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Pierre instantly picked up the cards, with an air of cool satisfaction. He had either found the perfect gamester or the perfect liar. He knew the remedy for either.

The Chief Factor did not move. Shon and Lazenby followed Pierre’s action. By their positions Lazenby became his partner. They played in silence for a minute, the Tall Master taking all. “Napoleon was a wonderful player, but he lost with me,” he said slowly as he played a card upon three others and took them.

Lazenby was so taken back by this remark that, presently, he trumped his partner’s ace, and was rewarded by a talon-like look from the Tall Master’s eye; but it was immediately followed by one of saturnine amusement.

They played on silently.

“Ah, you are a wonderful player!” he presently said to Pierre, with a look of keen scrutiny. “Come, I will play with you–for values–the first time in seventy-five years; then, no more!”

Lazenby and Shon drew away beside the Chief Factor. The two played. Meanwhile Lazenby said to Shon: “The man’s mad. He talks about Napoleon as if he’d known him–as if it wasn’t three-fourths of a century ago. Does he think we’re all born idiots? Why, he’s not over sixty years old now. But where the deuce did he come from with that Italian face? And the funniest part of it is, he reminds me of someone. Did you notice how he limped–the awkward beggar!”

Lazenby had unconsciously lifted his voice, and presently the Tall Master turned and said to him: “I ran a nail into my foot at Leyden seventy-odd years ago.”

“He’s the devil himself,” rejoined Lazenby, and he did not lower his voice.

“Many with angelic gifts are children of His Dark Majesty,” said the Tall Master, slowly; and though he appeared closely occupied with the game, a look of vague sadness came into his face.

For a half-hour they played in silence, the slight, delicate-featured half-breed, and the mysterious man who had for so long been a thing of wonder in the North, a weird influence among the Indians.

There was a strange, cold fierceness in the Tall Master’s face. He now staked his precious bundle against the one thing Pierre prized–the gold watch received years ago for a deed of heroism on the Chaudiere. The half-breed had always spoken of it as amusing, but Shon at least knew that to Pierre it was worth his right hand.

Both men drew breath slowly, and their eyes were hard. The stillness became painful; all were possessed by the grim spirit of Chance…. The Tall Master won. He came to his feet, his shambling body drawn together to a height. Pierre rose also. Their looks clinched. Pierre stretched out his hand. “You are my master at this,” he said.

The other smiled sadly. “I have played for the last time. I have not forgotten how to win. If I had lost, uncommon things had happened. This,”–he laid his hand on the bundle and gently undid it,–“is my oldest friend, since the warm days at Parma… all dead… all dead.” Out of the velvet wrapping, broidered with royal and ducal arms, and rounded by a wreath of violets–which the Chief Factor looked at closely–he drew his violin. He lifted it reverently to his lips.

“My good Garnerius!” he said. “Three masters played you, but I am chief of them all. They had the classic soul, but I the romantic heart–‘les grandes caprices.'” His head lifted higher. “I am the master artist of the world. I have found the core of Nature. Here in the North is the wonderful soul of things. Beyond this, far beyond, where the foolish think is only inviolate ice, is the first song of the Ages in a very pleasant land. I am the lost Master, and I shall return, I shall return … but not yet… not yet.”

He fetched the instrument to his chin with a noble pride. The ugliness of his face was almost beautiful now.