e and
you'll have a back-hander that'll put you to sleep, Maitre Dormy."

If he had been asked his news politely Dormy would have been still more
cunningly reticent. To abuse him in his own argot was to make him loose
his bag of mice in a flash.

"Bachouar yourself, Maitre Ranulph! You'll find out soon. No news--no
trouble--eh! Par made, Mattingley's gone to the Vier Prison--he! The
baker's come back, and the Connetable's after Olivier Delagarde. No
trouble, pardingue, if no trouble, Dormy Jamais's a batd'lagoule and
no need for father of you to hide in a place that only Dormy knows--my
good!"

So at last the blow had fallen; after all these years of silence,
sacrifice, and misery. The futility of all that he had done and suffered
for his father's sake came home to Ranulph. Yet his brain was instantly
alive. He questioned Dormy rapidly and adroitly, and got the story from
him in patches.

The baker Carcaud, who, with Olivier Delagarde, betrayed the country
into the hands of Rullecour years ago, had, with a French confederate of
Mattingley's, been captured in attempting to steal Jean Touzel's boat,
the Hardi Biaou. At the capture the confederate had been shot. Before
dying he implicated Mattingley in several robberies, and a notorious
case of piracy of three months before, committed within gunshot of the
men-of-war lying in the tide-way. Carcaud, seriously wounded, to save
his life turned King's evidence, and disclosed to the Royal Court in
private his own guilt and Olivier Delagarde's treason.

Hidden behind the great chair of the Bailly himself, Dormy Jamais had
heard the whole business. This had brought him hot-foot to St. Aubin's
Bay, whence he had hurried Olivier Delagarde to a hiding-place in the
hills above the bay of St. Brelade. The fool had travelled more swiftly
than Jersey justice, whose feet are heavy. Elie Mattingley was now in
the Vier Prison. There was the whole story.

The mask had fallen, the game was up. Well, at least there would be no
more lying, no more brutalising inward shame. All at once it appeared to
Ranulph madness that he had not taken his father away from Jersey long
ago. Yet too he knew that as things had been with Guida he could never
have stayed away.

Nothing was left but action. He must get his father clear of the island
and that soon. But how? and where should they go? He had a boat in St.
Aubin's Bay: getting there under cover of darkness he might embark with
his father and s