month ago all was well with those dearest to me, though his last words
raised new black fears.

I hung about outside till the hospital attendant paid his belated visit,
and then questioned him.

"A shot through the lung," he told me, "and a bout of fever on top of it.
Lung healing, needs nursing. Do you know him?"

"He is from my country. If you'll tell me what to do I'll see to him."

"Then I'll leave him to you. We've got our hands full over there," and he
gave me simple directions as to treatment, and told me to report to him
each day.

And so my work was cut out for me, and for the time being all thought of
escape was put aside.

It was as much as I could do to keep Le Marchant from talking, but I
insisted and bullied him into the silence that was good for him, and had my
reward in his healing lung and slowly returning strength.

To keep him quiet I sat much with him, and told him by degrees pretty
nearly all that had happened to me. In the matter of Torode I could not at
first make up my mind whether to disclose the whole or not, and so told him
only how John Ozanne and the _Swallow_ encountered Main Rouge, and came to
grief, and how the privateer, having picked me up, had lodged me on board
the _Joséphine_.

I thought he eyed me closely while I told of it, and then doubted if it was