"No, but I have put it out of his power to do any more harm. This will all be explained to you; but I think that, for the moment, the most urgent thing is that we should go to your mother."
"Stéphane told me that she was resting over there, in the submarine, and that you had saved her too. Does she expect me?"
"Yes; we had a talk last night, she and I, and I promised to find you. I felt that she trusted me. All the same, Stéphane, you had better go ahead and prepare her."
The Crystal Stopper lay at the end of a reef of rocks which formed a sort of natural jetty. Some ten or twelve Moors were running to and fro. Two had drawn apart and were whispering together. Two of them were holding a gangway which Don Luis and François crossed a minute later.
In one of the cabins, arranged as a drawing-room, Véronique lay stretched on a couch. Her pale face bore the marks of the unspeakable suffering which she had undergone. She seemed very weak, very weary. But her eyes, full of tears, were bright with happiness.
François rushed into her arms. She burst into sobs, without speaking a word.
Opposite them, All's Well, seated on his haunches, beat the air with his fore-paws and looked at them, with his head a little on one side:
"Mother," said François, "Don Luis is here."
She took Don Luis' hand and pressed a long kiss upon it, while François murmured:
"You saved mother . . . . You saved us both . . . ."