tled, Levasseur and his officers looked up and round. On the crest
of the dunes behind them, in sharp silhouette against the deep cobalt of
the sky, they beheld a tall, lean figure scrupulously dressed in black
with silver lace, a crimson ostrich plume curled about the broad brim of
his hat affording the only touch of colour. Under that hat was the tawny
face of Captain Blood.

Levasseur gathered himself up with an oath of amazement. He had
conceived Captain Blood by now well below the horizon, on his way to
Tortuga, assuming him to have been so fortunate as to have weathered
last night's storm.

Launching himself upon the yielding sand, into which he sank to the
level of the calves of his fine boots of Spanish leather, Captain Blood
came sliding erect to the beach. He was followed by Wolverstone, and
a dozen others. As he came to a standstill, he doffed his hat, with a
flourish, to the lady. Then he turned to Levasseur.

"Good-morning, my Captain," said he, and proceeded to explain his
presence. "It was last night's hurricane compelled our return. We had no
choice but to ride before it with stripped poles, and it drove us back
the way we had gone. Moreover--as the devil would have it!--the Santiago
sprang her mainmast; and so I was glad to put into a cove on the west
of the island a couple of miles away, and we've walked across to
stretch our legs, and to give you good-day. But who are these?" And he
designated the man and the woman.

Cahusac shrugged his shoulders, and tossed his long arms to heaven.

"Voila!" said he, pregnantly, to the firmament.

Levasseur gnawed his lip, and changed colour. But he controlled himself
to answer civilly:

"As you see, two prisoners."

"Ah! Washed ashore in last night's gale, eh?"

"Not so." Levasseur contained himself with difficulty before that irony.
"They were in the Dutch brig."

"I don't remember that you mentioned them before."

"I did not. They are prisoners of my own--a personal matter. They are
French."

"French!" Captain Blood's light eyes stabbed at Levasseur, then at the
prisoners.

M. d'Ogeron stood tense and braced as before, but the grey horror had
left his face. Hope had leapt within him at this interruption, obviously
as little expected by his tormentor as by himself. His sister, moved
by a similar intuition, was leaning forward with parted lips and gaping
eyes.

Captain Blood fingered his lip, and frowned thoughtfully upon Levasseur.

"Yesterday