CHAPTER XXVI

HOW HE HELD THE ROCK

The sun blazed hot next day, and he spread himself out in it to warm, and all his soaked things in it to dry, and blessed it for its wholesome vigour.

Nance or Bernel would be sure to come as soon as the tide served at night, and he would net be sorry for a change of diet; meanwhile, he could get along all right with the unwilling assistance of the puffins.

The birds had all crept out of their hiding-places, and were wheeling and diving and making up for lost time and busily discussing late events at the tops of their voices whenever their bills were not otherwise occupied. Where they had all hidden themselves during the storm, he could not imagine, but there seemed to be as many of them as ever, and they were all quite happy and quarrelsome, except the cormorants, who were so ravenous that they could not spare a moment from their diving and gobbling, even to quarrel with their neighbours.

He levied on the puffins again, and, after a meal, prowled curiously about his rock to see what damage the storm had done, but to his surprise found almost none.

It seemed incredible that all should be the same after the deadly onslaught of the gale. But it was only in the valley of rocks that he found any consequences.

There the huge boulders had been hurled about like marbles: some had been tossed overboard, and some, in their fantastic up-piling, spoke eloquently of all they had suffered.

But one grim—though to him wholly gracious—deed the storm had wrought there. For, out of the pool where the devil-fish dwelt, its monstrous limbs streamed up and lay over the sloping rocks, and he dared not venture near. But, in the afternoon when he came again to look at it, and found it still in the same attitude, something about it struck him as odd and unusual.

The great tentacles had never moved, so far as he could see, and there was surely something wrong with a devil-fish that did not move.

He hurled a stone, picked out of the landslip at the corner, and hit a tentacle full and fair with a dull thud like leather. But the beast never moved.

He was suspicious of the wily one, however. The devil, he knew, was sometimes busiest when he made least show of business. And it was not till next morning, when he found the monster still as before, that he ventured down to the pool and looked into it, and saw what had happened.

The waves had hurled a huge boulder into it—and there you may see it to this day—and it had fallen on the devil-fish and ground him flat, and purged the rock of a horror.

Gard examined the hideous tentacles with the curiosity of intensest repulsion; yet could not but stand amazed at the wonderful delicacy and finish displayed in the tiny powerful suckers with which each limb was furnished on the under side, and the flexible muscularity of the monstrous limbs themselves, thick as his biceps where they came out of the pool, and tapering to a worm-like point, capable, it seemed to him, of picking up a pin.

He was mightily glad the beast was dead, however. It had been a blot on Nature's handiwork, and the very thought of it a horror.

The strenuous interlude of the storm, which, to the lonely one exposed to its fullest fury, had seemed interminable—every shivering day the length of many, and the black howling nights longer still—had had the effect of relaxing somewhat his own oversight over himself and his precautions against being seen.

L'Etat in a furious sou'-wester is a sight worth seeing. Possibly some telescope had been brought to bear on the foam-swept rock when he, secure in the general bouleversement and cramped with hunger, had turned the forbidden corner with no thought in his mind but eggs.

Possibly again, it was sheer carelessness on his part, born once more of the security of the storm and the recent non-necessity for concealment.

However it came about, what happened was that, as he stood in the valley of rocks examining his dead monster, he became suddenly aware that a fishing-boat had crept round the open end of the valley, and that it seemed to him much closer in than he had ever seen one before.

He dropped prone among the boulders at once, but whether he had been seen he could not tell—could only vituperate his own carelessness, and hope that nothing worse might come of it.

He lay there a very long time, and when at last he ventured to crawl to the rocks at the seaward opening, the boat was away on the usual fishing-grounds busy with its own concerns, and he persuaded himself that its somewhat unusual course had been accidental. The incident, however, braced him to his former caution, and he went no more abroad without first carefully inspecting the surrounding waters from the ridge.

They would be certain to come that night, he felt sure, either Nance or Bernel, perhaps both. Yes, he thought most likely they would both come. They would, without doubt, be wondering how he had fared during the storm, and would be making provision for him.

Perhaps Nance was cooking for him at that very moment, and thinking of him as he was of her.

In the certain expectation of their coming, he decided he would not go to sleep at all that night, but would crawl down to the landing-place to welcome them.

He wondered if that mad woman Julie had given up watching them, and, if not, if they would be able to circumvent her again. In any case, he hoped that if only one of them came it might be Nance. He fairly ached for the sight and sound of her—and the feel of her little hand, and a warm frank kiss from the lips that knew no guile.

The sufferings of the storm became as nothing to him in this large hope and expectation of her coming.

The intervening hours dragged slowly. It would be half-ebb soon after dark, he thought; and he crept up to the ridge and gazed anxiously over at the Race between him and Breniere, to see if it showed any unusual symptoms after the storm.

