"And how will you manage it, Joe?" asked La Tour.
Joe smiled significantly, and explained that his plan was to steal out of the fort at night, make his way to the headlands south-west, and thence put off in a canoe, as soon as the supply ship came in sight. La Tour's face lit up at the proposition.
"It's a big risk, Joe, but if any man alive can carry the thing out it is you. Whom will you take with you?"
Joe replied that Jean Pitchebat, a stalwart Frenchman, who was his special friend, would be his choice, and La Tour approved.
Raoul, who had been a silent listener hitherto, now spoke up.
"May I go with Joe too, Uncle Charles?" he asked, in a tone whose anxiety showed how fully he was in earnest.
La Tour looked at the boy with such manifest surprise that the latter flushed hotly. Yet, being full of his desire, he turned to Joe and said entreatingly:
"You will not mind taking me, will you?"
Joe glanced inquiringly at his master and mistress. He was very fond of Raoul, and had no objection to taking him along, but he felt that the matter was not one for him to settle. La Tour had it on the tip of his tongue to brusquely refuse Raoul's request, but the expression on his wife's face made him pause, and before he spoke, she said in her gentle way:
"You might let him go, Charles. He will be in God's hands. There is danger everywhere now, and his heart is set upon going."