"And now, Don Jose, let me say that _I_ have an item of rare intelligence!" The don lifted his feeble head and opened his inquiring eyes with a sudden, savage light in them.
"No," said Agricola, "he is not exactly taken yet, but they are on his track." "Who ?" "The police.

We may say he is virtually in our grasp." * * * * * It was on a Sabbath afternoon that a band of Choctaws having just played a game of racquette behind the city and a similar game being about to end between the white champions of two rival faubourgs, the beating of tom-toms, rattling of mules' jawbones and sounding of wooden horns drew the populace across the fields to a spot whose present name of Congo Square still preserves a reminder of its old barbaric pastimes.

On a grassy plain under the ramparts, the performers of these hideous discords sat upon the ground facing each other, and in their midst the dancers danced.

They gyrated in couples, a few at a time, throwing their bodies into the most startling attitudes and the wildest contortions, while the whole company of black lookers-on, incited by the tones of the weird music and the violent posturing of the dancers, swayed and writhed in passionate sympathy, beating their breasts, palms and thighs in time with the bones and drums, and at frequent intervals lifting, in that wild African unison no more to be described than forgotten, the unutterable songs of the Babouille and Counjaille dances, with their ejaculatory burdens of "_Aie! Aie! Voudou Magnan!_" and "_Aie Calinda! Dance Calinda!_" The volume of sound rose and fell with the augmentation or diminution of the dancers' extravagances.

Now a fresh man, young and supple, bounding into the ring, revived the flagging rattlers, drummers and trumpeters; now a wearied dancer, finding his strength going, gathered all his force at the cry of "_Dance zisqu'a mort!_" rallied to a grand finale and with one magnificent antic fell, foaming at the mouth.
The amusement had reached its height.