It ran furiously enough, but, he said to himself, it would slacken on the ebb, and they were so familiar with it that it would take more than that to stop them coming.

Before dark the great seas were rolling past, a little quicker than usual, he thought, but in long, smooth undulations, which slipped, unbroken and soundless, even along the black ledges of his rock. And when the stars came out—brighter than ever with the burnishing of the gale—the long black backs of the waves, and the darker hollows between, were sown so thick with trailing gleams that he could not be certain whether it was only star-shine or phosphorescence.

It was all very peaceful and beautiful, however, and very welcome to eyes that had not looked upon sun, moon, or star for eight whole nights and days, and whose ears had grown hardened to the ceaseless clamour of the gale. Nature, indeed, seemed preternaturally quiet, as though exhausted with her previous violence or desirous of wiping out the remembrance of it; just as small humanity after an outbreak endeavours at times to purge the memory of its offence by display of unusual amiability and sweetness.

Eager to welcome his confidently expected visitors, Gard crept along the ridge as soon as it was dark, and posted himself on the point which, in the daylight, commanded the passage from Breniere.

And he sat there so long—so long after his hopes and wishes had flown over to Sark and hurried Bernel and Nance into a boat and landed them on L'Etat—that the night seemed running out, and he began to fear they were not coming, after all.

In the troubled darkness of the Race, he caught gleams at times which might be oar-blades or might be only the upfling from the perils below. The tide was ebbing, and soon the black fangs with which it was strewn would be showing.

At times he convinced himself that the brief gleams moved; but when, to ease his eyes of the intolerable strain, he looked up at the stars, it seemed to him that they moved also, and so he could not be sure.

But surely there was a gleam that seemed to move and come fitfully towards him—or was it only star-shine dancing on the waves of the Race which always ran against the tide?

He stood to watch, then lost the gleam, and crouched again disappointed.

The boat must come round Quette d'Amont, the great pile of rock that lay off the eastern corner, and the first glimpse he could hope to get of it in the darkness would be there.

Then, suddenly, in that curious way in which one sometimes sees more out of the tail of one's eye than out of the front of it, he got an impression—and with it a start—of something moving noiselessly among the tumbled rocks below on his left.

It was a dark night, but the glory of the stars lifted it out of the ebony-ruler category. It was a wide, thin, lofty darkness, but still black enough along the sides of his rock, and down there it seemed to him that something moved, something dim and shadowy and silent.

He thought of the dead man in his chamber down below. Could he be in the habit of walking of a night? He thought of ghosts, of which, if popular belief was anything to go by, Sark was full; and there was nothing to hinder them coming across to L'Etat for their Sabbat. And he thought of monster devil-fish climbing, loathsome and soundless, about the dark rocks.

He longed for a pair of Sark eyes, and shrank down into a hollow under the ridge to watch this thing, with something of a creepy chill between his shoulder-blades.

There was certainly something lighter than the surrounding darkness down below, and it moved. It turned the corner and flitted along the slope, slowly but surely, in the direction of his shelter. Its mode of progression, from the little he could make out in the darkness, was just such as he would have looked for in a huge octopus hauling itself along by its tentacles over the out-cropping rock-bones.

He could not rest there. He must see. He crawled along the ridge as quietly as he could manage it, and would have felt happier, whatever it was, spirit or monster, if he had had his gun. Now and again it stopped, and when it stopped he lay flat to the ground and held his breath, lest it should discover him. When it went on, he went on.

When he came to the end of the ridge he saw that the nebulous something had apparently stopped just where his house must be.

And then, every sense on the strain, he heard his own name called softly, and he laughed to himself for very joy of it, and lay still to hear it again, and laughed once more to think that in her simplicity she still thought of him as "Mr. Gard." He would teach her to call him "Steen," as his mother used to do.

Then he got up quickly and cried, as softly as herself, but with joy and laughter in his voice—

"Why, Nance! My dear, I was not sure whether you were a ghost or a devil-fish;" and he sprang down towards her.

And then, to his amazement, he saw that she was clad only in the clinging white garment in which he had seen her swim.

Her next words confounded him.

"Is Bernel here?"

"Bernel, Nance? No, dear, he is not here. Why—"

"Did he not get here last night?" she jerked sharply.

"No. No one. I was hoping—"

But she had sunk down against the great stones of the shelter, with her hands before her face.

"Mon Gyu, mon Gyu! Then he is dead! Oh, my poor one! My dear one!"

"Nance! Nance! What is it all, dearest? Did Bernel try to come across last night—"

"Yes, yes! He would come. He said you must be starving. We were all anxious about you—"

"And he tried to swim across?"

