"With such testimony I cannot see how you can refrain from taking my
advice in this matter; and I tell you, ladies, that this man Kidd has made
his story up out of whole cloth; the men of Hades had no more to do with
our being here than we had; they were as much surprised as we are to find
us gone. Kidd himself was not aware of our presence, and his object in
taking us to Paris is to leave us stranded there, disembodied spirits,
vagrant souls with no familiar haunts to haunt, no place to rest, and
nothing before us save perpetual exile in a world that would have no
sympathy for us in our misfortune, and no belief in our continued
existence."

"But what, then, shall we do?" cried Ophelia, wringing her hands in
despair.

"It is a terrible problem," said Cleopatra, anxiously; "and yet it does
seem as if our woman's instinct ought to show us some way out of our
trouble."

"The Committee on Treachery," said Delilah, "has already suggested a
chafing-dish party, with Lucretia Borgia in charge of the lobster
Newberg."

"That is true," said Lucretia; "but I find, in going through my reticule,
that my maid, for some reason unknown to me, has failed to renew my supply
of poisons. I shall discharge her on my return home, for she knows that I
never go anywhere without them; but that does not help matters at this
juncture. The sad fact remains that I could prepare a thousand delicacies
for these pirates without fatal results."

"You mean immediately fatal, do you not?" suggested Xanthippe. "I could