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checking the frigate's way, and the man, heaved closer by the swell, called, 'Pray can you give me some water for our wounded men? They are dying of thirst.'
    'Do you surrender?"
    The man half raised himself to reply - he was clearly no seaman - and cried, 'How can you speak so at such a time, sir? Shame on you.' His voice was harsh, high-pitched and furiously indignant. Jack's expression did not change, but after a pause in which the raft drifted nearer he hailed the bosun on the forecastle: 'Mr Bulkeley, there. Let the Doctor's skiff be lowered down with a couple of breakers in it.'
    'If you have a surgeon aboard, it would be a Christian act in him to relieve their pain,' said the man on the raft, now closer still.
    'By God..." began Jack, and there were exclamations all along the gangway; but as Stephen and Martin had already gone below for their instruments Jack said no more than 'Bonden, Plaice, pull them over. And you had better pass that raft a line. Mr Reade, take possession.'
    Ever since this chase began Stephen had been considering his best line of conduct in the event of its success. His would have been a delicate mission in any event, since it presupposed activities contrary to Spanish interests in South America at a time when Spain was at least nominally an ally of the United Kingdom; but now that the British government had been compelled to deny the existence of any such undertaking it was more delicate by far, and he was extremely unwilling to be recognized by Dutourd, whom he had met in Paris: not that Dutourd was a Bonapartist or in any way connected with French intelligence, but he had an immense acquaintance and he was incurably talkative - far too talkative for any intelligence service to consider making use of him. Dutourd was the man on the raft, the owner of the Franklin, and the sequence of events that had brought about their curious proximity, separated by no more than twenty feet of towline, was this: Dutourd, a man of passionate enthusiasms, had like many others at the time fallen in love with the idea of a terrestrial Paradise to be founded in a perfect climate, where there should be perfect equality as well as justice, and plenty without excessive labour, trade or the use of money, a true democracy, a more cheerful Sparta; and unlike most others he was rich enough to carry his theories into something like practice, acquiring this American-built privateer, manning her with prospective settlers and a certain number of seamen, most of the people being French Canadians or men from Louisiana, and sailing her to Moahu, an island well south of Hawaii, where with the help of a northern chief and his own powers of persuasion, he hoped to found his colony. But the northern chief had misused some British ships and seaman, and the Surprise, sent to deal with the situation, destroyed him in a short horrible battle immediately before the Franklin sailed in from a cruise, a private ship of war wearing American colours. The chase had begun in what seemed another world; now it was ending. As the crowded boat rose and fell, traversing the last quarter of a mile, Stephen derived some comfort from the fact that during his earlier years in Paris he had used the second half of his name, Maturin y Domanova (Mathurin, spelt with an h but pronounced without it, having ludicrous associations with idiocy in the jargon of that time) and from the reflexion that it was much easier to feign stupidity than wisdom - although it might be a mistake to know no French at all he did not have to speak it very well.
    'Bring the raft against the chains,' called Reade.
    'Against the chains it is, sir,' replied Bonden; and looking over his shoulder he pulled hard ahead, judging the swell just so. The raft lurched against the Franklin's side, and she was so low in the water that it was no great step for Dutourd to go aboard directly. Two more heaves and Bonden hooked on. Dutourd helped Stephen over the shattered gunwale with one hand while