“‘At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat’s cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with empress’—coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. ‘By this time I judged the vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me amid language appropriate to their national brutality. I responded that I named myself Antonio, and that I sought to save myself from the Portuguese conscription.’
“Ho!” said Mr. Pyecroft, and the fashion of his countenance changed. Then pensively: “Ther beggar! What might you have in your hand there?”
“It’s the story of Antonio—a stowaway in the Archimandrite’s cutter. A French spy when he’s at home, I fancy. What do you know about it?”
“An’ I thought it was tracts! An’ yet some’ow I didn’t.” Mr. Pyecroft nodded his head wonderingly. “Our old man was quite right—so was ’Op—so was I. ’Ere, Glass!” He kicked the Marine. “Here’s our Antonio ’as written a impromptu book! He was a spy all right.”
The Red Marine turned slightly, speaking with the awful precision of the half-drunk. “’As ’e got any-thin’ in about my ’orrible death an’ execution? Excuse me, but if I open my eyes, I shan’t be well. That’s where I’m different from all other men. Ahem!”
“What about Glass’s execution?” demanded Pyecroft.
“The book’s in French,” I replied.
“Then it’s no good to me.”
“Precisely. Now I want you to tell your story just as it happened. I’ll check it by this book. Take a cigar. I know about his being dragged out of the cutter. What I want to know is what was the meaning of all the other things, because they’re unusual.”
“They were,” said Mr. Pyecroft with emphasis. “Lookin’ back on it as I set here more an’ more I see what an ’ighly unusual affair it was. But it happened. It transpired in the Archimandrite—the ship you can trust… Antonio! Ther beggar!”