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"How long will it be before you're better?" "Oh, days and days, they say." "Oh!... And have you got it too?" I asked of the man in the bunk. And he looked at me for a minute, and then laughed, and said, "Yes, I've got it too. Don't you come near me," for I had come into the room at sound of Carette's voice, and he looked very much nicer when he laughed. "Oh Hilaire!" cried the unseen Carette.
You are bleached for lack of sunshine, then." "Mon Dieu, yes," said Carette. "I felt myself getting whiter every minute, and we were almost starving when Uncle George came. We had been days without food, you know, although you all say it is only Thursday;" and my mother smiled and began to spread the table, but we showed her it was only Carette's nonsense.
And who are you, mon gars?" and I was facing Carette's father, Jean Le Marchant, of whose doings I had heard many a wild story on Sercq. He was a very striking-looking man, tall and straight, and well-built. His face was keen as a hawk's, and tanned and seamed and very much alive. His eyes were very sharp and dark, under shaggy white eyebrows.
"I will, mon Gyu!" and she was off up the zigzag before he had finished. And it would have been a very different man from Peter le Pelley who could refuse the beguilement of Carette's wistful dark eyes, when her heart was set on her own way, as it generally was.
He offers to take me for five hundred dollars, which is to be deposited in the hands of the Sheikh Makouran, and is not to be paid until our safe return. He will allow me to stop a month or six weeks in the city of Timbuctoo. The distances of routes which he gives me, are the same as those on M. Carette's map, attached to his brochure on the commerce of The Desert.
Carette's soft hands were not equal to work of this kind, and she saw it. There were but the two oars in the boat. I bade her hand me hers, and she did it instantly, sliding it along to my rowlock and losing but a single stroke. The odds were somewhat against us, but not so much as I feared.
"It would mean many lives and to no purpose, may be, in the end," said Aunt Jeanne, shaking her head. "I can hide them where none will ever find them," said Uncle George. "Ma fé! it does not sound too tempting," said Carette. "Since we are together, I am content," I said; for rest and the assurance of Carette's safety were the only things I cared about just then. "Bien! So am I," said Carette.
Carette's face had shadowed at this gloomy talk, when she had been hoping that our troubles were over. And I could find little to reassure her, for it seemed to me more than likely that Aunt Jeanne's predictions would be fulfilled. "I'll go along to Moie de Mouton and keep a look-out," I said. "I also," said Carette, and we went off over the knoll together.
Jabour promises, on my return, to conduct me en route for Timbuctoo, and confide me to the care of some of his trustworthy followers. He will conduct me by the south-western route, which is stated to be forty-five days' journey on M. Carette's map. But the Sheikh tells me it is only thirty days, or less.
Of course Helier Le Marchant might have told Jeanne Falla. But even then Jeanne Falla would only have on hearsay from Helier what he had heard from me, whereas I was an eye-witness, and could swear to the facts. And yet I could not but feel that if I had not got across to Herm when I did, I should not have got across at all, and Carette's welfare was more to me than the punishment of Torode.
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