"Yes, yes! And he is drowned! Oh, my poor, poor boy!"

She was shaking with the sudden chill of dreadful loss. He stooped, and felt inside the shelter with a long arm for the old woollen cloak and wrapped her carefully in it. He raked out the blanket and made her sit with it tucked about her feet. And she was passive in his hands, with thought as yet for nothing but her loss.

She was shaken with broken sobs, and in the face of grief such as this he could find no words. What could he say? All the words in the world could not bring back the dead.

And it was through him this great sorrow had come upon her. He seemed fated to bring misfortune on their house.

He wondered if she would hate him for it, though she must know he had had no more to do with the matter than with Tom's death.

He put a protecting arm round the old cloak, tentatively, and in some fear lest she might resent it, but knew no other way to convey to her what was in his heart.

But she did not resent it, and nothing was further from her mind than imputing any share in this loss to him.

Some women's hearts are so wonderfully constituted that the greater the demands upon them the more they are prepared to give. At times they give and give beyond the bounds of reason, and yet amazingly retain their faith and hope in the recipients of their gifts.

But that has nothing to do with our story. Except this—that these various demands on Nance's fortitude, incurred by her love for Stephen Gard, far from weakening her love only made it the stronger. As that love came more and more between her and her old surroundings, and exacted from her sacrifice after sacrifice, the more she clung to it, and looked to it, and let the past go. The partial ostracism brought upon her by Gard's outspoken declaration of their mutual feeling—even this final offering of her dearly-loved brother—these only bound her heart to him the tighter.

"Nance dear!" he said at last, when she had got control of herself again. "Is it not possible to hope? He was so good a swimmer. Maybe he found the Race too strong and was carried away by it. He may have been picked up, and will come back as soon as he is able."

"No," she said, with gloomy decision. "He is dead. I feared for him, for I had been to look at the Race just before sundown, and it looked terribly strong. But he would go—"

"Why didn't he get a boat?"

"Ah, mon Gyu!" and she started up wildly. "I was forgetting. I was thinking only of myself and Bernel. There isn't a boat left alive outside the Creux, and he couldn't get one there without them knowing. But"—in quick excitement now, to make up for lost time—"they have seen you here, and they may come to-night—Achochre that I am! They may be here! Come quickly! Your gun!" and she was all on the quiver to be gone.

Gard stooped and pulled out the gun from its hiding-place inside the shelter.

"Is it loaded?" she asked sharply.

"Yes. I cleaned it to-day."

"Take your charges with you, and do you hasten back to the place we landed the first night. You know?"

"I know. And you?"

"I will go to the other landing-place. But they are not likely to come there."

"And if they do?"

"I will manage them," and she slipped into the darkness with the big cloak about her.

Gard crept along the slope, and found a roost above the landing-place.

His brain was in a whirl. Bernel had tried to cross to him and was drowned. Nance had swum across. Brave girl! Wonderful girl! For him!—and for news of Bernel. It was terrible to think of Bernel, dead on his account—terrible! It would not be surprising if Nance hated him. Yet, what had he done?—what could he do? He had done nothing. He could do nothing; and his teeth ground savagely at the craziness of these wild Sark men who had brought it all about, and at his own utter impotence.

But Nance did not hate him. And she had swum that dreadful Race to warn him. Brave girl! Wonderful girl!

And then—surely the grinding of an oar, as it wrought upon the gunwale against an ill-fitted thole-pin—out there by the Quette d'Amont!

His eyes and ears strained into the darkness till they felt like cracking.

And the muffled growl of voices!

His heart thumped so, they might have heard it.

He must wait till he was sure they meant to come in. But they must not come too close.

It was an ill landing in the dark, and there were various opinions on it. But there was no doubt as to their intentions. They were coming in.

"Sheer off there!" cried Gard.

Dead silence below. They had come in some doubt, but their doubts were solved now, and there was no longer need for curbed tongues, though, indeed, his hollow voice made some of them wonder if it was not a spirit that spoke to them.

"It's him!" "The man himself!" "We have him!" "In now and get him!"—was the burden of their growls, as they hung on their oars.

"See here, men!" said Gard, invisible even to Sark eyes, against the solid darkness of the slope. "There has been trouble and loss enough over this matter already, and none of it my making. Do you hear? I say again—none of it my making. If you attempt to come ashore there will be more trouble, and this time it will be of my making. Keep back!"—as an impulsive one gave a tug at his oar. "If you force me to fire, your blood be on your own heads. I give you fair warning."

Growls from the boat carried up to him an impression of mixed doubt and discomfort—ultimate disbelief in his possession of arms, an energetic oath or two, and another creak of the oar.

