had to suffer in order to teach them that lesson.

Gr-r-r! but he would like to have Monsieur Martel up before him just for
ten minutes or so, with a clear field and no favour. Martel was strong and
active, it was true, but there--he was a drinker, and a Frenchman at that,
and drink doesn't run to wind, and a Frenchman doesn't run to fists. Very
well--say twenty minutes then, and if he--George Hamon--did not make
Monsieur Martel regret ever having come to Sercq, he would deserve all he
got and would take it without a murmur.

He was full of such imaginings, when at last he fell asleep, and he dreamt
that he and Martel met in a lonely place and fought. And so full of fight
was he that he rolled off the fern-bed and woke with a bump on the floor,
and regretted that it was only a dream. For he had just got Martel's head
comfortably under his left arm, and was paying him out in full for all he
had made Rachel Carré suffer, when the bump of his fall put an end to it.

The following night he fell asleep at once, tired with a long day's work in
the fields. He woke with a start about midnight, with the impression of a
sound in his ears, and lay listening doubtfully. Then he perceived that his
ears had not deceived him. There was someone in the room,--or
something,--and for a moment all the superstitions among which he had been
bred crawled in his back hair and held his breath.

Then a hand dropped out of the darkness and touched his shoulder, and he
sprang at the touch like a coiled spring.

"Diable!"

It was Martel's voice and usual exclamation, and in a moment Hamon had him