“Mon Dieu, what can I do? They burn my house to the ground.”
“The pirates are not numerous. Cannot we hire some Arabs to fight and form a garrison?”
Pierre Leronge considered.
“Yes,” he said, at length, “that could be done.”
“I will pay you well for it.”
In an inside pocket of his coat Jack had a quantity of money.
The pirates had not robbed him because they had no idea that he had any money about him.
He put the whole of it in the hands of Leronge.
“That is for you,” he observed.
“Ver good,” replied the Frenchman, fully satisfied. “I will hire twenty Arabs; they shall bring their rifles with them. I have plenty of cartridges.”