"Very well! Here's to show you I am armed." The report of his gun made Nance jump, at the other side of the island, and set all the birds on L'Etat—except the puffins, deep in their holes—circling and screaming.

The small shot tore up the water within a couple of yards of the boat, which backed off hastily—much to his satisfaction, for he had feared they might rush him before he had time to reload.

He had dropped flat after firing and recharged his gun as he lay. He was sure they must have come armed, and feared a volley as soon as his own discharge indicated his whereabouts.

As a matter of fact, they had come divided as to the truth of the report that there was a man on L'Etat—even then as to him being the man they sought. In any case, they had expected to take him unawares, and never dreamt of his being armed and on the watch for them.

Thanks to Nance, he had turned the tables on them. It was they who were taken unawares.

But if he spoke again, he said to himself, they would be ready for him, and their answers would probably take the rude form of bullets. So he lay still and waited.

There was a growling disputation in the boat. Then one spoke—

"See then, you, Gard! We will haff you yet, now we know where you are. If it takes effery man and effery boat in Sark, we will haff you, now we know where you are. You do not kill a Sark man like that and go free. Noh—pardie!"

"I have killed no man—" A gun rang out in the boat, and the shot spatted on the rocks not a yard from him.

Coming in, they knew, meant certain death for one among them, and, keen as they were to lay hands on him, no man had any wish to be that one.

The oars creaked away into the darkness, and he climbed to the ridge to make sure they made no attempt on the other side.

But discretion had prevailed. One man could not hold L'Etat from invasion at half-a-dozen points at once. They could bide their time, and take him by force of numbers.

He heard them go creaking off towards the Creux, and turned and went back along the ridge to find Nance.



CHAPTER XXVII

HOW ONE CAME TO HIM LIKE AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN

Nance was standing by the shelter, and even in the darkness he could tell that she was shaking, in spite of her previous vigorous incitement to defence.

"You—you didn't kill any of them?" she asked anxiously.

"No, dear. I warned them off and fired into the water to show them I was armed."

"I was afraid. But, there were two shots."

"One of them fired back the next time I spoke, but I was expecting it."

"They are wicked, wicked men, and cruel."

"They are mistaken, that's all. But it comes to much the same thing, and I don't see," he said despondently, "how we are ever to prove it to them."

"They will come again."

"Yes, they are to come back with every man and every boat in the Island. I shall have my hands full. Are there more than these two places where they can land?"

"Not good places, and these only when the sea is right. But angry men—and ready to shoot you—oh, it is wicked—"

"We must hope the sea will keep them off, and that something may turn up to throw some light on the other matter," he said, trying to comfort her, though, in truth, the outlook was not hopeful, and he feared himself that his time might be short.

"I will stop here and help you," she said, with sudden vehemence. "They shall not have you. They shall not! They are wicked, crazy men," and the little cloaked figure shook again with the spirit that was in it.

"Dear!" he said, putting his arm round her, and drawing her close. "You must not stop. They must not know you have been here. I do not know what the end will be. We are in God's hands, and we have done no wrong. But if ... if the worst comes, you will remember all your life, dear, that to one man you were as an angel from heaven. Nance! Nance! Oh, my dear, how can I tell you all you are to me!"—and as he pressed her to him, the bare white arms stole out of the cloak and clasped him tightly round the neck.

"But how are you going to get back, little one? You cannot possibly swim that Race again?" he asked presently, holding her still in his arms and looking down at her anxiously.

"Yes, I can swim," she said valiantly. "I knew it would be worse than usual, and I brought these"—and she slipped from his arms and groped on the ground, and presently held up what felt to him in the darkness like a pair of inflated bladders with a broad band between them. "And here is a little bread and meat, all I could carry tied on to my head. We feared you would be starving."

"You should not have burdened yourself, dear. It might have drowned you. And I have eggs—puffins'—"

"Ach!"

"They are better than nothing, and I beat them up with cognac. But are you safe in the Race, Nance dear, even with those things?"

"You cannot sink. If Bernel had only taken them! But he laughed at them, and now—"

He kissed her sobs away, but was full of anxiety at thought of her in the rushing darkness of the Race.

"I will go with you," he said eagerly, "and you will lend me your bladders to get back with."

"You would never get back to L'Etat in the dark"—and he knew that that was true. "We of Sark can see, but you others—"

"I shall be in misery till I know you are all right," he said anxiously.

"I will run home. My things are in the gorse above Breniere. And I will get a lantern and come down by Breniere and wave it to you."

"Will you do that? It will be like a signal from heaven," he said eagerly, "a signal from heaven waved by an angel from heaven."

