He sighed.
“Well, lad,” said he, rather sorrowfully, “I'd give a good many louis d'or that you had come visiting at another hour of the day, and now there's but one thing left me. My Swiss did not know you, but he has—praise le bon Dieu!—a pair of eyes in his head, and he remembered that my visitor wore red shoes. Red shoes and a Scotsman!—the conjunction was unmistakable, and here we are, M. Greig. There are a score of men looking all over Dunkerque at this moment for these same shoes.”
“Confound the red shoes!” I cried, unable to conceal my vexation that they should once more have brought me into trouble.
“By no means, M. Greig,” said Thurot. “But for them we should never have identified our visitor, and a somewhat startling tale was over the Channel a little earlier than we intended. And now all that I may do for old friendship to yourself and the original wearer of the shoes is to give you a free trip to England in my own vessel. 'Tis not the Roi Rouge this time—worse luck!—but a frigate, and we can be happy enough if you are not a fool.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THUROT'S PRISONER. MY FRIEND THE WATCH
It was plain from the first that my overhearing of the plot must compel Thurot to the step he took. He was not unkind, but so much depended on the absolute secrecy of the things he had talked to the Prince, that, even at the unpleasant cost of trepanning me, he must keep me from carrying my new-got information elsewhere. For that reason he refused to accede to my request for a few minutes' conversation with the priest or my fellow-countrymen. The most ordinary prudence, he insisted, demanded that he should keep me in a sort of isolation until it was too late to convey a warning across the Channel.
It was for these reasons I was taken that Sabbath afternoon to the frigate that was destined to be in a humble sense his flagship, and was lying in the harbour with none of her crew as yet on board. I was given a cabin; books were furnished to cheer my incarceration, for it was no less. I was to all intents and purposes a prisoner, though enjoying again some of the privileges of the salle d'épreuves for the sake of old acquaintance.