"The man will take the bribe all right and then will do his best not to be caught; and if he can't avoid that, he will take jolly good care that the English should find nothing on board his tartane. Oh no, lieutenant, any damn scallywag that owns a tartane will take a couple of thousand francs from your hand as tame as can be; but as to deceiving the English Admiral, it's the very devil of an affair. Didn't you think of all that before you spoke to the big epaulettes that gave you the job?"
"I did see it, and I put it all before him," the lieutenant said, lowering his voice still more, for their conversation had been carried on in undertones though the house behind them was silent and solitude reigned round the approaches of Escampobar Farm. It was the hour of siesta – for those that could sleep. The lieutenant, edging closer towards the old man, almost breathed the words in his ear.
"What I wanted was to hear you say all those things. Do you understand now what I meant this morning on the lookout? Don't you remember what I said?"
Peyrol, gazing into space, spoke in a level murmur.
"I remember a naval officer trying to shake old Peyrol off his feet and not managing to do it. I may be disparu but I am too solid yet for any blancbec that loses his temper, devil only knows why. And it's a good thing that you didn't manage it, else I would have taken you down with me, and we would have made our last somersault together for the amusement of an English ship's company. A pretty end that!"
"Don't you remember me saying, when you mentioned that the English would have sent a boat to go through our pockets, that this would have been the perfect way?" In his stony immobility with the other man leaning towards his car, Peyrol seemed a mere insensible receptacle for whispers, and the lieutenant went on forcibly: "Well, it was in allusion to this affair, for, look here, gunner, what could be more convincing, if they had found the packet of dispatches on me! What would have been their surprise, their wonder! Not the slightest doubt could enter their heads. Could it, gunner? Of course it couldn't. I can imagine the captain of that corvette crowding sail on her to get this packet into the Admiral's hands. The secret of the Toulon fleet's destination found on the body of a dead officer. Wouldn't they have exulted at their enormous piece of luck! But they wouldn't have called it accidental. Oh, no! They would have called it providential. I know the English a little too. They like to have God on their side – the only ally they never need pay a subsidy to. Come, gunner, would it not have been a perfect way?"
Lieutenant Réal threw himself back and Peyrol, still like a carven image of grim dreaminess, growled softly:
"Time yet. The English ship is still in the Passe." He waited a little in his uncanny living-statue manner before he added viciously: "You don't seem in a hurry to go and take that leap."
"Upon my word, I am almost sick enough of life to do it," the lieutenant said in a conversational tone.
"Well, don't forget to run upstairs and take that packet with you before you go," said Peyrol as before. "But don't wait for me; I am not sick of life. I am disparu, and that's good enough. There's no need for me to die."