“Some cruisers are sure to be out and pick him up.”
“Maybe. But that’s not doing the job, that’s taking a chance. Do you think you are talking to a toothless baby—or what?”
“No, my gunner. It will take a strong man’s teeth to undo that knot.” A moment of silence followed. Then Peyrol assumed a dogmatic tone.
“I will tell you what it is, lieutenant. This seems to me just the sort of order that a land-lubber would give to good seamen. You daren’t deny that.”
“I don’t deny it,” the lieutenant admitted. “And look at the whole difficulty. For supposing even that the tartane blunders right into the English fleet, as if it had been indeed arranged, they would just look into her hold or perhaps poke their noses here and there, but it would never occur to them to search for dispatches, would it? Our man, of course, would have them well hidden, wouldn’t he? He is not to know. And if he were ass enough to leave them lying about the decks, the English would at once smell a rat there. But what I think he would do would be to throw the dispatches overboard.”
“Yes—unless he is told the nature of the job,” said Peyrol.
“Evidently. But where’s the bribe big enough to induce a man to taste of the English pontoons?”
“The man will take the bribe all right and then will do his best not to be caught; and if he can’t avoid that, he will take jolly good care that the English should find nothing on board his tartane. Oh no, lieutenant, any damn scallywag that owns a tartane will take a couple of thousand francs from your hand as tame as can be; but as to deceiving the English Admiral, it’s the very devil of an affair. Didn’t you think of all that before you spoke to the big epaulettes that gave you the job?”
“I did see it, and I put it all before him,” the lieutenant said, lowering his voice still more, for their conversation had been carried on in undertones though the house behind them was silent and solitude reigned round the approaches of Escampobar Farm. It was the hour of siesta—for those that could sleep. The lieutenant, edging closer towards the old man, almost breathed the words in his ear.
“What I wanted was to hear you say all those things. Do you understand now what I meant this morning on the lookout? Don’t you remember what I said?”