"Confound you, he's a Frenchman, and a runaway prisoner. The soldiers will get on his track again, and your ridiculous folly will be the ruin of us all. You have no business to run such risks."
In his anger Trevanion raised his voice.
"Risks, do 'ee say? Jown me if you hain't run risks yerself, Maister John, and a deal bigger; hee! hee!"
"Silence!" shouted Trevanion. "Don't provoke me, or upon my soul and body I'll——"
The threat died on his lips, for at this moment a door opened at the further end of the passage in which they stood, and there appeared the short, rotund form of the passenger who had descended from the carriage some hours before. The overcoat and the cocked hat were gone; the Frenchman wore the rough fustian, marked with a broad arrow, in which the authorities arrayed prisoners. His eyes gleamed with the fire of hatred as he looked full at Trevanion, who on his part returned glare for glare, but whose countenance wore a strange expression, which Doubledick, watching him, could not fathom.
"It is you," said the Frenchman, in his own tongue. "You, Robinson—or Trevanion, is it not so?"
"You be known to each other, then?" said Doubledick. "Hee! hee! Why don't 'ee shake hands, like friends?"
"Silence!" cried the Frenchman sternly. "You go," he added, addressing Doubledick in English. "I haf somezink to say to zis monsieur—Trevanion."
He took the candle from the astonished inn-keeper's hand, and motioned to Trevanion to enter the parlour. Following him, he shut and bolted the door, leaving Doubledick in the dark passage. The innkeeper promptly knelt down and put his ear to the keyhole, but since he knew almost nothing of French, he understood little of the ensuing dialogue, which was conducted in that tongue.
"You see I have found you, monsieur—Trevanion," said Delarousse. "You thought, no doubt, that you had escaped me when you landed that dark night. But you should not have come to Polkerran; that was a foolish step for one so clever to take. You would have been caught, but for a sudden alarm from the shore; yet it mattered little that I had to sail away then, for, as you see, I have found you—cheat, thief, scoundrel!"