"You might blind-fold me, and I could, by my sense of smell, recognize trees or their leaves. I carried a serpent's egg on my person; I had found it one morning between eleven and twelve, and had pocketed it. I had also a gift of finding wild honey, and the bees never harmed me when I took the combs. I was once employed that way, when Ernst came up to me. He acted as if he were about to punish me for what I had done; but I told him that this was not breaking of the laws of the forest, and that it was not poaching. And then he said to me, 'You are wild honey yourself.' "Thus Ernst found me and brought me here, where I now am. But I do not deserve it. They say that Ernst is in Algiers, with the wild Turks. Give me some money that I may go to him--I can find him. "But tell me now, Ludwig, how do you know that my mother is in America?" "I know nothing of it; I simply guessed so, because you always have such a fear of America." "So you are the son of such parents--and yet can lie? Your mother in heaven will never forgive you for that." Ludwig was moved by this apostrophe, and asked Martella to forgive him. She nodded assent and shook hands with him and with me, saying at the same time: "Father, I shall do nothing more but what you tell me to do. I shall never again act of my own free will." "Were you always called Martella?" inquired Ludwig. "No." "How, then?" "Conradine." "Who gave you the name of Martella?" "Jaegerlies." "Why?" "Because, she said, 'No one will know you by that name, and if they seek you they cannot find you.'" "But how did she chance on that name?" "That you ought to have asked her. And that is enough. Good-night." Martella walked away. Ludwig afterward told me that he had been making inquiries over in the valley where Jaegerlies had been living. He could not understand why we had not done so long before. Now it might be very difficult to discover anything, as Jaegerlies had died a few days before. He had learned, from the neighbors, that she often spoke of America in a mysterious and indistinct manner, and that, together with Martella's aversion to the very mention of America, caused him to question her in the way he had done. CHAPTER XIV. In spite of Martella's and Ikwarte's trouble, the great feast was pleasantly remembered in our house and throughout the village. Annette said: "Whenever I gave a large entertainment, it always grieved me to see the many people, who had just been together so cheerful and so lively, suddenly disappear. And it was always especially agreeable to me when several of my more intimate friends would remain. We would then gather together for a little quiet enjoyment, and so a smaller and more congenial circle succeeded the larger one; for that reason, I think some of us ought to remain here."