"And to-morrow I will go to the Vicar, and the Senechal, and the Seigneur, if he has come home, and I will make them stop these wicked men from coming here again."

"Can they?"

"They shall. They must. They are the law and it is not right."

"It is worth trying, at any rate," he said cheerfully, as they reached the eastern corner and struck down across his puffin-warren to the point immediately opposite Breniere. But he had not much hope that the Vicar and the Senechal and the Seigneur all combined would avail him, for the men of Sark are a law unto themselves.

"But I've found another hiding-place, Nance, where they could never find me."

"Here?—on L'Etat?"

"Yes—inside. I'll show you some time, perhaps, if—"

"Is this where you came ashore?" he asked, as she came to a stand on a rough black shelf up which the waves hissed white and venomous.

"We—we always landed here when we swam across," she said, with a little break in her voice, as it came home to her again that Bernel would swim the Race no more.

"Nance dear, don't give up hope. He may come back yet."

"I have only you left, and they want to kill you," she said sadly.

"I wish I could come with you," as the dark waters swirled below them. "It feels terrible to let you go into that all alone."

"It is nothing. The tide is dead slack, and I have these"—swinging the bladders in her hand—"if I get tired. Oh, if Bern had only taken them—"

"I will kneel on the ridge and pray for your safety till I see your light. Dear, God keep you, and bless you for all your goodness and courage!"

He strained her to him again, as if he could not let her go to that colder embrace that awaited her below.

"I could kiss the very rocks you have stood on," he said passionately.

She kissed him back and dropped the cloak, waited a second till a wave had swirled by, then launched into the slack of it, and was gone.

He stood long, peering and listening into the darkness, but heard only the welter of the water under the black ledges below, and its scornful hiss as it seethed through the fringing sea-weeds.

Then at last he turned and climbed, slowly and heavily, up to the ridge; for now he felt the strain of these last full hours, coming on top of the longer strain of the storm; and this, and the lack of proper feeding, made him feel weak and empty and weary. He knelt down there in the darkness, with his face towards the Race where Nance was battling with the hungry black waters, and he prayed for her safety as he had never prayed for anything in his life before.

"God keep her! God keep her! God keep her—and bring her safe to land! O God, keep her, keep her, keep her, and bring her safe to land!"

It was a monotonous little prayer, but all his heart was in it, and that is all that makes a prayer avail. And when at last, from sheer weariness, he sank down on to his heels in science, gazing earnestly out into the blackness of the night, his heart prayed on though his lips no longer moved.

Could anything have happened to her? Could the black waters have swallowed her?

Anything might have happened to her. The waters might have swallowed her, as they had Bernel.

The thoughts would surge up behind his prayer, but he prayed them down—again and again—and clung to his prayer and his hope.

It seemed hours since they parted, since his last glimpse of her as the black waters swallowed the slim white figure, and seemed to laugh scornfully at its smallness and weakness.

"Oh, Nance! Nance! God keep you! God keep you! God keep you! Dear one, God keep you! God keep you! God keep you, and bring you safe to land!"

He was numb with kneeling. If one had come behind him and cut off his feet above the ankles, he would have felt no pain. He felt no bodily sensation whatever. His body was there on the rock, but his heart was out upon the black waters alongside Nance, struggling with her through the belching coils, nerving her through the treacherous swirls. And his soul—all that was most really and truly him—was agonizing in prayer for her before the God to whom he had prayed at his mother's knee, and whom she had taught him to look to as a friend and helper in all times of need.

He did not even stop—as he well might have done—to think that the friend sought only in time of need might have reasonable ground for complaint of neglect at other times.

He thought of nothing but that Nance was out there battling with the black waters—that he could not lift a finger to help her—that all he could do was to pray for her safety with all his heart and soul.

Then, after an age of this numb agony of waiting, a tiny bead of light flickered on the outer darkness, as though Hope with a golden pin-point had pricked the black curtain of despair, and let a gleam of her glory peep through. It swung to and fro, and he fell forward with his face in his ice-cold hands and sobbed, "Thank God! Thank God! She is safe! She is safe!"

When he tried to get up, his legs gave way under him, and he had to sit and wait till they recovered. And when at last he got under way along the ridge, he stumbled like a drunken man.

He tangled his feet in the blanket and fell in a heap. He wondered dimly where the cloak was—remembered Nance had worn it till she took to the sea—and stumbled off through the dark again to find it. Nance had worn it. To him it was sacred.

When he got back with it, he wrapped it round him and crept into his shelter and slept like a dog.



CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW THE OTHERS CAME TO MAKE AN END

He woke next morning with a start. The sun was high, by the shadow of his doorway; and by that same token the tide would be at half-ebb, if not lower, and the gates of his fortress at his enemy's mercy.

