"No," said Peyrol, "into that bunk. Steady! Don't bang his head," he cried with unexpected tenderness. "Throw a blanket over him. Stay in the cabin and keep his bandages wetted with salt water. I don't think anybody will trouble you to-night. I am going to the house."
"The day is not very far off," remarked Michel.
This was one reason the more why Peyrol was in a hurry to get back to the house and steal up to his room unseen. He drew on his jacket over his bare skin, picked up his cudgel, recommended Michel not to let that strange bird get out of the cabin on any account. As Michel was convinced that the man would never walk again in his life, he received those instructions without particular emotion.
The dawn had broken some time before Peyrol, on his way up to Escampobar, happened to look round and had the luck to actually see with his own eyes the English man-of-war's boat pulling out of the cove. This confirmed his surmises but did not enlighten him a bit as to the causes. Puzzled and uneasy, he approached the house through the farmyard – Catherine, always the first up, stood at the open kitchen door. She moved aside and would have let him pass without remark, if Peyrol himself had not asked in a whisper: "Anything new?" She answered him in the same tone: "She has taken to roaming at night." Peyrol stole silently up to his bedroom, from which he descended an hour later as though he had spent all the night in his bed up there.
It was this nocturnal adventure which had affected the character of Peyrol's forenoon talk with the lieutenant. What with one thing and another he found it very trying. Now that he had got rid of Réal for several hours, the rover had to turn his attention to that other invader of the strained, questionable, and ominous in its origins, peace of the Escampobar Farm. As he sat on the flat rock with his eyes fixed idly on the few drops of blood betraying his last night's work to the high heaven, and trying to get hold of something definite that he could think about, Peyrol became aware of a faint thundering noise. Faint as it was it filled the whole basin. He soon guessed its nature, and his face lost its perplexity. He picked up his cudgel, got on his feet briskly, muttering to himself. "He's anything but dead," and hurried on board the tartane.
On the after-deck Michel was keeping a lookout. He had carried out the orders he had received by the well. Besides being secured by the very obvious padlock, the cabin door was shored up by a spar which made it stand as firm as a rock. The thundering noise seemed to issue from its immovable substance magically. It ceased for a moment, and a sort of distracted continuous growling could be heard. Then the thundering began again. Michel reported: "This is the third time he starts this game."
"Not much strength in this," remarked Peyrol gravely.
"That he can do it at all is a miracle," said Michel, showing a certain excitement. "He stands on the ladder and beats the door with his fists. He is getting better. He began about half an hour after I got back on board. He drummed for a bit and then fell off the ladder. I heard him. I had my ear against the scuttle. He lay there and talked to himself for a long time. Then he went at it again." Peyrol approached the scuttle while Michel added his opinion: "He will go on like that for ever. You can't stop him."
"Easy there," said Peyrol in a deep authoritative voice. "Time you finish that noise."
These words brought instantly a death-like silence. Michel ceased to grin. He wondered at the power of these few words of a foreign language.
Peyrol himself smiled faintly. It was ages since he had uttered a sentence of English. He waited complacently until Michel had unbarred and unlocked the door of the cabin. After it was thrown open he boomed out a warning: "Stand clear!" and, turning about, went down with great deliberation, ordering Michel to go forward and keep a lookout.
Down there the man with the bandaged head was hanging on to the table and swearing feebly without intermission. Peyrol, after listening for a time with an air of interested recognition as one would to a tune heard many years ago, stopped it by a deep-voiced:
"That will do." After a short silence he added: "You look bien malade, hein? What you call sick," in a tone which if not tender was certainly not hostile. "We will remedy that."
"Who are you?" asked the prisoner, looking frightened and throwing his arm up quickly to guard his head against the coming blow. But Peyrol's uplifted hand fell only on his shoulder in a hearty slap which made him sit down suddenly on a locker in a partly collapsed attitude and unable to speak. But though very much dazed he was able to watch Peyrol open a cupboard and produce from there a small demijohn and two tin cups. He took heart to say plaintively: "My throat's like tinder," and then suspiciously: "Was it you who broke my head?"
"It was me," admitted Peyrol, sitting down on the opposite side of the table and leaning back to look at his prisoner comfortably.
"What the devil did you do that for?" inquired the other with a sort of faint fierceness which left Peyrol unmoved.
"Because you put your nose where you have no business. Understand? I see you there under the moon, penché, eating my tartane with your eyes. You never hear me, hein?"
"I believe you walked on air. Did you mean to kill me?"
"Yes, in preference to letting you go and make a story of it on board your cursed corvette."
"Well then, now's your chance to finish me. I am as weak as a kitten."
"How did you say that? Kitten? Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Peyrol. "You make a nice petit chat." He seized the demijohn by the neck and filled the mugs. "There," he went on, pushing one towards the prisoner – "it's good drink – that."
Symons' state was as though the blow had robbed him of all power of resistance, of all faculty of surprise and generally of all the means by which a man may assert himself except bitter resentment. His head was aching, it seemed to him enormous, too heavy for his neck and as if full of hot smoke. He took a drink under Peyrol's fixed gaze and with uncertain movements put down the mug. He looked drowsy for a moment. Presently a little colour deepened his bronze; he hitched himself up on the locker and said in a strong voice:
"You played a damned dirty trick on me. Call yourself a man, walking on air behind a fellow's back and felling him like a bullock?"
Peyrol nodded calmly and sipped from his mug.
"If I had met you anywhere else but looking at my tartane I would have done nothing to you. I would have permitted you to go back to your boat. Where was your damned boat?"
"How can I tell you? I can't tell where I am. I've never been here before. How long have I been here?"
"Oh, about fourteen hours," said Peyrol.
"My head feels as if it would fall off if I moved," grumbled the other. . . . "You are a damned bungler, that's what you are."
"What for – bungler?"
"For not finishing me off at once."
He seized the mug and emptied it down his throat. Peyrol drank too, observing him all the time. He put the mug down with extreme gentleness and said slowly:
"How could I know it was you? I hit hard enough to crack the skull of any other man."
"What do you mean? What do you know about my skull? What are you driving at? I don't know you, you white-headed villain, going about at night knocking people on the head from behind. Did you do for our officer, too?"
"Oh yes! Your officer. What was he up to? What trouble did you people come to make here, anyhow?"
"Do you think they tell a boat's crew? Go and ask our officer. He went up the gully and our coxswain got the jumps. He says to me: 'You are light-footed, Sam,' says he; 'you just creep round the head of the cove and see if our boat can be seen across from the other side.' Well, I couldn't see anything. That was all right. But I thought I would climb a little higher amongst the rocks. . . ."