There could be no greater contrast than those two faces; Peyrol’s clean, like a carving of stone, and only very little softened by time, and that of the owner of the late dog, hirsute, with many silver threads, with something elusive in the features and the vagueness of expression of a baby in arms. “Yes, I know the man,” repeated Peyrol. Michel’s mouth fell open at this, a small oval set a little crookedly in the innocent face. “He will never wake,” he suggested timidly. The possession of a common and momentous secret draws men together. Peyrol condescended to explain. “You don’t know the thickness of his skull. I do.” He spoke as though he had made it himself. Michel, who in the face of that positive statement had forgotten to shut his mouth, had nothing to say. “He breathes all right?” asked Peyrol. “Yes. After I got out and locked the door I listened for a bit and I thought I heard him snore.” Peyrol looked interested and also slightly anxious. “I had to come up and show myself this morning as if nothing had happened,” he said. “The officer has been here for two days, and he might have taken it into his head to go down to the tartane. I have been on the stretch all the morning. A goat jumping up was enough to give me a turn. Fancy him running up here with his broken head all bandaged up, with you after him.” This seemed to be too much for Michel. He said almost indignantly: “The man’s half killed.” “It takes a lot to even half kill a Brother of the Coast. There are men and men. You, for instance,” Peyrol continued placidly, “you would have been altogether killed if it had been your head that got in the way. And there are animals, beasts twice your size, regular monsters, that may be killed with nothing more than just a tap on the nose. That’s well known. I was really afraid he would overcome you in some way or other....” “Come, maître! One isn’t a little child,” protested Michel against this accumulation of improbabilities. He did it, however, only in a whisper and with childlike shyness. Peyrol folded his arms on his breast: “Go, finish your soup,” he commanded in a low voice, “and then go down to the tartane. You locked the cabin door properly, you said?” “Yes, I have,” protested Michel, staggered by this display of anxiety. “He could sooner burst the deck above his head, as you know.” “All the same, take a small spar and shore up that door against the heel of the mast. And then watch outside. Don’t you go in to him on any account. Stay on deck and keep a lookout for me. There is a tangle here that won’t be easily cleared and I must be very careful. I will try to slip away and get down as soon as I get rid of that officer.”