"What! You are not going to allow me to refuse?"
"No."
"Then explain."
"I am going to send you with a flag of truce to Sidney Smith."
"My instructions?"
"You are to find out what is happening in France, and you will try to distinguish the truth from the false in what the commodore tells you, by no means an easy matter."
"I will do my best. What will be the ostensible object of my embassy?"
"An exchange of prisoners. The English have twenty-five of our men; we have two hundred and fifty Turks. We will give them the two hundred and fifty men if they will give us our twenty-five Frenchmen."
"And when am I to start?"