nusually valuable cargo into Poole Harbour when they
fell into a carefully arranged trap. They flung overboard their weighted
kegs and made a bolt for the open, and found themselves face to face with a
couple of heavily-armed cutters converging on the harbour, evidently by
signal. Under such circumstances the usual course, since flight was out of
the question, would have been a quiet surrender, but Jean Le Marchant,
furious at being so tricked, flung discretion after his kegs, and fought
for a chance of freedom.

"But we never had a chance," said Helier bitterly, "and it was a mistake to
try, though we all felt as mad about it as he did. I saw him and Martin go
down. Then this cursed bullet took me in the chest, and I don't remember
things very clearly after that, till I came to myself in the prison
hospital at Forton, with a vast crowd of others. Then we were bustled out
and anywhere to make room for a lot of wounded from the King's ships, and I
thought it better to play wounded sailor than wounded smuggler, and so I
kept a quiet tongue and they sent me here. The journey threw me back, but
I'm glad now I came. It's good to see a Sercq face again."

"And the others?" I asked, thinking, past them all, of Carette.

"Never a word have I heard," he said gloomily. "They were taken or killed
without doubt. And if they are alive and whole they are on King's ships,
for they're crimping every man they can lay hands on down there."

"And Carette will be all alone, and that devil of a Torode--my God, Le
Marchant!--but it is hard to sit here and think of it! Get you well, and we
will be gone."

"Aunt Jeanne will see to her," he said confidently. "Aunt Jeanne is a
cleverer woman than most."

"And Torode a cleverer man--the old one at all events;" and under spur of
my anxiety, with which I thought to quicken his also, I told him the whole
matter of the double-flag treachery, and looked for amazement equal to the
quality of my news. But the surprise was mine, for he showed none.

"It's a vile business," he said, "but we saw the possibilities of it long
since, and had our suspicions of Torode himself. I'm not sure that he's the
only one at it either. They miscall us Le Marchants behind our backs, but
honest smuggling's sweet compared with that kind of work. And so Torode is
Main Rouge! That's news anyway. If ever we get home, mon beau, we'll make
things hot for him. He's a treacherous devil. I'm not sure he hadn't a hand
in our t