meeting when the Commander-in-Chief arrives.'
'Very good. But you would be well advised to keep your distance: treat him as a political consultant, an expert witness, no more. Apart from the ordinary surveillance, I have an agent working on him. He certainly has a private network of informants, some of them in France, and the name of even one might lead us to the rest and so to Paris... But he is a difficult, coriaceous animal and if this agent does not succeed quite soon, success is improbable, and I shall have to ask you to find some plausible manner of putting him out of the way, without compromising my position here.'
'I see,' said Wray. He considered for a while and then observed 'That can be arranged. If nothing else offers before, the Dey of Mascara will certainly deal with the situation. Indeed,' he added after a moment's reflection, 'I believe the Dey can be used to the greatest advantage. He can be used to kill two birds with one stone, as we say.'
Lesueur looked at him thoughtfully, and after a pause said 'Pray count the barrels on your side of the pillar. I cannot see them all from here.'
'Twenty-eight,' said Wray.
'Thank you.' Lesueur noted it down in his book. 'I get seven francs fifty back on each, which is appreciable.'
While he multiplied these figures to his own satisfaction Wray was visibly formulating his next words. When they came they had the awkward lack of spontaneity of a prepared speech and something more of righteous indignation than the occasion warranted. 'You spoke of my being an idealist just now,' he said, 'and so I am. No sum could purchase my support: no sum did purchase my support. But I cannot live on ideals alone. Until my wife inherits I have only a very limited income, and while I am here I am forced to keep up my position. Sir Hildebrand and all those who can make a good thing out of the dockyard and the victualling play for very high stakes, and I am obliged to follow suit.'
'You drew a large addition to your usual... grant-in-aid before leaving London,' said Lesueur. 'You cannot expect the rue Villars to pay your gambling debts.'
'I certainly can when they are incurred for a reason of this kind,' said Wray.
'I will put it to my chief,' said Lesueur, 'but I can promise nothing. Yet surely,' he said with a burst of impatience, 'surely you can win these men's confidence without playing high? It seems to me very poor practice.'
'With these men it is essential,' said Wray doggedly.
CHAPTER THREE
The sharper distress of Jack Aubrey's meeting with Admiral Hartley was softened by a sudden spate of mental and physical activity. The Admiralty court sat on the French vessel he had captured in the Ionian Sea and condemned it as lawful prize; and in spite of the proctors' swingeing fees this provided him with a comfortable sum of money -nothing like the fortune required to deal with his horribly complicated affairs at home, but quite enough to remit ten years' pay to Sophie, begging her not to stint, and to justify him in moving to rather more creditable quarters at Searle's. And, the proper channels having made themselves apparent at this juncture, to lay out the necessary bribes to get work started on the Surprise. But a deep sadness remained, not easily driven away by company or even by music; a sadness accompanied by a determination to live hearty while yet he could.
When Laura Fielding came to give him his Italian lesson in these more comfortable rooms, therefore, she found him in a startlingly enterprising mood, despite a heavy day at the dockyard and a great deal of concern about his frigate's knees. Since Jack Aubrey had never deliberately and with malice aforethought seduced any woman in his life, his was not a regular siege of her heart, with formal lines of approach, saps and covered ways; his only strategy (if anything so wholly instinctive and unpremeditated deserved such a name) was to smile very much, to be as agreeable as he could, and to move his chair closer and