'Just because I point out that if we kill every aristo we find we can't blame the aristos if they kill any republicans they find?'

'Yes. Aristos are criminals. Like murderers. You have to see justice done. We republicans have the duty of administering it.'

'Well, that milord doesn't look like a murderer to me. I'm glad my wife can't see him; she'd fall in love with him at once.'

There you are,' Bazin said triumphantly, 'they run off with our women, and when they've had enough they cast them off. Like Moorish pashas. This one probably has a harem, too.'

'I envy him, then,' Roget said unexpectedly. 'If I was a milord I would have a dozen women. One of them would be Chinese. I saw a Chinese woman once. What eyes! No bosoms to speak of, I admit, but the eyes ... A Chinese, an Italian, perhaps a Creole, and - now, let me see . . .'

Bazin listened, wide - eyed. Roget was a royalist; he had just given himself away with all that talk about a harem. But what did he mean about the Chinese woman? Did none of them have bosoms, or just the one that Roget saw? The Italian women (some of them, anyway, when they were young) were nearly as beautiful as French women. But black women, certainly not - though there are many in Martinique, tall and slim, their skins like ebony. Yet there are only a few white women out here that one can bear to look at - most have skins dried, voices shrill, always nagging at their husbands. Still, Roget was a royalist, although no one had previously suspected it. '

And now that Marine lieutenant had come down the ladder and was looking at them. And he was pointing and beckoning. One of the sentries pulled him by the arm. Now Bazin knew they were going to shoot him. He turned to Roget. 'I forgive you,' he said, 'but for my sake stop this royalist talk.' He looked at the third lieutenant. 'Courage,' he said, like a benediction. With that he braced his shoulders and began to climb the steps. After the second step his knees had an unfortunate tendency to fold, like shutting a pocket knife, but he managed to continue climbing. This was how the aristos felt when they climbed up to the platform of the guillotine . . .

On deck the sun was dazzling, and he followed the Marine lieutenant. He glanced astern, but no sentry followed. nor could he see the firing squad. Up the quarterdeck ladder La Perle's topsails were now neatly furled and the two ships were still drifting alongside each other - and now down the companionway. This, Bazin knew, led to the captain's quarters.

At the foot of the companionway there was a Marine sentry who stood smartly to attention and saluted as the Marine officer passed, and he called some word into the cabin. Then Bazin was in the cabin, his head bent sideways to avoid hitting the beams overhead, and facing him, sitting at a desk, was this milord Ramage, who waved towards a settee and told him to sit down. The door shut and Bazin glanced up to see that the Marine lieutenant had left the cabin. He was alone with the milord. And his uniform was sticking to him and the perspiration was turning cold, and fresh beads of perspiration sprouting from his upper lip and forehead were cold, too, like rain on a glass window, and his breathing was shallow and he felt as though he was going to faint 'Lieutenant Bazin, I must apologize for the ruse.'

His accent was perfect He must have lived in France before the war - no foreigner could speak French like a Frenchman without living in France. The accent of Paris. In Lyon he would pass for a Parisian, Bazin was sure of that. But ruse?

'What ruse, milord?' There was the damned 'milord' again: it seemed so natural when talking to him, but he must guard his tongue against it.

The flags, M. Bazin. But I am sure you know perfectly well that it is a legitimate ruse de guerre to fly another flag as long as it is lowered and one's own flag hoisted before opening fire.'

Bazin was puzzled. 'Yes, of course. We always do it when we sight an English merchant ship, or a privateer.'

'You do? So you have no ill - feelings about me doing it?'

Ill - feelings? What is he talking about? Bazin knew it was his own fault that he had not grasped the significance of the Calypso's Tricolour coming down at the run. He shrugged his shoulders. And this milord was smiling, as though pleased. Bazin felt less chilly, but wondered if all this polite talk was not the prelude to another trap, another pat at the mouse by the cat's paw before the end came in a flurry of pain and blood.

'La Perle was a few hours late in leaving Aruba, M. Bazin?'

What a curious question. 'Several hours. In fact we nearly didn't leave at all.'

'Oh. Why was that?'

The leak, of course. Touching that reef made it a lot worse.

The captain waited for some time before we left to make sure the pumps could hold it'

'And they could, of course.'

'Only just, but there was no point in waiting in Aruba because we couldn't careen there to make repairs. Curacao is the nearest safe place - and of course it would have to be to windward. That's why Captain Duroc was not going to stop for you - but he was curious when you made the signal.'

The milord was looking at him strangely now. He was leaning forward slightly in the chair that he had twisted round to face the settee. 'You had all your pumps going?'

'Oh yes - chain pump, deck wash pumps and men with buckets. Every available man took his turn.'

'And you were just holding the leak.'

'Yes, just. It was getting no worse, thank goodness. If only we could have reached Curacao we'd have saved her.' '

The milord stood up slowly and walked out through the door, and the Marine sentry came into the cabin to guard him. He heard the milord's shoes clattering up the companionway. He had gone to arrange for the firing squad. He will not bother to question Roget or the third lieutenant. He would bother to question only the man who had been commanding La Perle (admittedly very briefly).

Bazin was proud that, with the firing squad only minutes away, he had kept control of himself and told this milord nothing. Nothing except that they were going to Curacao, and that was obvious enough to anyone who saw which way the ship was heading.

A few minutes later the milord came back again and the sentry left the cabin. The milord still had this pleasant smile on his face; the smile the cat has as it plays with the mouse. However, no aristo was going to fool Jean - Pierre Bazin with a smile.

The privateers are waiting for you in Curacao, M. Bazin.'

This is an obvious trap. 'Are they, milord?'

'I saw ten of them a few days ago. Perhaps more have arrived by now.'

'Very interesting, milord. There might be fifty, then.' That would worry him, Bazin knew. 'But they can get on quite well without La Perle, because we did not intend to call there. Not until we sprang this leak, rather.'

'Forgive my ignorance about all this, M. Bazin: I did not have time to talk to Captain Duroc.'

Look at those eyes: Bazin now knew what an assassin looked like. He had large brown eyes, the son that would fool a woman like Roget's wife, and they were sunk deep below bushy brows, and he smiled such a friendly but false smile. No, milord had not bothered to talk to Duroc before murdering him, so he did not know that Duroc was making a desperate rush to get to Curacao to careen the ship in the hope of finding the leak. No one was very optimistic, though; the whole garboard seam on the starboard side was leaking, and it seemed the entire transom was working loose because all the butt ends of the planks were weeping, although the caulking was still in the seams. The carpenter was puzzled and Duroc was frightened and he - ah, a chain pump had just started working somewhere this very moment because he could hear the distant clank - and - thump. And running water, like a distant stream. Now the clank of a head pump, and a second one has just started up. And a third and fourth, which was strange because La Perle had only two.