It's that I want to speak to your father about." "How then ?" he asked with interest, as we walked along towards the great wooden house in the hollow.

"How does it concern him ?" "Torode of Herm is the cleverest privateer round here, they say.

I thought to try with him, and your father knows more about him than anyone else." "Ah! Torode of Herm! Yes, he is a clever man is Torode.

But he won't take you, mon gars.

He picks his own, and there is not an Island man among them." The first thing I saw when I entered the house was Carette, busy at one of the bunks in the dimness at the far end of the room.