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late as he went along. Everybody said that would answer
and the stranger began.

"I am Jean Pierre Marteau, aged 34. I was born in the
little village of Sous-Saone in the south of France. My
parents cultivated a little patch of ground on the estates of
the Marquis La Bordonnais. Our good priest taught me
to read and write and my parents looked upon me with
much pride for they thought I was going to amount to
something, some day."

But he read books of adventure and grew up
with a restless longing to go to sea. At sixteen
he ran away and at Marseilles went as ship's boy
on a coasting vessel. He was a good sailor and
in time became first officer, but his habit of going
on a spree at the end of a voyage got him into
trouble. One night in a row a sailor was shot and
killed.

"There were several circumstances which cast strong
suspicion upon me, and I was arrested. I was tried and
condemned to the galleys for 12 years."

He made several attempts to escape but each
time was captured.

"At last one day when I was at work in Paris, a week
ago—a week before you found me------"

"How? In Paris a week ago?"

"It is incredible—it is impossible!"

"Let me tell my story, messieurs. I shall not falsify—
we were in Paris, I and many of my fellow galley slaves.
We had been taken there to labor on some government
work. It was 10 in the morning. An officer was sent for
some tools of various kinds—some chisels, files, augers
and a hatchet. I was sent with the officer to bring the
things. I had them all in my arms except the hatchet. The
officer had that. In a great open space we saw a crowd of

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