to say that it was aggravated by any needless severity on the part of the English Government.
CHAPTER III.—A FRIEND IN NEED.
It was not long before Captain Tournier was allowed to go out on parole, and that too with considerable latitude both as to distance and length of absence. Major Kelly, the Commandant, and Captain Mortimer, the Admiralty agent, had had some talk together about the matter, and were not quite in agreement on the subject.
“We shall have some trouble with that fellow Tournier. He keeps himself aloof from the others, and takes no part in their amusements, and goes mooning about as if he had got mischief brewing.”
“Have you ever found him uncivil or disobedient to orders?” enquired the major.
“Oh, not in the least; he conducts himself
quite like a gentleman. But I have always found your silent, moody man the most likely one to try and blow up the ship.”
Captain Mortimer was an honest, open-hearted sailor, inclined to be a martinet, but with very little power to discriminate character and (like a great many other people in the world,) without painstaking sympathy, as the prisoners found to their cost in many ways, though they did not know exactly how it was. Major Kelly, on the contrary, did not judge after the outward appearance, but detected something in Tournier’s profound melancholy which he could not understand indeed, but which his heart revolted from setting down uncharitably to evil.
So as his authority was supreme in such a matter as granting parole to a prisoner, the agent having charge only (but it was a most important one,) of the Commissariat and Transport service, Tournier soon obtained his parole.
“You will be disappointed some day about him I fear, major.”