"All the better. What is the Englishman's name?"
"Captain William Drake."
"Captain Drake!" Montbarts exclaimed with surprise, "It is impossible."
"It is so."
"In that case, the Captain does not know him."
"No; the man entered his house and asked for hospitality, and the Captain could not refuse it to him."
"That is true; go up to my hatto, take clothes, a fusil—in short, what weapons you like, and come to me at Captain Drake's; if I am no longer there, you will find me on the port; begone."
Montbarts then turned back, and proceeded toward Basse Terre, while the Carib went towards the hatto as the bird flies, according to Indian custom.
Basse Terre was the entrepôt, or to speak more correctly, the headquarters of the French colony: at the period when our story is laid it was only a miserable township, built without order, according to the caprice or convenience of each owner, an agglomeration of huts, rather than a town, but producing at a distance a most picturesque effect through this very chaos of houses of all shapes and sizes, thus grouped along the seashore, in front of magnificent roads, filled with vessels swinging at their anchors, and constantly furrowed by an infinite number of canoes.
A battery of six guns, built on an advanced point, defended the entrance of the roads.