COUNT D’ARTIGAS 220k

It was not therefore surprising that the Priacipal of
Healthful House should feel himself honoured by the
Count’s request.

This was the first time the schooner £4da had put into
the port of Newburn; and it could be only the owner’s
whim which led him to the mouth of the Neuse. What
had brought Count d’Artigastothis place? To revictual ?
No; for Pamlico Sound could not offer him the resources
he would find in other ports such as Boston, New York,
Dover, Savannah, Wilmington in North Carolina, and
Charleston in South Carolina. In the estuary of the Neuse,
in the insignificant market of Newburn, what merchan-
dise could the Count d’Artigas get in exchange for his
piastres and his bank-notes? This “chief-place” of the
County of Craven did not contain more than from five to
six thousand inhabitants. Trade meant merely the ex-
portation of grain, pigs, furniture, and naval stores. Besides,
some weeks before, during a stay of ten days at Charleston,
the schooner had taken in a complete cargo for a destina-
tion which, as usual, was unknown.

Had this enigmatic individual, then, come for the sole
object of visiting Healthful House? Perhaps there was
nothing very surprising in this, since the establishment
enjoyed a very real and very just celebrity.

It might also be that the Count had a fancy for meeting
Thomas Roch. The wide-spread fame of the French
inventor would certainly justify his curiosity ; for was not
Roch a mad genius, whose inventions promised to
revolutionize the methods of modern military art !