He picked up his gun, listened anxiously for sound of him, and then crept cautiously out, with a quick glance along each slope.

Nothing!—nothing but the cheerful sun and the cloudless sky, and the empty blue plain of the sea, and the birds circling and diving and squabbling as usual—and Nance's little parcel lying where she had dropped it. He had had other things to think about last night.

The composure of the birds reassured him somewhat. Still, they might have landed on the other side of the rock and be lying in wait for him.

He picked up Nance's parcel with a feeling of reverence. It might have cost her her life, in spite of her bladders. Then he climbed cautiously to the ridge and peered over.

Sark lay basking in the sunshine, peaceful and placid, as if no son of hers had ever had an ill thought of his neighbour, much less sought his blood.

Not a boat was in sight, and the birds on the north slope seemed as undisturbed as their fellows on the south.

The invasion in force needed time perhaps to prepare and would be all the more conclusive when completed.

Meanwhile, he would eat and watch at the same time, for he felt as empty as a drum, and an empty man is not in the pinkest of condition for a fight.

Never in his life had he tasted bread so sweet!—and the strips of boiled bacon in between came surely from a most unusual pig—a porker of sorts, without a doubt, and of most extraordinary attainment in the nice balancing of lean and fat, and the induing of both with vital juices of the utmost strength and sweetness. Truly, a most celestial pig!—and he was very hungry.

Had he been a pagan he would most likely have offered a portion of his slim rations as thank-offering to his gods, for they had come to him at risk of a girl's life. As it was, he ate them very thoughtfully to the very last crumb, and was grateful.

They had been wrapped in a piece of white linen, and then tied tightly in oiled cloth, and were hardly damped with sea-water. The piece of linen and the oiled cloth and the bits of cord he folded up carefully and put inside his coat.

They spoke of Nance. If they had drowned her she would have gone with them tied on to her head. He took them out again, and kissed them, and put them back.

Thank God, she had got through safely! Thank God! Thank God!

He shivered in the blaze of the sun as his eyes rested on the waves of the Race, bristling up against the run of the tide as usual, and he thought of what it might have meant to him this morning.

It had swallowed Bernel. In spite of his hopeful words to Nance, he feared the brave lad was gone. And it might have swallowed Nance. And if it had—it might as well have him, too. For it was only thought of Nance that made life bearable to him.

The sun wheeled his silvery dance along the waters; the day wore on;—and still no sign of the invaders. Sark looked as utterly deserted as it must have done in the lone days after the monks left it, when, for two hundred years, it was given over to the birds, till de Carteret and his merry men came across from Jersey and woke it up to life again.

And then, of a sudden, his heart kicked within him as if it would climb into his throat and choke him; for, round the distant point of the Laches, a boat had stolen out, and, as he watched it anxiously, there came another, and another, and another. They were coming!

Four boat-loads! That ought to be enough to make full sure of him. He wondered why they had not come sooner, for the tide was on the rise, and the landing-places did not look tempting.

His gun was under his hand, and his powder-flask and his little bag of shot. He had no more preparations to make, and he had no wish to fight.

No wish? The thought of it was hateful to him, and yet it was not in human nature to give in without a struggle.

But it should be all their doing. All he wanted was to be left in peace. Every man has the right to defend his own life.

But then, again—there could be only one end to it, he knew. So why fight?

They were coming to make an end of him. What good was it to make an end of any of them?

Even if he should succeed in keeping them off this time, the end would come all the same, only it would be longer of coming. Why prolong it?

The boats came bounding on like hounds at sight of the quarry. They were well filled, four or five men in each boat, besides the oarsmen. Enough, surely, to make an end of one lone man.

Would they attempt to land in different places and rush him, he wondered. Or would they content themselves with lying off and attempting to shoot him down from a distance? The last would be the safest all round, both for them and for him—for, landing, they would, for the moment, be more or less at his mercy; and, snapping at him from a distance, he would have certain chances of cover in his favour.

The top of the ridge was flattened in places, there were even depressions here and there, very slight, but quite enough to shelter any one lying prone in them from bombardment from sea-level. He chose the deepest he could find, and crawled into it, and lay, with his chin in his hands, watching the oncoming boats.

If he could have managed it, he would have slipped down to the rock wall and crept into his burrow, but it was on that side the boats were coming, and the sharp eyes on board would inevitably see him, and so get on the track of his hiding-place.

If the chance offered—if they left that end of the rock unspied upon for three minutes—he would try it.

They parted at the Quette d'Amont, two going along the south side and two along the north. He could hear their voices, their rough jests and brief laughter, as they crept past.

