“I dare say. I’ve looked into the matter, and we’ve nothing to fear. Anyway, it’s the colonel’s orders. You don’t want to go against them, I suppose?”

The Dutchman ejaculated something in his own language. I judged it to be a hasty disclaimer.

“But why not knock her on the head?” he growled. “It would be simple. The boat is all ready. She could be taken out to sea?”

“Yes,” said Chichester meditatively. “That is what I should do. She knows too much, that is certain. But the colonel is a man who likes to play a lone hand⁠—though no one else must do so.” Something in his own words seemed to awaken a memory that annoyed him. “He wants information of some kind from this girl.”

He had paused before the information, and the Dutchman was quick to catch him up.

“Information?”

“Something of the kind.”