"It would be. And if you could get a fellow with some sense in his caboche, he would naturally try to slip past the English fleet and maybe do it, too. And then where's your trick?"
"We could give him a course to steer."
"Yes. And it may happen that your course would just take him clear of all Nelson's fleet, for you never can tell what the English are doing. They might be watering in Sardinia."
"Some cruisers are sure to be out and pick him up."
"Maybe. But that's not doing the job, that's taking a chance. Do you think you are talking to a toothless baby – or what?"
"No, my gunner. It will take a strong man's teeth to undo that knot." A moment of silence followed. Then Peyrol assumed a dogmatic tone.
"I will tell you what it is, lieutenant. This seems to me just the sort of order that a landlubber would give to good seamen. You daren't deny that."
"I don't deny it," the lieutenant admitted. "And look at the whole difficulty. For supposing even that the tartane blunders right into the English fleet, as if it had been indeed arranged, they would just look into her hold or perhaps poke their noses here and there but it would never occur to them to search for dispatches, would it? Our man, of course, would have them well hidden, wouldn't he? He is not to know. And if he were ass enough to leave them lying about the decks the English would at once smell a rat there. But what I think he would do would be to throw the dispatches overboard."
"Yes – unless he is told the nature of the job," said Peyrol.
"Evidently. But where's the bribe big enough to induce a man to taste of the English pontoons?"