CHEVALIER D'AURIAC

BY

S. LEVETT YEATS

AUTHOR OF "THE HONOUR OF SAVELLI" ETC.

NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON AND BOMBAY 1897

Copyright, 1896 and 1897 By S. LEVETT YEATS

All rights reserved.

FIRST EDITION, MARCH, 1897 REPRINTED, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER, 1897

TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK

THE CHEVALIER D'AURIAC

TO THE

CHUMMERY OF THE PALMS

I DEDICATE THIS, IN MEMORY OF CERTAIN

RED-HOT DAYS

S. L. Y.

PREFACE

This story, like its predecessor, has been written in those rare moments of leisure that an Indian official can afford. Bits of time were snatched here and there, and much, perhaps too much, reliance has had to be placed on memory, for books there were few or none to refer to. Occasionally, too, inspiration was somewhat rudely interrupted. Notably in one instance, in the Traveller's Bungalow at Hassan Abdal (Moore's Lalla Rookh was buried hard by), when a bat, after making an ineffectual swoop at a cockroach, fell into the very hungry author's soup and put an end to dinner and to fancy. There is an anachronism in the tale, in which the writer finds he has sinned with M. C. de Remusat in "Le Saint-Barthélemy." The only excuse the writer has for not making the correction is that his object is simply to enable a reader to pass away a dull hour.

Umballa Cantonments, March 16, 1896.

CHAPTER I.

The Justice of M. de Rône.

CHAPTER II.

M. de Rône Cannot Read a Cypher.

CHAPTER III.

The Red Cornfield.

CHAPTER IV.

The Chateau de la Bidache.

CHAPTER V.

A Good Deed Comes Home to Roost.

CHAPTER VI.

'Green as a Jade Cup.'

CHAPTER VII.

Poor Nicholas!