ily with his head in his hands.

And we, not understanding anything of the matter, but still much startled
at the strangeness of his words and bearing, nevertheless found the size of
our hunger at sight of the basket he had brought, and fell to on its
contents, and ate ravenously.

CHAPTER XXXV

HOW WE HEARD STRANGE NEWS

"Whatever is it all, Phil?" whispered Carette as we ate.

"There has evidently been fighting outside, and he has got a knock on the
head, and his wits are astray." But that strange thing he had said ran in
my head, and made such play there that I began to be troubled about it.

You must remember I had never heard the name of Paul Martel, and of my
father I knew nothing save that he was dead. So that this strange word of
George Hamon's was to me but empty vapouring brought on by that blow on the
head. But against that there was the tremendous fact which had so exercised
my mind, that this man Torode had spared my life at risk of his own, when
every other soul that could have perilled him had been slaughtered in cold
blood.

If--the awful import of that little word!--if there was--if there could be,
any sense in George Hamon's words, the puzzle of Torode's strange treatment
of me was explained. I saw that clearly enough, but yet the whole matter
held no sense of reality to me. It was all as obscure and shadowy as the
dim cross-lights in which we sat, and ate because we were starving.

Torode lay like a log, breathing slowly, but with no other sign of life.
George Hamon presently knelt beside him again and gazed long into his face,
and then examined his wound carefully. Then he stood up and signed to us to
follow him, and we went along the cleft to the water-cave, and sat down
there in the dim green light that filtered through the water.

"Mon gars," he said very gravely, "I have done you a wrong. I ought to have
kept it to myself. It was the suddenness of it that upset me. I told you no
living man besides myself knew of this place, and that was because I
believed this man dead--dead this twenty years. He was partner with me in
the free-trading for a time, until we fell out--"

"You said just now that he was my father," I broke in, and eyed him closely
to see if his wits were still astray. "What did you mean?"

"It is true," he said gloomily. "I am sorry. It slipped out."

"But he is Torode, and you called him Martel, and I am Phil Carre."

"All that; but, all the same, it is true, mo