The advice was undoubtedly wise; nothing could be gained by confronting Roberval with vague accusations. Without a moment's loss of time La Pommeraye hastened to La Rochelle; but he could find no trace of any one who had been with Roberval. The sailors had all gone to sea again; and those of the colonists who were not already in prison once more were on their way to the seat of war. To the front also had gone the one or two gentlemen who were known to have returned from the ill-fated expedition. Strange as it may seem, Charles could obtain absolutely no more definite information than the vague reports which he had already heard.
He learned that Roberval had taken a number of his men back to Picardy with him, and was there doing yeoman service for King Francis. La Pommeraye had done enough travelling in the past few weeks to exhaust a man of ordinary strength; but he seemed incapable of fatigue. Once more his horse was saddled, and once more he set off on the familiar road to Picardy. The long journey was at last accomplished, and he arrived at the castle as the bleak November winds were sweeping across the land from the English Channel. Roberval was with a small army five miles away; but La Pommeraye recognised in one of the servants, Etienne Brulé by name, the man who had escaped uninjured from the famous encounter with Pamphilo de Narvaez, and who had ever afterwards regarded La Pommeraye as a being of a supernatural order. This man had been with De Roberval on his voyage, and from him, after an hour's cross-questioning, La Pommeraye at last elicited the truth. The remembrance of the horrors through which he had passed, and his terror of De Roberval's wrath if it were discovered that he had related the story of the desertion of Marguerite, seemed to have muddled the poor fellow's wits, and his tale was wild and incoherent. But he stuck manfully to his assertion that he had seen Claude reach the shore.
"The others laughed me to scorn," he said, "and some went so far as to say that they saw the demons drag him down, but I know better. My eyesight is stronger than theirs, and I saw him rescued and dragged ashore by the women. But Monsieur will not speak to the Sieur de Roberval of these things? He foams at the mouth if his niece's name is so much as mentioned; and he would kill me if he found that I had told you about her."