“Now you go and get a corporal with a file of men,” insisted Symons obstinately. “I want to be made a proper prisoner of. Who the devil are you? You had no right to interfere. I believe you are a civilian. A common marinero, whatever you may call yourself. You look to me a pretty fishy marinero at that. Where did you learn English? In prison--eh? You ain’t going to keep me in this damned dog-hole, on board your rubbishy tartane. Go and get that corporal, I tell you.” He looked suddenly very tired and only murmured: “I am an Englishman, I am.” Peyrol’s patience was positively angelic. “Don’t you talk about the tartane,” he said impressively, making his words as distinct as possible. “I told you she was not like the other tartanes. That is because she is a courier boat. Every time she goes to sea she makes a pied-de-nez, what you call thumb to the nose, to all your English cruisers. I do not mind telling you because you are my prisoner. You will soon learn French now.” “Who are you? The caretaker of this thing or what?” asked the undaunted Symons. But Peyrol’s mysterious silence seemed to intimidate him at last. He became dejected and began to curse in a languid tone all boat expeditions, the coxswain of the gig and his own infernal luck. Peyrol sat alert and attentive like a man interested in an experiment, while after a moment Symons’ face began to look as if he had been hit with a club again, but not as hard as before. A film came over his round eyes and the words “fishy marinero” made their way out of his lips in a sort of death-bed voice. Yet such was the hardness of his head that he actually rallied enough to address Peyrol in an ingratiating tone. “Come, grandfather!” He tried to push the mug across the table and upset it. “Come! Let us finish what’s in that tiny bottle of yours.” “No,” said Peyrol, drawing the demijohn to his side of the table and putting the cork in. “No?” repeated Symons in an unbelieving voice and looking at the demijohn fixedly ... “you must be a tinker.”... He tried to say something more under Peyrol’s watchful eyes, failed once or twice, and suddenly pronounced the word “cochon” so correctly as to make old Peyrol start. After that it was no use looking at him any more. Peyrol busied himself in locking up the demijohn and the mugs. When he turned round most of the prisoner’s body was extended over the table and no sound came from it, not even a snore. When Peyrol got outside, pulling to the door of the cuddy behind him, Michel hastened from forward to receive the master’s orders. But Peyrol stood so long on the after-deck meditating profoundly with his hand over his mouth that Michel became fidgety and ventured a cheerful: “It looks as if he were not going to die.” “He is dead,” said Peyrol with grim jocularity. “Dead drunk. And you very likely will not see me till to-morrow sometime.” “But what am I to do?” asked Michel timidly.