It was an odd sensation, this, of lying there like a hunted hare, knowing that it was him they were after.

He pressed still closer to the rock, and did not dare to raise his head for a look. The voices and the sound of the oars died away, came again, died again, as the boats slowly circled the rock, every keen eye on board, he knew, searching every nook and cranny for sign of him.

Then a shot rang out, over there towards the south-west, and another, and another. Tired of inaction, they were peppering his bee-hive to stir him up in case he was fast asleep inside.

The other boats rowed swiftly round to the firing, and he could imagine them clustered there in a bunch, watching hopefully for him to come out; and his blood boiled and chilled again at thought of what might have been if he had been caught napping.

And then, seizing his chance, he crawled to the opposite side of his hollow, peeped over, and saw the way clear. If only they would go on peppering the bee-hive for another minute or two, he would have time to slip down the Sark side of his rock and get to the great wall, and so down into his new hiding-place.

If they tried to land, he could perhaps kill or wound two, three, half-a-dozen, at risk of his own life. But the end would be the same. With a dozen good shots coolly potting at him, he must go down in time, and he had no desire either to kill or to be killed.

He wormed himself over the edge of his hollow and hurried along to the tumbled rocks, carrying his gun and powder-flask—not that he wanted them, but wanted still less to leave them behind. He scrambled over, found his marked rocks, and slipped safely under the overhanging slab. There he could peep out without danger of being seen; and he was barely under cover when the first boat came slowly round again, every bearded face intent on the rock, every eye searching for sign of him.

The other boats passed, and as each one came it seemed to him that every eye on board looked straight up into his own, and he involuntarily shrank down into the shadow of the slab. They could not possibly see him, he was certain; and yet a thrill ran through him each time their searching glances crossed his own.

The rough jests and laughter of the boats had given way now to angry growls at his invisibility. He could hear them cursing him as they passed, and even casting doubts on the veracity of his visitors of the previous night. And these latter upheld their statements with such torrents of red-hot patois that, if they had come to grips and fought the matter out, he would not have been in the least surprised.

Then there came a long interval, when no boats came round. They had probably taken their courage in their hands and landed, and were searching the island. He dropped noiselessly into his well and clambered up into the tunnel, and lay there with only his head out.

And, sure enough, before long he heard the sound of big sea-boots climbing heavily over the rock wall, and the voices of their owners as they passed.

What would they do next, he wondered. Would they imagine him flown, as the result of their last night's visit? Or would they believe him still on the island and bound to come out of his hiding-place sooner or later? Would they give it up and go home? Or would they leave a guard to trap him when hunger and thirst brought him out?

He lay patiently in the mouth of his tunnel till long after the last glimmer of light had faded from under the big slabs that covered in his well. More than once he heard voices, and once they came so close that he was sure they had come upon his tracks, and he crept some distance down his tunnel to be out of sight. But the alarm proved a false one, and the time passed very slowly.

As he lay, he thought of the dead man with the bound hands and feet in the silent chamber behind him, bound by the forebears of these men, who, in turn, were seeking him, and would treat him as ruthlessly if they found him.

He took the lesson to heart, and braced himself to patient endurance, though, indeed, he began to ask himself gloomily what was the use of it all. In the end, their venomous persistence must make an end of him. One man could not fight for ever against a whole community.

And at that he chided himself. Not a whole community! For was not Nance on his side—hoping and praying and working for him with all her might and main? And her mother, and Grannie, and the Vicar, and the Doctor, and the Senechal? He was sure they all knew him far too well to doubt him. And all these and the Truth must surely prevail.

But the long strain had been sore on him, and in spite of his anxieties he fell asleep in his hole, and dreamed that the dead man came crawling down the tunnel, and dragged him back into the chamber, and tied his hands and feet, and went away, and left him to die there all alone. And so strong was the impression upon him that, when he woke, he lay wondering who had loosed his bonds, and could not make out how he had got back into the mouth of the tunnel.

It was still quite dark. He was stiff with lying in that cramped place. He was strongly tempted to climb out and see how matters lay. For he might be able to find out in the dark, whereas daylight would make him prisoner again.

He wanted eggs, too. Nance's provision had served him well all day, but if he had to spend another day there something more would be welcome.

But then it struck him that if he went up in the dark he might never be able to find his way back again. The cleft under the slab was difficult to hit upon even in daylight. There were scores of just similar ragged black holes among the tumbled rocks of the great wall.

As he lay pondering it all, the grim idea came into his head of dragging the dead man through the tunnel, and hoisting him up outside, and leaving him propped up among the boulders where they would be sure to find him.

