commanding at some battle in which he was victorious, seated upon a
white horse and waving a field-marshal's baton over piles of dead and
wounded; and near the window, hanging to the reeds of the ceiling, the
nest of a pair of red-tailed swallows, pretty creatures that,
notwithstanding the mess they made, afforded to Marie and me endless
amusement in the intervals of our work.

When, on that day, I shuffled shyly into this homely place, and,
thinking myself alone there, fell to examining it, suddenly I was
brought to a standstill by a curious choking sound which seemed to
proceed from the shadows behind the bookcase. Wondering as to its
cause, I advanced cautiously to discover a pink-clad shape standing in
the corner like a naughty child, with her head resting against the wall,
and sobbing slowly.

"Marie Marais, why do you cry?" I asked.

She turned, tossing back the locks of long, black hair which hung about
her face, and answered:

"Allan Quatermain, I cry because of the shame which has been put upon
you and upon our house by that drunken Frenchman."

"What of that?" I asked. "He only called me a pig, but I think I have
shown him that even a pig has tusks."

"Yes," she replied, "but it was not you he meant; it was all the
English, whom he hates; and the worst of it is that my father is of his
mind. He, too, hates the English, and, oh! I am sure that trouble will
come of his hatred, trouble and death to many."