“Like Fochard, he will hold the dispatch until he can secure the service of an intermediary. A man of his desperate and enterprising nature will not remain in a king’s ship very long; he’ll escape at the first opportunity. Then he will seek to dispose of the paper, and it may be my luck to once more stumble upon some trace of it.”
“Fate does, indeed, seem to lead you by the hand in the matter,” smiled Richard Dale. “But she has, up to the present, held you back when upon the very threshold of success.”
“It will not be always so, perhaps,” said Ethan earnestly. “Let us hope so, at least.”
The vessel landed them at Brest secretly; the Scotch skipper seemed to have some sort of an understanding with the authorities, and though they gave him no trouble when he ran in, still he did the thing with all speed, and immediately made sail once more.
After securing lodgings they began making inquiries regarding American warships in French waters.
“There was a fleet of four ships sailed out of L’Orient not long since,” replied the person asked. “The French government provided the vessels, I think, but the commander was an American.”
“And who was he?”
“Why, none other than your great Captain John Paul Jones.”
Ethan and Dale uttered exclamations of bitter disappointment.
“You are positive of this, I suppose,” said the former.