His sharp, black, malicious eyes wandered unsteadily from the Puritan to myself, as if he sought to regain his scattered senses.

Finally he ventured a single word of inquiry: "_Francais_ ?" "No," I answered shortly, speaking deliberately in French, hopeful he might know something of the tongue.

"We are not of that people, yet I speak the language." "I glad you not _Francais_," he said brokenly, yet intelligibly, his tone gruff, his accent guttural; "but I talk you some in that tongue." "How come you to speak French ?" His lean face hardened.

As he bent forward, his fingers clinched convulsively.

At first I thought he would not answer.
"'T was much time since I learn; when I was young man," he answered slowly, recalling the unfamiliar words.