"How then?" he asked with interest, as we walked along towards the great wooden house in the hollow. "How does it concern him?"
"Torode of Herm is the cleverest privateer round here, they say. I thought to try with him, and your father knows more about him than anyone else."
"Ah! Torode of Herm! Yes, he is a clever man is Torode. But he won't take you, mon gars. He picks his own, and there is not an Island man among them."
The first thing I saw when I entered the house was Carette, busy at one of the bunks in the dimness at the far end of the room. She looked round, and then straightened up in surprise.
"Why, Phil? What are you doing here? One moment"—and I saw that she was tying a bandage round the arm of the man in the bunk. His eyes caught the light from the windows and gleamed savagely at me under his rumpled black hair. A similar face looked out from an adjoining bunk. When she had finished she came quickly across to me.
"Measles again?" I said, remembering my former visit.
"Yes, measles," she said, with the colour in her face and questions in her eyes.
"I came to see your father, and if I was in luck, yourself also, Carette."
"He is sleeping," she said, with a glance towards a side room. "He was anxious about these two, and he would take the night watch. They are feverish, you see."
"I will wait."