"Speak," said Sir Geoffrey now, "speak and tell all. How has this thing happened?" "Thus," said the man, looking up defiantly at his questioner: "Some were kidnapped into her, some went willingly. Bah! you both know that: both of you, sailors though you be. You were the one who led and encouraged the press-gang, who came to _his_ house for men; that other by your side was----" "Silence!" said Sir Geoffrey, white, and speaking sternly--though hating himself for having to do so. "Silence! and continue your narrative. I command here, and desire no opinion on my conduct. And I, at least, did not press you. Go on." "We were half across the Atlantic," the fellow said moodily, "when her captain, a Frenchman called Boisrose, took us, and, after fighting contrary winds for weeks, was nearing France to hand us over as prizes. Now--well? now, you have altered all that. What are you going to do with us?" "That you will know later. At present, thank your God that you are saved--from death, if not worse. At least you are in an English ship. You shall be well cared for. Take them below," he said to the master-at-arms, "and give them food and dry clothes." "Yet first," said Granger, "answer me one question: There was a man on board named Bufton. Was he _there?_" and he directed his eyes to the spot beneath which the privateer had sunk. "There was no man of that name to my knowledge." "A man whom one could not mistake. A man with a strangely long and pointed chin." "Oh! He! Oh! yes, he was there. But he was a cur. He could not stand his fate. He had been a dandy, it seems, whose heart was burst." "Why?" asked Granter, in an even deeper voice, "why? What did he do?" "Threw himself overboard in despair one dark, rough night--as they told us--a week before Boisrose captured the schooner." Instinctively Geoffrey and Lewis Granger both turned away at the same time, the latter looking at the other with hollow eyes. "Take heart," whispered the former, "it was the fate he had prepared for--for----" "Ay, it was. Yet still his death is on my soul." "Had they not slain him, his death would have been at my hands. For he would have been killed to-day. He who would have killed others. Take heart. Take heart." CHAPTER XXIII. QUIBERON. The storm was at its height, the darkness was intense, and from the black heavens the rain poured down in torrents. Yet, by now, all those who for thirty-one weeks had been on board their ships had become inured to toil and travail, to wet and cold and misery, relieved only by an occasional putting in to Torbay or Plymouth before going out again.