"I didn't know privateering had become dishonest."

"Bit different from what you've been accustomed to, isn't it?"

"Bit more profitable anyway, so they say. Are you open for any hands?"

But Torode had turned and was in conversation with someone inside the
rampart. I heard my own name mentioned, and presently he disappeared and
his place was taken by an older man whom I knew instinctively for the great
Torode himself.

A massive black head, and a grim dark face with a week's growth of
bristling black hair about it, and a dark moustache,--a strong lowering
face, and a pair of keen black eyes that bored holes in one; that was
Torode of Herm as I first set eyes on him.

He stared at me so long and fixedly, as if he had never seen anything like
me before, that at last, out of sheer discomfort, I had to speak.

"Monsieur Torode?" I asked, and after another staring pause, he said
gruffly--

"B'en! I am Torode. What is it you want?"

"A berth on your ship there."

"And why? Who are you, then?"

"Your son knows me. My name is Carré,--Phil Carré. I come from Sercq."