M. Marteau aroused himself sufficiently to take command of the boat's crew that presently dropped away to investigate....
"It is even as I thought," he called up from the quarter when he returned with his report. "I told you how it would be, Captain Jean."
"Hey?" cried the captain, bouncing at the rail. "Have you got zose passengers yet, enfant de salaud?"
"I have not," said Marteau in the tone of lugubrious triumph. There was nothing in the world that could have pleased him quite so much as this chance to prove Captain Jean the loser on a venture. "We are too late. Bad luck, bad luck—that calm. What misfortune! They are all dead!"
"Will you mind your business?" shouted the skipper.
"But still, the gentlemen are dead—"
"What is zat to me? All ze better, they will cost nozing to feed."
"But how—"
"Hogsheads, my gar," said Captain Jean paternally. "Zose hogsheads in the afterhold. Fill them nicely with brine, and zere we are!" And, having drawn all possible satisfaction from the other's amazement, he sprang the nub of his joke with a grin. "Ze gentlemen's passage is all paid, Marteau. Before we left Sydney, Marteau. I contrac' to bring back three escape' convicts, and so by 'ell I do—in pickle! And now if you'll kindly get zose passengers aboard like I said an' bozzer less about ze goddam luck, I be much oblige'. Also, zere is no green on my eye, Marteau, and you can dam' well smoke it!"
Marteau recovered himself with difficulty in time to recall another trifling detail. "There is a fourth man on board that raft, Captain Jean. He is a Canaque—still alive. What shall we do with him?"