It's good to see a Sercq face again." "And the others ?" I asked, thinking, past them all, of Carette.
"Never a word have I heard," he said gloomily.

"They were taken or killed without doubt.

And if they are alive and whole they are on King's ships, for they're crimping every man they can lay hands on down there." "And Carette will be all alone, and that devil of a Torode--my God, Le Marchant!--but it is hard to sit here and think of it! Get you well, and we will be gone." "Aunt Jeanne will see to her," he said confidently.

"Aunt Jeanne is a cleverer woman than most." "And Torode a cleverer man--the old one at all events;" and under spur of my anxiety, with which I thought to quicken his also, I told him the whole matter of the double-flag treachery, and looked for amazement equal to the quality of my news.

But the surprise was mine, for he showed none.
"It's a vile business," he said, "but we saw the possibilities of it long since, and had our suspicions of Torode himself.