horizontally, and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road near the tramway. For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a sigh. He said, "You may turn round now, my friend," and the old Michel faced him. "We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also fails, I think--well, I think the bon Dieu will have to help us then.--Michel," he inquired, "do you know how to pray?"
"Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome, in something between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon métier, ça!" He shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. "There is the old Justine!" he suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imbécile là."
"In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one little extra prayer for--the pebble I threw at the birds just now. Hein?" He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel took them in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty francs and some silver.
"The prayer shall be said, Monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her."
"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle soul."
They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of his head with a reflective air.
"The old one is a madman," said he. (The "old one" meant Captain Stewart.) "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck me--here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that, and--who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be beaten? Hein? Je ne le crois pas. Hé!" He called Captain Stewart two unprintable names, and after a moment's thought he called him an animal, which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may seem, because to call anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.