Alfred's familiarity with French had been scant at best when he'd learned it as a teenager, and he'd only used it on occasion when visiting French ports. At one point in his life he'd been able to ask for directions and other rudimentary conversation pieces, but it had been years since he'd last been anywhere near France. At the moment, he was getting just enough to recognize the language as French, but not to understand much of what either girl was saying. One seemed as though she'd made some attempt at introducing herself, but he couldn't really be sure.

"Je ne — parle français," he said after a brief pause. He thought that was right. It was as close as he was going to get, anyway. To his first mate, he said in English, "Does someone on the crew speak French? I want to know where they came from. And where they've been sleeping," he said with an incredulous glance back at the girls. And why no one found them before this, he added silently. It wasn't as though they could have gotten onboard since they'd set sail from London, which mean they'd been here for a week without his knowing of it.