A man rose stiffly from the table, where he had been reading, and made way for the chevalier and his guest. A tall, elderly man, in servant's livery, who stooped and slunk softly about, whose sallow, brown face grew white when the captain scanned it curiously, whose thin, gray hair and immense overhanging gray mustache showed traces of cares rather than of years, and whose shifting, shrinking eyeballs ever sought the ground, as if their depths held emotions which the man must hide on peril of his life. A sudden shudder seized Captain Brand; a thrill ran sickening through his heart, which had never so thrilled before. He turned his back--he knew not why--in hatred upon the chevalier's valet. Was it a perception of evil, slow creeping toward him from the gloomy future--slow, but sure to come as death himself? Pshaw! what necromancer's dream was this? The captain, scoffing, threw it from him, and forgot the haggard old servant. "Thoms, we play _ecarte_," aspirated the chevalier, in his rough English (he invariably spoke French to the captain). "Bring wine and cards, and wait upon us." They plunged with zest into the game, and passed many hours in its intricacies. The chevalier protested that he had found an adversary worthy of him, and Captain Brand swore that for want of more piquant sauce a game of euchre every night with Calembours might answer to flavor the insipidity of the voyage out to New York. But the careless captain might have noted, too, had he considered such a worm worthy of notice, that whatever he did--talk, sing, drink wine, or muse--the secret, shifting eyes of Thoms, the valet, never lost a movement, but hour after hour watched him with the unearthly intentness of a blood-hound. While the captain slept that night in unconscious security, the Chevalier de Calembours, with a complacent chuckle and a flowing pen, wrote down in his diary, these famous words: "'_I came. I saw, I conquered!_' Monsieur Brand promises to be excellent sport though little hope of pigeoning him, _en passant_. Yes, he has keener scent than monsieur, my patron, gave him credit for--he won't be led altogether by the nose. But pouf! who is it that will not be gulled by Ludovic de Calembours?" Thoms, too, in secret, and with wary ear pricked for possible interruption, bent, in the seclusion of his own state-room, over a tiny green note-book, jotted down some things he wished to remember, then thrusting away his little book in a secret pocket, he rubbed his long, lean hands together in stealthy triumph, and laughed long and wickedly. Five days passed; the airy chevalier held his own in the sour captain's esteem, and they mutually approved of each other. They leaned over the taffrail together, Thoms a step behind, and watched the glittering city of New York, glowing in their eyes, as the steamer plowed its way between green and pleasant shores to gain it. Crowds waited on the pier--sailors, civilians, and soldiers mixed in frantic confusion.