The gentle blue eyes were again filled with wonder, and presently the priest's intellectual face relaxed into a shadowy smile, which did not affect his thin red lips. “You are very good,” he murmured simply. Christian did not hear this remark. He had turned away to call Grall towards him, and was about to move towards the body lying on the hatch, when the priest called him back. “Monsieur,” he said. “Yes.” “Tell me,” continued René Drucquer quickly, as if in doubt, “are you Christian Vellacott?” “Of course!” The priest looked relieved, and at the same time he appeared to be making an effort to restrain himself, as if he had been betrayed into a greater show of feeling than was desirable. When he at length spoke in reply to the Englishman's obvious desire for some explanation of the strange question, his voice was singularly cold, and modulated in such a manner as to deprive it of any expression, while his eyes were fixed on the deck. “You are not such as I expected,” he said. Christian looked down at him with straightforward keenness, and he saw the priest's eyelids move uneasily beneath his gaze. Mixing with many men as he had done, he had acquired a certain mental sureness of touch, like that of an artist with his brush when he has handled many subjects and many effects. He divined that René Drucquer had been led to expect a violent, head strong man, and he could not restrain a smile as he turned away. Before going, however, he said: “At present it is a matter of saving the ship, and our lives. My own affairs can wait, but when this gale is over you may rest assured they shall have my attention.” CHAPTER XX WINGED Beyond this one allusion to their respective positions, Christian was silent regarding his captivity. After the gale subsided the weather took a turn for the better, and clear skies by day and night rendered navigation an easy matter. With characteristic daring the young Englishman had decided to offer no resistance and to seize no opportunities of escape until the termination of the voyage. The scheme half-formed within his mind was to see the voyage through, and effect his escape soon after landing in France. It was not without a certain adventurous fascination, and in the meantime there was much to interest him in his surroundings. If this young Abbé was a typical member of the Society of Jesus, he was worth studying. If this simplicity was an acquired cloak to deeper thought, it was worth penetrating, and if the man's entire individuality had been submerged in the mysterious system followed in the College of Jesuits, it was no waste of time to seek for the real man beneath the cultivated suavity that hid all feeling. The more the two young men saw of each other the closer grew their intimacy, and with growing intimacy the domination of the stronger individuality was more marked in its influence.