Carette of Sark Part 23

"Well, it's this way, Monsieur Torode. I've been four voyages to the West and there's no great things in it. I want to be doing something more for myself."

"Why don't you try the free-trading?"

"Ah, there! We have never taken to the free-trading, but I don't know why."

"Afraid maybe."

"No, it's not that. There's more risk privateering."

"Well, then?"

"My folks don't like it. That's all I know."

"But they'll let you go privateering?"

"Yes," I said, with a shrug at my own lack of understanding on that point.

"Privateering's honest business after all."

"And free-trading isn't! You'll never make a privateer, mon gars. You're too much in leading-strings."

"I don't know," I said, somewhat ruffled. "I have seen some service. We fought a Frenchman in the West Indies, and I've been twice wrecked."

"So! Well, we're full up, and business is bad or we wouldn't be lying here."

"And you won't give me a trial?"

"No!"

"And that's the last word?"

"That's the last word."

"Then I'll wish you good-day, monsieur. I must try elsewhere," and I dropped into my seat and pulled away down the little roadstead.

Monsieur Torode was still leaning over the wall, and watching me fixedly, when I turned the corner of the outer ridge of rocks and crept away through the mazy channels towards Peter Port. When I got farther out, and could get an occasional glimpse of the rampart, he was still leaning on it and was still staring out at me just as I had left him.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW I WENT OUT WITH JOHN OZANNE

There was no difficulty in finding John Ozanne. I made out his burly figure and red-whiskered face on the harbour wall before I had pa.s.sed Castle Cornet, and heard his big voice good-humouredly roaring to the men at work in the rigging of a large schooner that lay alongside.

He greeted me with great goodwill.

"Why, surely, Phil," he said very heartily, in reply to my request. "It's not your grandfather's boy I would be refusing, and it's a small boat that won't take in one more. What does the old man say to your going?"

"He's willing, or I wouldn't be here."

"That's all right, then. What do you think of her?"

We were standing on the harbour wall, looking down on the schooner on which the riggers were busy renewing her standing gear.

"A good staunch boat, I should say. What can you get out of her?"

"Ten easy with these new spars, and she can come up as close as any boat I've ever seen--except maybe yon black snake of Torode's,"--with a jerk of the head towards Herm. "Seen her?"

"Yes, I've seen her. How's she in bad weather?"

"Wet, I should say. We can stand a heap more than she can."

"When do you expect to get off?"

"Inside a week. Come along and have a drink. It's dry work watching these fellows."

So we went along to the cafe just behind us, and it was while we were sitting there, sipping our cider, and I was telling him of my last voyage and after-journeyings, that a man came in and slapped down on the table in front of us a printed bill which, as it turned out afterwards, concerned us both more nearly than we knew.

"Ah!" said John Ozanne, "I'd heard of that. If we happen across him we'll pick up that five thousand pounds or we'll know the reason why."

It was a notice sent out by one John Julius Angerstein, of Lloyds in the City of London, on behalf of the merchants and s.h.i.+powners there, offering a reward of five thousand pounds for the capture, or proof of the destruction, of a French privateer which had for some time past been making great play with British s.h.i.+pping in the Channel and Bay of Biscay. She was described as a schooner of one hundred and fifty tons or thereabouts, black hull with red streak, carrying an unusually large crew and unusually heavy metal. She flew a white flag with a red hand on it, her red figure-head was said to represent the same device, and she was known by the name of _La Main Rouge_.

John Ozanne folded the bill methodically and stowed it safely away in his pocket-book.

"It'd be a fortune if we caught him full," he said thoughtfully. "They say he takes no prizes. Just helps himself to what he wants like a highwayman, and then sheers off and looks out for another. Rare pickings he must have had among some of those fat East Indiamen. Here's to our falling in with him!" and we clicked our mugs on that right hopefully.

"What weight do we carry?" I asked, in view of the Frenchman's heavy guns, our own not being yet mounted.

"Four eighteens a-side, and one twenty-four forward and one aft. There'll be some chips flying if we meet him, but we'll do our best to close his fist and stop his grabbing. You're wanting to get back? Come over day after to-morrow and give me a hand. I'll be glad of your help;" and I dropped into my boat and pulled out into the wind, and ran up my lug for home.

"So you saw Torode himself, Phil? And what is he like?" asked my grandfather, as I told them the day's doings.

"Big, black, grim-looking fellow. Just what you'd expect. On the whole I'm not sorry I'm going with John Ozanne. He seems pleased to have me too, and that's something."

"I'd much sooner think of you with him," said my mother. "I know nothing of Monsieur Torode, but n.o.body seems to like him."

George Hamon said much the same thing, and spoke highly of John Ozanne as a cautious seaman, which I well knew him to be.

Jeanne Falla laughed heartily when I told her of my visit to Brecqhou, which I did very fully.

"Mon Gyu, Phil, mon gars, but you're getting on! And you told her to her face before them all that you wanted to marry her? It's as odd a style of wooing as ever I heard."

"Well, you see, I wanted there to be no mistake about it, Aunt Jeanne. If I don't see Carette again before I leave, she will know how the land lies at all events. If she takes to young Torode while I'm away it's because she likes him best."

"And she,--Carette,--what did she say to it?"

"She didn't say anything."