Madame la Vicomtesse laughed again, and once more the shade of sadness came into her eyes.
“They are the same the world over,” she said,—not to me, nor yet to any one there. And I knew that she was thinking of her own kind in France, who faced the guillotine without sense of danger. She turned to Nick. “You may be interested to know, Mr. Temple,” she added, “that Auguste is on his way to the English Turn to take ship for France.”
Nick regarded her for a moment, and then his face lighted up with that smile which won every one he met, which inevitably made them smile back at him.
“The news is certainly unexpected, Madame,” he said. “But then, after one has travelled much with Auguste it is difficult to take a great deal of interest in him. Am I to be sent to France, too?” he asked.
“Not if it can be helped,” replied the Vicomtesse, seriously. “Mr. Ritchie will tell you, however, that you are in no small danger. Doubtless you know it. Monsieur le Baron de Carondelet considers that the intrigues of the French Revolutionists in Louisiana have already robbed him of several years of his life. He is not disposed to be lenient towards persons connected with that cause.”
“What have you been doing since you arrived here on this ridiculous mission?” I demanded impatiently.
“My cousin is a narrow man, Madame la Vicomtesse,” said Nick. “We enjoy ourselves in different ways. I thought there might be some excitement in this matter, and I was sadly mistaken.”
“It is not over yet,” said the Vicomtesse.
“And Davy,” continued Nick, bowing to me, “gets his pleasures and excitement by extracting me from my various entanglements. Well, there is not much to tell. St. Gré and I were joined above Natchez by that little pig, Citizen Gignoux, and we shot past De Lemos in the night. Since then we have been permitted to sleep—no more—at various plantations. We have been waked up at barbarous hours in the morning and handed on, as it were. They were all fond of us, but likewise they were all afraid of the Baron. What day is to-day? Monday? Then it was on Saturday that we lost Gignoux.”
“I have reason to think that he has already sold out to the Baron,” I put in.