Although I made free with the men, pitched quoits, and joined in their rough play, I trusted none, suspected all. No, not all. There were two young fellows whom I was many times on the point of calling to my confidence, but, thinking it wiser, kept my own counsel. Treason could ever wear a smiling front and air of frankness. Levert was a man much older than myself, of gloomy and taciturn manners, yet something there was so masterful about him men obeyed him whether they would or no. A more silent man I never knew, yet courteous and stately withal, and well liked by the men. But it was to Achille Broussard my heart went out in those days of loneliness. His almost childish lightness of disposition and his friendly ways won me completely, and we became fast comrades. A noble looking lad, with the strength of a young Titan, and the blonde curls of a woman. During the long idle hours of the afternoon it was his custom to banter me for a bout at swords, and Levert generally acted as our master of the lists. At first he was much my superior with the foils, for during his days with the Embassy at Madrid, and in the schools at Paris, he had learned those hundreds of showy and fancy little tricks of which we in the forests knew nothing. However, I doubted not that on the field our rougher ways and sterner methods would count for quite as much. With all the five long weeks of daily practice, I gathered many things from him, until one day we had an experience which made us lay the foils aside for good. We had been sitting after the dinner hour, discussing his early life in Paris. He wound up with his usual declaration, "As for myself, give me the gorgeous plays, the fetes and smiles of the Montespan, rather than the prayers, the masses and the sober gowns of de Maintenon. And now it is your turn, comrade; let us know something of your escapades, your days of folly in dear old Paris." "I have never seen Paris," I answered simply. "What! Never been to Paris? Then, man, you have never lived. But where have you spent all your days?" "In the colonies--Quebec, Montreal, Biloxi. But now I will have an opportunity, for I am going--" I had almost told something of my mission, ere I checked a too fluent confidence. Levert, who had been pacing up and down the deck in his absorbed and inattentive way, dropped his blade across my shoulder and challenged me to the foils. "No, it is too early yet," Achille replied, "besides, we were talking of other things. As you were saying, comrade, you go--?" "Oh, you two talk too much," Levert broke in again, "let us have a bout; I'm half a mind I can handle a foil myself. A still tongue, a clear head and a sharp blade are the tools of Fortune." It seemed almost that he had twice interrupted purposely to keep me from talking. I thought I read that deeper meaning in his eyes. Somehow I grew to distrust him from that moment. What consequence was it to him of what I spoke?