blue.

I was still gazing with all my eyes, and drifting slowly in, when a sharp
hail brought me round facing a man who leaned with his arms on a wall of
rock and looked over and down at me.

"Hello there!"

"Hello!" I replied, and saw that it was young Torode himself.

From my position I could see little except the rising ground in the middle
of the island, but I got the impression, chiefly no doubt from what I had
heard, and from the thin curls of smoke that rose in a line behind him,
that there was quite a number of houses there. In fact the place had all
the look of a fortified post.

"Tiens! It is Monsieur Carré, is it not? And what may Monsieur Carré want
here?" His tone was somewhat masterful, if not insolent. I felt an
inclination to resent it, but bethought me in time that such could be no
help to my plans, and that, moreover, nothing was to be gained by
concealment.

"I came to see your father. Is he to be seen?"

"So? What about?"

"I want to join his ship there for the privateering. She's a beauty."

"Oh-ho! Tired of honest trading?"