I was mighty astonished next afternoon by Jean’s manner of receiving my intelligence. Whereas he had been as sure as I myself that Raoul and the galley-slave were one and the same, he now wore a dubious look, and stroked his chin, and declared there was much reason in what the Count had said. "Raoul is not the only name beginning with R," he said, "nor Torcy with T. Moreover this mariner of yours, you tell me, sought to enter into your good graces by cracking your skull, and is not thereby certified to be an honest man. The manifest friendliness of the Count’s son, and the Count’s own diligence in seeking his nephew, give no prop to the suspicion I own I entertained, that they were privy to the crime, for the sake of gaining Raoul’s inheritance. I am fain to believe that there is dupery, or at least error." I answered him somewhat hotly that I was no dupe, nor did I believe that Stubbs had erred, and asked whether we could not set on foot a proper inquiry. To this he replied that, France and Spain being at war, such a course must be beset with manifold difficulties. "Yet," he said, "there is one way. Address yourself to some merchant in Antwerp that hath trading concerns in Cadiz. Such an one, if heedful and discreet, could put your mariner’s story to the test, and I doubt not, knowing their love of lucre, there be many good men in Antwerp that would take this task upon them, for a fit recompense." This counsel seeming good to me, I left him after a little, and instead of returning directly to my lodging, I wended to the harbour, and inquired what vessel sailed thence to Antwerp, and when. ’Twas told me that a trading vessel would leave the port on the morrow, whereupon I counted myself lucky, for none other would depart for a fortnight. I took passage in the vessel for myself and Stubbs, paying good English money, and bespeaking a sufficient quantity of food, more relishable than that which mariners are in general wont to eat. By the time I came again to the _Belle Etoile_ the sun was setting. I entered in, very well content with what I had done, and ran full against Stubbs, who was lurking within the doorway. He took me by the sleeve and drew me hastily to my room, where, having shut the door, he thrust into my hands some papers, and I perceived that the seals thereof had been broken. [Illustration: HE THRUST INTO MY HAND SOME PAPERS] "What is this?" I said in amazement, beholding signs of great trouble in the man’s countenance. "Read, sir, read, and quickly, for the love of God!" he said, and incontinently flung out of the room. I took up one of the papers to examine it, and saw that it bore the superscription, "To Don Ygnacio de Acosta, at Cadiz." The others were addressed to grandees in Seville and elsewhere in the south of Spain. I was still holding them unopened, perplexed about my man’s strange excitement, when he came back with the same haste into the room and asked me in a fever whether I had read them.