son to think highly of my intelligence.  ‘By a stratagem,’ 
he repeated with emphasis. 
“ ‘I have a plan,’ he continued.  ‘It will take twenty-
three days to communicate, if we are not interrupted; 
between three and four months to prepare; two hours 
and eight minutes to execute.  It is theoretically possible 
to escape by air, by water, or by earth.  But as we are 
watched day and night, it would be useless to try to 
drive a tunnel to the mainland; we have no aeroplanes 
or balloons, or means of making them.  But if we could 
once reach the water’s edge, which we must do in 
whatever direction we set out if we only keep in a 
straight line, and if we can find a boat unguarded, and if 
we can avoid arousing the alarm, then we have merely 
to cross the sea, and either find a land where we are 
unknown, or disguise ourselves and our boat and return 
to Devil’s Island as shipwrecked mariners.  The latter 
idea would be foolish.  You will say that the Governor 
would know that Dodu would not be such a fool; but 
more, he would know also that Dodu would not be such 
a fool as to try to take advantage of that circumstance; 
and he would be right, curse him!’ 
“It implies the intensest depth of feeling to curse in 
the Morse code with one’s feet—ah! how we hated him. 
“Dodu explained to me that he was telling me these 
obvious things for several reasons:  (1) to gauge my 
intelligence by my reception of them; (2) to make sure 
that if we failed it should be by my stupidity and not by 
his neglect to inform me of every detail; (3) because he 
had acquired the professorial habit as another man 
might have the gout. 
“Briefly, however, this was his plan; to elude the 
guards, make for the coast, capture a boat, and put to 
sea.  Do you understand?  Do you get the idea?” 
Bevan replied that it seemed to him the only possi-
ble plan. 
“A man like Dodu,” pursued Duguesclin, “takes noth-
ing for granted.  He leaves no precaution untaken; in his 
plans, if chance be an element, it is an element whose