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108 genuine emerald necklace I gave him twelve farons instead of ten, and he departed, commending me to the eight great gods of Hindustan.

"For my part I began by stowing about my person all I possessed in the way of coin, gems and pearls. Then I crept on tip-toe to my wife's room and opened the box in which my snake was imprisoned just over the Brahmin's slipper; the creature finding a nest that seemed to have been made expressly for it, quietly coiled itself up inside, and I went off to my little ship, which was tossing in the harbour with its cargo of cardamum on board.

"True, I was abandoning a house worth twelve crowns and a stock of furniture worth eight. But, my word! in great crises we must be ready to bear a trifling loss.

"My crew had been warned they might get sailing orders at any moment, and all was ready. We had nothing to do but lift anchor and up sails,—which we did without unnecessary noise or blare of trumpet.

"When day dawned we were already more than ten leagues from the coast.

"I have never heard a word since of that big scamp of a Brahmin; but it seems probable that by this time he is permanently cured, and has been for twenty years or more, of his bad habit, when he goes into a room, of leaving his slippers at the door.

"Upon my word!" said Père Olifus at this point, looking at the dead body of his second bottle, "I think the rum is playing me false; it is high time to go on to the rack-punch."

CHAPTER XV

FIFTH AND LAST MARRIAGE OF PÈRE OLIFUS

S may be supposed, the narrator had not enlivened the narration of his first four marriages with a bottle of gin and a bottle of rum to follow, without the recollections of the past, mingled with the present libations, producing some signs of emotion in his story. We felt convinced, Biard and myself, that if he had still to tell us about a sixth or seventh marriage, we should be obliged either to impound the bottle of rack-punch or else put off to the morrow, the final scenes of the conjugal Odyssey of the Ulysses of Monnikendam. Fortunately he himself reassured us, for after drinking his whack of rack- punch and passing the back of his hand across his lips, he said, in the tone of a man making a public announcement: '"Fifth and last marriage of Père Olifus."

After which, he went on in his ordinary voice:

"Accordingly I made sail with my little ship,—she was a sort of lugger, that was all, carrying a crew of six hands,—trusting to what fate might bring us. We intended anyhow to double Cape Comorin, and if the wind held good and the weather kept favourable, to leave Ceylon on the port bow and make Sumatra and Java. Sumatra or Java, what cared I, the further I went towards the Pacific Ocean, the more sure I was of a market for my cardamum.

"The seventh day out we sighted Ceylon; with my glass I could even discern the houses of Port de Galle. But there, the wind was fresh, and we had still before us pretty near a month of good weather. So I turned her head from the land, which seemed to draw us towards it, and steered for Acheen, sailing my cockle-shell over the Indian Ocean with as much calmness and confidence as if she had been the best clipper-ship out of Rotterdam.

"All went well for the first five days, and afterwards too, as we shall see; only in the second watch of the sixth night a little accident occurred which precious near sent us all to fish for pearls at the bottom of the Gulf of Bengal. The five preceding nights I had steered the ship myself, and everything had gone well. But now we were on the high seas, and neither rock nor shoal was charted within miles, while thanks to our low masts and small spread of canvas we could easily escape, especially at night, the notice of pirates, however sharp-sighted. So I put the handiest of my men at the helm, went down to the 'tween-decks, lay down atop of my bales, and fell asleep.

"I do not know how long I had been, sleeping, when suddenly I was awoke by a mighty rumpus over my head.

"The hands were running wildly about the decks, shouting, and yelling, praying