He lay for the most part with his face to the wall, and seemed much broken with the journey.

I had passed him more than once with no more than the glimpse of a white face.  An attendant from the hospital looked in now and again, at long intervals, to minister to his wants.  The sufferer showed no sign of requiring or wishing anything more, and while his forlornness troubled me, I did not see that I could be of any service to him.

It was about the third day after his arrival that I caught his eye fixed on me, and it seemed to me with knowledge.  I went across and bent over him, then fell quickly to my knees beside him.

“Le Marchant!  Is it possible?”

It was Carette’s youngest brother, Helier.

“All that’s left of him,—­hull damaged,” he said, with a feeble show of spirit.

“What’s wrong?”

“A shot ’twixt wind and water—­leaking a bit.”

“Does it hurt you to talk?”

He nodded to save words, but added, “Hurts more not to.  Thought you were dead.”

“I suppose so.  Now you must lie quiet, and I’ll look after you.  But tell me—­how were they all in Sercq the last you heard—­my mother and grandfather—­and Carette?  And how long is it since?”

“A month—­all well, far as I know.  But we—­” with a gloomy shake of the head—­“we are wiped out.”

“Your father and brothers?”

“All in same boat—­wiped out.”

I would have liked to question him further, but the talking was evidently trying to him, and I had to wait.  It was much to have learnt that up to a 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 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.