“Well,” continued Schinner, “when I was brought into court in presence of the magistrates, I learned that the cursed corsair was dead, poisoned by Zena. I’d liked to have changed linen then. Give you my word, I knew nothing of _that_ melodrama. It seems the Greek girl put opium (a great many poppies, as monsieur told us, grow about there) in the pirate’s grog, just to make him sleep soundly and leave her free for a little walk with me, and the old duenna, unfortunate creature, made a mistake and trebled the dose. The immense fortune of that cursed pirate was really the cause of all my Zena’s troubles. But she explained matters so ingenuously that I, for one, was released with an injunction from the mayor and the Austrian commissary of police to go back to Rome. Zena, who let the heirs of the Uscoque and the judges get most of the old villain’s wealth, was let off with two years’ seclusion in a convent, where she still is. I am going back there some day to paint her portrait; for in a few years, you know, all this will be forgotten. Such are the follies one commits at eighteen!” “And you left me without a sou in the locanda at Venice,” said Mistigris. “And I had to get from Venice to Rome by painting portraits for five francs apiece, which they didn’t pay me. However, that was my halcyon time. I don’t regret it.” “You can imagine the reflections that came to me in that Dalmatian prison, thrown there without protection, having to answer to Austrians and Dalmatians, and in danger of losing my head because I went twice to walk with a woman. There’s ill-luck, with a vengeance!” “Did all that really happen to you?” said Oscar, naively. “Why shouldn’t it happen to him, inasmuch as it had already happened during the French occupation of Illyria to one of our most gallant officers of artillery?” said the count, slyly. “And you believed that artillery officer?” said Mistigris, as slyly to the count. “Is that all?” asked Oscar. “Of course he can’t tell you that they cut his head off,--how could he?” said Mistigris. “‘Dead schinners tell no tales.’” “Monsieur, are there farms in that country?” asked Pere Leger. “What do they cultivate?” “Maraschino,” replied Mistigris,--“a plant that grows to the height of the lips, and produces a liqueur which goes by that name.” “Ah!” said Pere Leger. “I only stayed three days in the town and fifteen in prison,” said Schinner, “so I saw nothing; not even the fields where they grow the maraschino.” “They are fooling you,” said Georges to the farmer. “Maraschino comes in cases.” “‘Romances alter cases,’” remarked Mistigris. CHAPTER V. THE DRAMA BEGINS Pierrotin’s vehicle was now going down the steep incline of the valley of Saint-Brice to the inn which stands in the middle of the large village of that name, where Pierrotin was in the habit of stopping an hour to breathe his horses, give them their oats, and water them. It was now about half-past one o’clock.