Madame Marat was the mother of Jean Marat. She was a handsome, sympathetic, motherly soul, and we had all sampled her cookery. When we were bowling along behind the horses, Julian put his hand on my knee. "Wayne," he said, "You ought to have seen how she took on when I told her you had lost your mother. If it hadn't been winter she would have taken the train next day, and gone to you. But she declared she would never have lived to reach there in the cold."
When we had climbed the stairs and gone into the little parlor, Madame Marat held forth her hands to me, "Ah, mon chere!" she said. And she had me in her motherly clasp—only a mother knows how.
Madame pushed us in, to a table steaming and savory with her French things, dishes she knew so well how to concoct. And there was grinning black Rufe, who had been all his life in the service of Julian Lamartine's family. And then, when the meal was well under way, and we had all had our fill of comparing notes, Julian opened the business of our projected voyage.
"You probably noticed that I hadn't much to say in my letter regarding details," he said, "where we're going and so on. The fact is, I don't know."
We showed our interest.
"It was Rufe, here, that picked up the information," went on Julian. "I'm going to let him tell you how it was. Rufe," he turned to the black fellow, "tell the boys how you found the man."
"Well," began Rufe, "you sees I got some kin living up Tchoupetoulas way, an' I hadn' been to see um fo' a right smart long time. So I goes. An' dere I meets up wid a niggah I ain't seed befo', whose name is Amos. He ben in town moh dan a week, an' he was low down sick—lef' by some ship he been a' sailin' on. He's home way off some'ere, he don' say where. Well, I dopes him up on calomel and quinine, like ol' Mistah Lamartine use ter do, an' he soon gets well, an' he kinder tuck a shine to me. An' after a while he tells me how he an' a brother of hisn has got a gol' mine some'eres, an' as how his father discover dat gol' mine. Amos was a little pickaninny then, an' his father tells him as how he is goin' to show him dat gol' mine when he gits big 'nuff. But when he try to sell the gol' wat he take fum de mine, a ornery debbil of a white man gits in wid Amos' father in de mine, an' murder him. Amos say he know dat, 'cause he's father nebber come back, and dat white man, he jis' is swimmin' in gol' fum dat time on.
"Amos plumb refuse to tell whar dat place is, 'cept hit on an islan' down South America way. But he say ef I got some sure 'nuff hones' folks dat'll go, he take 'em to dat island and divide up fair an' square, w'en de gol' mine is foun'. He say he an' his brother ain't nebber foun' de mine, cause dat white man tol' 'em dat ef dey come nosin' roun' dey is goin' to get shot. And Amos showed me in his leg where he once did git shot."
"Well say," broke in Ray, "did this Amos ever show you what kind of stuff he burns in his pipe?"
"Yes, perhaps he's just yarning," spoke up Robert, "so as to get somebody to take him back home."