The man made a rough gesture. "Nor sail to the moon!" he returned derisively. "Read? Rubbish! Write? What for? Does it bring more fish to your nets?" "Who--could show me how to read and write?" "You?" Sanchez stared. "Why not?" "Books are the tools of the devil!" declared Sanchez shortly. "There was a black man here to-day with a paper--a 'writ,' I think he called it--or a 'service' of some kind--anyhow, it must have been in Latin," violently, "for such gibberish, I never heard and--" The boy rose. "People who can't read and write are low and ignorant!" "Eh? What's come over you?" "My father was a gentleman." "Your father!--yes--" "And a Seigneur!--" "A Seigneur truly!" "And I mean to be one!" said the boy suddenly, closing his fists. "Oh, oh! So that's it?" derisively. "You! A Seigneur? Whose mother--" "Who could teach me?" Determined, but with a trace of color on his brown cheek, the boy looked down. "Who?" The man began to recover from his surprise. "That's not so easy to tell. But if you must know--well, there's Gabriel Gabarie, for one, a poet of the people. He might do it--although there's talk of cutting off his head--" "What for?" "For knowing how to write." The lad reached for his hat. "Where are you going?" "To the poet's." "At this late hour! You are in a hurry!" "If what you say is true, there's no time to lose." "Well, if you find him writing verses about liberty and equality, don't interrupt him, or _you'll_ lose _your_ head," shouted the man. But when the sound of the boy's footsteps had ceased, Sanchez's expression changed; more bent, more worn, he got up and walked slowly to and fro. "A fine Seigneur!" The moldering walls seemed to echo the words. "A fine Seigneur!" he muttered, and again sat brooding by the fire. In the gathering dusk the lad strode briskly on. A squirrel barked to the right; he did not look around. A partridge drummed to the left; usually alert to wood sound or life, to-night he did not heed it. But, fairly out of the forest and making his way with the same air of resolution across the sands toward the lowland beyond, his attention, on a sudden, became forcibly diverted. He had but half completed the distance from the place where he had left the wood to the objective point in the curvature of the shore, when to the left through the gloom, a great vehicle, drawn by six horses, could be seen rapidly approaching. From the imposing equipage gleamed many lamps; the moon, which ere this had begun to assert its place in the heavens, made bright the shining harness and shone on the polished surface of the golden car. Wondering, the boy paused. "What is that?" The person addressed, a fisherman belated, bending to the burden on his shoulders, stopped, and, breathing hard, looked around and watched the approaching vehicle intently. "The Governor's carriage!" he said. "Haven't you ever heard of the Governor's carriage?" "No."