The time passed very slowly with me.  I spent most of it against the bars, peering out at the sea.  Once or twice distant boats passed across my narrow view, and I wondered who were in them.  And I thought sadly of the folk in Peter Port still looking hopefully for the Swallow, and following her possible fortunes, and wishing her good luck—­and she and all her crew, except myself, at the bottom of the sea, as foully murdered as ever men in this world were.

Twice each day Torode himself brought me food and watched me steadfastly while I ate it.  His oversight and interest never seemed to slacken.  At first it troubled me, but there was in it nothing whatever of the captor gloating over his prisoner; simply, as far as I could make out, a gloomy desire to note how I took matters, which put me on my mettle to keep up a bold front, though my heart was heavy enough at times at the puzzling strangeness of it all.

I thought much of Carette and my mother, and my grandfather and Krok, and I walked each day for hours, to and fro, to and fro, to keep myself from falling sick or going stupid.  But the time passed slower than time had ever gone with me before, and I grew sick to death of that narrow cleft in the rock.

By a mark I made on the wall for each day of my stay there, it was on the tenth day that Torode first spoke to me as I ate my dinner.

“Listen!” he said, so unexpectedly, after his strange silence, that I jumped in spite of myself.

“Once you asked to join us and I refused.  Now you must join us—­or die.  I have no desire for your death, but—­well—­you understand.”

“When I asked to join you I believed you honest privateers.  You are thieves and murderers.  I would sooner die than join you now.”

“You are young to die so.”

“Go where you can, die when you must,” I answered in our Island saying.  “Better die young than live to dishonour.”

He picked up my dishes and went out.  But I could not see why he should have kept me alive so long for the purpose of killing me now, and I would not let my courage down.

One more attempt he made, three days later, without a word having passed between us meanwhile.

“Your time is running out, mon gars,” he said, as abruptly as before.  “I am loth to put you away, but it rests with yourself.  You love Le Marchant’s girl, Carette.  Join us, and you shall have her.  You will live with us on Herm, and in due time, when we have money enough, we will give up this life and start anew elsewhere.”

“Carette is an honest girl—­”

“She need not know—­all that you know.”

“And your son wants her—­”

When you have had no one to speak to but yourself for fourteen days, the voice even of a man you hate is not to be despised.  You may even make him talk for the sake of hearing him.

“I know it,” said Torode.  “I hear she favours you, but a dead man is no good.  If you don’t get her, as sure as the sun is in the sky the boy shall have her.”