Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme and beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules headed south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to be brought back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work well. Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day. There had been a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot sweated, and Ah Cho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with the least concern. He had toiled three years under that sun on the plantation. He beamed and beamed with such genial good nature that even Cruchot's heavy mind was stirred to wonderment. “You are very funny,” he said at last. Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all foreign devils, Ah Cho understood. “You laugh too much,” Cruchot chided. “One's heart should be full of tears on a day like this.” “I am glad to get out of the jail.” “Is that all?” The gendarme shrugged his shoulders. “Is it not enough?” was the retort. “Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?” Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said-- “Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for Schemmer. Are you not taking me to Atimaono?” Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. “Well, well,” he said finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, “so you don't know?” “Know what?” Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. “Won't Schemmer let me work for him any more?” “Not after to-day.” Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. “You see, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off can't work, eh?” He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled. Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile. Then he spoke: “Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?” Cruchot grinned as he nodded. “It is a mistake,” said Ah Cho, gravely. “I am not the Chinago that is to have his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has determined that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia.” The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to cheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again. “I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that my head was to go off.”