"Yesterday morning my shipowner at Rochelle asked me if my cargo was complete. I told him it was; he then ordered me to go to Fort Royal, where a frigate was just leaving, and earnestly demand her escort; if she refused it, I was to _make_ myself escorted all the same, always keeping in sight of the said frigate, whatever she might do to prevent me. Finally, I was to conduct myself toward her almost as a mongrel cur toward a passer-by to whom he attaches himself. The man in vain drives the dog away; the dog always keeps just beyond reach of foot or stone; runs when he runs, walks when he walks, gets out of the way when he pursues him, stops when he stops, and finishes by keeping at his heels in spite of him. That is how I have maneuvered with the frigate. That is not all; my correspondent also said to me: 'You will follow the frigate until you are joined by a brigantine; then you will remain just behind her; it may be that this brigantine will send you a passenger (this passenger I now see was yourself); then you will take him and set sail at once for France without troubling yourself about either the brigantine or the frigate; if not, the brigantine will send you other orders, and you will execute them.' I know only the will of my shipowners; I have followed the frigate from Fort Royal. This morning the brigantine joined me, just now I fished you out of the water; now I set sail for France." "The duke will not come on board, then?" asked Croustillac. "The duke? what duke? I know no other duke than my shipowner or his correspondent, which is all the same as--ah! look there! there goes the frigate, giving tremendous chase to the little ship." "Will you abandon the Chameleon thus?" cried Croustillac. "If the frigate overhauls her will you not go to her aid?" "Not I, by the Lord, although I have a dozen little guns which can say their word as well as others, and the twenty-four good fellows who form my crew are a match for the marines of the king--but that is not the point. I know only the orders of my shipowners. Ah, now the brigantine cuts out some work for the frigate," said Daniel. CHAPTER XXXV. THE RETURN. The Thunderer pursued the Chameleon furiously. Whether from calculation, or from an enforced slackening in her course, several times the brigantine seemed on the point of being overtaken by the frigate; but then, taking a turn better suited to her construction, she regained the advantage she had lost. Suddenly, by a brisk evolution, the brigantine tacked about, came straight toward the Unicorn, and in a few minutes came within reach of the voice. One may judge of the joy of the adventurer when on the deck of the Chameleon, which passed astern of the three-master, he saw Blue Beard leaning on the arm of Monmouth, and heard the young woman cry to him in a voice full of emotion: "Adieu, our savior--adieu--may Heaven protect you! We will never forget you!"