coin, and fit as it might be to meet cunning with cunning, I was yet glad
that the payment was French and not English.

Of the first issue, however, I had small doubts in view of Torode's long
guns and merciless methods, and though I could see nothing, with our own
experiences red in my mind, I could still follow what happened.

The schooner sheared off, and presently the long guns got to work with
their barbarous shot, and pounded away venomously, till I could well
imagine what the state of that other ship must be.

When we ranged alongside again, no word greeted us. There was traffic
between the two ships, and when we cast off I heard the crackling of
flames.

Then there was much sluicing of water above my head, as our decks were
washed down, and presently there came a rattling of boards which puzzled me
much, until the end of one dipped suddenly across my porthole, and my
straining wits suggested that Torode was changing his stripes and becoming
a Frenchman once more.

The next day passed without any happening, and I lay racking my brain for
reasons why one spot of sea should not be as good as another for dropping a
man's body into.

But on the day after that, Torode came suddenly in on me in the afternoon,
and looking down on me as I lay, he said roughly--

"Listen, you, Carré! By every reason possible you should die, but--well, I
am going to give you chance of life. It is only a chance, but your death