"An escaped prisoner, more like," suggested the Doctor; "broken out of Dartmoor, and hiding there for a chance to slip across."
"Monsieur le Lieutenant has guessed," the little man answered, turning affably to the Doctor. "A spy? No. It is not on purpose that I find me near your fortifications—oh, not a bit! A prisoner more like, as Monsieur says. It is three days that I was a prisoner, and now look here, a prisoner again. Alas! will Monsieur le Capitaine do me the honour to confide the name of his corps so gallant?"
"The Two Looes."
"La Toulouse! But it is singular that we also have a Toulouse—"
"Hey?" broke in Second Lieutenant Clogg.
"I assure Monsieur that I say the truth."
"Well, go on; only it don't sound natural."
"Not that I have seen it"—("Ha!" commented Mr. Clogg)—"for it lies in the south, and I am from the north: Jean Alphonse Marie Trinquier, instructor of music, Rue de la Madeleine quatr '-vingt-neuf, Dieppe."
"Instructor of music?" echoed Captain Pond and the Doctor quickly and simultaneously, and their eyes met.
"And Directeur des Fetes Periodiques to the Municipality of Dieppe. All the Sundays, you comprehend, upon the sands—poum poum! while the citizens se promenent sur la plage. But all is not gay in this world. Last winter a terrible misfortune befell me. I lost my wife—my adored Philomene. I was desolated, inconsolable. For two months I could not take up my cornet-a-piston. Always when I blew—pouf!—the tears came also. Ah, what memories! Hippolyte, my— what you call it—my beau-frere, came to me and said, 'Jean Alphonse, you must forget.' I say, 'Hippolyte, you ask that which is impossible.' 'I will teach you,' says Hippolyte: 'To-morrow night I sail for Jersey, and from Jersey I cross to Dartmouth, in England, and you shall come with me.' Hippolyte made his living by what you call the Free Trade. This was far down the coast for him, but he said the business with Rye and Deal was too dangerous for a time. Next night we sailed. It was his last voyage. With the morning the wind changed, and we drove into a fog. When we could see again, peste!—there was an English frigate. She sent down her cutter and took the rest of us; but not Hippolyte—poor Hippolyte was shot in the spine of his back. Him they cast into the sea, but the rest of us they take to Plymouth, and then the War Prison on the moor. This was in May, and there I rest until three days ago. Then I break out—je me sauve. How? It is my affair: for I foresee, Messieurs, I shall now have to do it over again. I am sot. I gain the coast here at night. I am weary, je n'en puis plus. I find this cassine here: the door is open: I enter pour faire un petit somme. Before day I will creep down to the shore. A comrade in the prison said to me, 'Go to Looe. I know a good Cornishman there—'"