veilles for a long time to come. Thus Elie Mattingley would not die in
vain!

Here was one sensation, but there was still another. Olivier Delagarde
had been unmasked, and the whole island had gone tracking him down. No
aged toothless tiger was ever sported through the jungle by an army of
shikarris with hungrier malice than was this broken traitor by the people
he had betrayed. Ensued, therefore, a commingling of patriotism with
lust of man-hunting and eager expectation of to-morrow's sacrifice.

Nothing of this excitement disturbed Mattingley. He did not sleep, but
that was because he was still watching for a means of escape. He felt
his chances diminish, however, when about midnight an extra guard was put
round the prison. Something had gone amiss in the matter of his rescue.

Three things had been planned.

Firstly, he was to try escape by the small window of the dungeon.

Secondly, Carterette was to bring Sebastian Alixandre to the prison
disguised as a sorrowing aunt of the condemned. Alixandre was suddenly
to overpower the jailer, Mattingley was to make a rush for freedom, and a
few bold spirits without would second his efforts and smuggle him to the
sea. The directing mind and hand in the business were Ranulph
Delagarde's. He was to have his boat waiting to respond to a signal from
the shore, and to make sail for France, where he and his father were to
be landed. There he was to give Mattingley, Alixandre, and Carterette
his craft to fare across the seas to the great fishing-ground of Gaspe in
Canada.