"For what reason have you, who possess so many brave and devoted friends, instead of applying to one of them, chosen an obscure engagé, whom you hardly know, to confide to him so difficult and so confidential a mission?" "Are you anxious to know?" the adventurer asked, laughingly. "Yes, if you do not consider the question indiscreet." "Not the least in the world, and you shall be satisfied in a couple of words. Apart from the good opinion I have of you, and which is only personal, I have chosen you, because you are only a poor engagé, who arrived from France but two days ago--no one knows you, or is aware that I have purchased you: for this reason no one will dream of suspecting you, and consequently you will be a more valuable agent to me, as no one will imagine that you are my plenipotentiary, and acting under my orders. Now do you understand, my lad?" "Perfectly, and I thank you for the explanation you have given me. Good-bye; within an hour the Carib and I will have left St. Kitts." "Allow him to guide you during the voyage, that man is very clever, though an Indian, and he will conduct you so that you will both reach port in safety." "I shall not fail to do so; besides, the deference I shall show him will dispose him in my favour, and further advance the success of our projects." "Come, come," the adventurer said, with a laugh, "I see that you are a sharp lad, and I now have good hopes of the issue of your mission." The Olonnais armed himself as the Carib had done, then took leave of his master, and went away. "Come," Montbarts muttered, when he was alone, "I believe that my plans are beginning to assume consistency, and that I shall soon be able to deal a grand stroke." The next morning at sunrise an unusual agitation prevailed in the township, which, however, was never very tranquil. The filibusters, armed to the teeth, were taking leave of their friends, and preparing to proceed on board the vessels for which they had enlisted on the previous day. The roads were cut up in all directions by a prodigious number of canoes which passed to and fro, carrying men and provisions to the departing ships. The Chevalier de Fontenay, surrounded by a numerous staff of renowned filibusters, and having at his side Montbarts, David Drake, and Michael the Basque, was standing at the end of the wooden mole that served as a landing place, and witnessing thence the departure of the adventurers. These men with bronzed complexion, energetic and ferocious features, and vigorous limbs, scarce clad in canvas drawers and old hats or caps, but armed with long fusils, manufactured at Dieppe expressly for them, having a heavy sharpened cutlass hanging from their belt, and carrying their stock of powder and bullets, had a strange and singularly formidable appearance, rendered even more striking by the expression of carelessness and indomitable audacity spread over their faces.