They were running an unusually valuable cargo into Poole Harbour when they fell into a carefully arranged trap. They flung overboard their weighted kegs and made a bolt for the open, and found themselves face to face with a couple of heavily-armed cutters converging on the harbour, evidently by signal. Under such circumstances the usual course, since flight was out of the question, would have been a quiet surrender, but Jean Le Marchant, furious at being so tricked, flung discretion after his kegs, and fought for a chance of freedom.
"But we never had a chance," said Helier bitterly, "and it was a mistake to try, though we all felt as mad about it as he did. I saw him and Martin go down. Then this cursed bullet took me in the chest, and I don't remember things very clearly after that, till I came to myself in the prison hospital at Forton, with a vast crowd of others. Then we were bustled out and anywhere to make room for a lot of wounded from the King's ships, and I thought it better to play wounded sailor than wounded smuggler, and so I kept a quiet tongue and they sent me here. The journey threw me back, but I'm glad now I came. It's good to see a Sercq face again."
"And the others?" I asked, thinking, past them all, of Carette.
"Never a word have I heard," he said gloomily. "They were taken or killed without doubt. And if they are alive and whole they are on King's ships, for they're crimping every man they can lay hands on down there."
"And Carette will be all alone, and that devil of a Torode—my God, Le Marchant!—but it is hard to sit here and think of it! Get you well, and we will be gone."
"Aunt Jeanne will see to her," he said confidently. "Aunt Jeanne is a cleverer woman than most."
"And Torode a cleverer man—the old one at all events;" and under spur of my anxiety, with which I thought to quicken his also, I told him the whole matter of the double-flag treachery, and looked for amazement equal to the quality of my news. But the surprise was mine, for he showed none.
"It's a vile business," he said, "but we saw the possibilities of it long since, and had our suspicions of Torode himself. I'm not sure that he's the only one at it either. They miscall us Le Marchants behind our backs, but honest smuggling's sweet compared with that kind of work. And so Torode is Main Rouge! That's news anyway. If ever we get home, mon beau, we'll make things hot for him. He's a treacherous devil. I'm not sure he hadn't a hand in our trouble also."
"If he had any end to serve I could believe it of him."
"But what end?"