"I am sent by her," said Courtin, growing more and more audacious as he went on.
"What of that?" asked the sailor, in the same tone, but more impatiently. "You come from Madame de la Logerie; well, what have you got to say for her?"
"I came to tell you that the thing is a failure; it is all discovered, and you must get away as fast as you can."
"That maybe," replied the fisherman; "but it doesn't concern me. I am only the mate of the 'Jeune Charles;' though I do know enough of the matter to put you aboard and let you talk with the captain."
So saying, he tranquilly wound up his line and threw it into the boat, which he pulled toward him. Making a sign to Courtin to sit down in the stern, he put twenty feet between him and the shore with one stroke of the oars. After rowing five minutes he turned his head and found they were close alongside the "Jeune Charles," which, being in ballast, rose some twelve feet above them out of the water.
At the sound of oars a curiously modulated whistle came from the schooner, to which the mate replied in somewhat the same manner. A figure then appeared in the bows; the boat came up on the starboard side and a rope was thrown to it. The man with the pea-jacket climbed aboard with the agility of a cat, then he hauled up Courtin, who was less used to such nautical scrambling.
[XXIX.]
INTERROGATORIES AND CONFRONTINGS.
When, to his great joy, the mayor of La Logerie found himself safely on the deck of the vessel, he saw a human form whose features he could not distinguish, so hidden were they in a thick woollen muffler which was wound around the collar of an oil-skin coat; but whom, by the respectful attitude of the cabin-boy, who had summoned him on deck, Courtin took to be the captain of the schooner himself.
"What's all this?" said the latter, addressing the mate and swinging the light of a lantern, which he took from the cabin-boy, full in the face of the new-comer.