ive! Main Rouge is no old woman, my man."

"It is a surprise to me that I still live, monsieur, and I cannot explain
it. He has had me in confinement for three weeks, expecting to die each
day, since he sank our schooner and shot our men in the water as they swam
for their lives. Why, of all our crew, I live, I do not know."

"It is the strongest proof we have that what you tell me is untrue."

"And yet I tell it at risk of more than my life, monsieur. Torode's last
words to me were that if I opened my mouth he would smite my kin in Sercq
till not one was left."

"And he told me you were such an inveterate liar and troublesome fellow
that he had had enough of you, and only did not kill you because of your
people, whom he knows," he said, with a knowing smile.

Torode's forethought staggered me somewhat, but I looked the captain
squarely in the face and said, "I am no liar, monsieur, and I have had no
dealings with the man save as his prisoner." But I could not tell whether
he believed me or not.

"And your mind is made up not to obey orders?" he asked, after a moment's
thought.

"I cannot lift a hand against my country, monsieur."

"Place him under arrest," he said quietly, to the man who had brought me
there. "I will see to him later;" and I had but exchanged one imprisonment
for another.

That was as dismal a night as ever I spent, with no ray of hope to lighten
my darkness, and only the feeling that I could have done no other, to keep
me from breaking down entirely.

What the result would be I could not tell, but from the captain's point of
view I thought he would be justified in shooting me, and would probably do
so as a warning to the rest. He evidently did not believe a word I said,
and I could not greatly blame him.

I thought of them all at home, but mostly of my mother and of Carette. I
had little expectation of ever seeing them again, but I was sure they would
not have had me act otherwise. It was what my grandfather would have done,
placed as I was, and no man could do better than that. Most insistently my
thoughts were of Carette and those bright early days on Sercq, and black as
all else was, those remembrances shone like jewels in my mind. And when at
times I thought of Torode and his stupendous treachery, my heart was like
to burst with helpless rage. I scarcely closed my eyes, and in the morning
felt old and weary.

About midday they came for me, and I was content that the end had come.
The