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 _Josephine_.
I thought he eyed me closely while I told of it, and then doubted if it was not my own lack of candour that prompted the thought.
His recovery was slow work at best, for the wound had brought on fever, and the fever had reduced him terribly, and when the later journeying renewed the wound trouble he had barely strength to hang on.

But he was an Island man, and almost kin to me for the love I bore Carette, and I spared myself no whit in his service, thinking ever of her.

And the care and attention I was able to give him, and perhaps the very fact of companionship, and the hopes I held out of escape together when he should be well enough, wrought mightily in him.

So much so that the hospital man, when he looked in, now and again, to see how we were getting on, told me he would want my help elsewhere as soon as my present patient was on his feet again, as I was evidently built for tending sick men.
As soon as Le Merchant's lung healed sufficiently to let him speak without ill consequences, I got out of him particulars of the disaster that had befallen them.
They were running an unusually valuable cargo into Poole Harbour when they fell into a carefully arranged trap.

They flung overboard their weighted kegs and made a bolt for the open, and found themselves face to face with a couple of heavily-armed cutters converging on the harbour, evidently by signal.