He knew how arrantly superstitious they were, most of them. They had been brought up on ghosts and witches and evil spirits, and, fearless as they might be of things mortal and natural, all that bordered on the unknown and uncanny held for them unimaginable terrors. The dead man might serve a useful purpose after all; and the grim idea grew.

He could decide nothing, however, till he learned if he had the rock to himself; and he determined to take the risk of finding this out.

He cautiously climbed the well, and by the look of the stars he judged it still very early morning. A brooding grey darkness covered the sea; the sky was dark even in the east.

He slipped off his coat and left it hanging out of the cleft as a landmark, and lowered himself silently from rock to rock, till he stood among the rank grasses below.

Food first—so, after patient listening for smallest sound or sign of a watch, he crept down to the slope where the puffins' nests were, and, wrapping his hand in Nance's napkin, managed to get out a dozen eggs from as many different holes, in spite of the fierce objections of their legitimate owners.

He tied these up carefully in the blood-spotted cloth, and carried them up to his cleft. Then he stole away like a shadow, to find out, if he could, if there was any one else on the rock besides himself and the dead man.

There had been hot disputes on that head in the boats. Those who were there for the first time had even gone the length of casting strongest possible doubts as to whether those who were there the night before had seen or heard anything whatever, and did not hesitate to state their belief that they were all on a fool's errand. The others replied in kind, and when the further question was mooted as to keeping watch all night, the scoffers told the others to keep watch if they chose; for themselves, they were going home to their beds.

"Frightened of ghosts, I s'pose," growled one.

"No more than yourself, John Drillot. But we've wasted a day on this same fooling, and the man's not here; and for me, I doubt if he's ever been here."

"And what of the things we found in the shelter?" said Drillot. "Think they came there of themselves?"

"I don't care how they came there. It's not old cloaks and blankets we came after. Maybe he has been here. I don't know. But he's not here now, and I've had enough of it."

"B'en! I'm not afraid to stop all night—if anyone'll stop with me"—and if no one had offered he would have been just as well pleased. "Don't know as I'd care to stop all alone."

"Frightened of ghosts, maybe," scoffed the other.

"You stop with me, Tom Guille, and we'll see which is frightenedest of ghosts, you or me."

But Tom Guille believed in ghosts as devoutly as any old woman in Sark, and he was bound for home, no matter what the rest chose to do.

"There's not a foot of the rock we haven't searched," said he, "and the man's not here; so what's the use of waiting all night?"

"Because if he's in hiding it's at night he'll come out."

"Come out of where?"

"Wherever he's got to."

"That's Guernsey, most likely. His friends have arranged to lift him off here first chance that came; and it came before we did, and you'll not see him in these parts again, I warrant you."

"I'll wait with you, John, if you're set on it, though I doubt Tom's right, and the man's gone," said Peter Vaudin of La Ville. And John Drillot found himself bound to the adventure.

"Do we keep the boat?" asked Vaudin.

"No ... for then one of us must sit in her all night, or she will bump herself to pieces. You will come back for us in the morning, Philip."

"I'll come," said Philip Guille, and presently they stood watching the boats pulling lustily homewards, and devoutly wishing they were in them.

Every foot of the rock, as they knew it, had already been carefully raked over. The possible hiding-places were few. But no one knows better than a Sark man what rocks can do in the way of slits and tunnels and caves, and it was just this possibility that had set John Drillot to his unwonted, and none too welcome, task. The murderer—as he deemed Gard—might have found some place unknown to any of them, and might be lying quietly waiting for them to go. If that was so, he must come out sooner or later, and the chances were that he would steal out in the night.

So the two watchers prowled desultorily about the rock, poking again into every place that suggested possible concealment for anything larger than a puffin. There might be openings in the rifted basement rocks which only the full ebb would discover, and these might lead up into chambers where a man could lie high and dry till the tide allowed him out again. And so they hung precariously over the waves and poked and peered, and found nothing.

They had clambered over the great wall more than once before Vaudin said: "G'zamin, John, I wonder if there's any holes here big enough to take a man?"

"He'd have to be a little one, and this Gard's not that," and they stood looking at the wall. "'Sides, them rocks lie on the rock itself, and there's no depth to them."

But Vaudin was not sure that there might not be room for a man to lie flat under some of the big slabs, and began to poke about among them.

"Some one's been up here," he said, pointing to one of Gard's own scorings.

"Bin up there four times myself," said Drillot, "an' so have all the rest. There's no room to hide a man there, Peter. If he's hid anywhere, he'll come out in the night. Maybe Philip Guille's right, and he's safe in Guernsey by this. Come along to that shelter and let's have a drink."

They had their bottle out of the boat, and they had also come upon Gard's bottle of cognac, of which quite half remained. It was a finer cordial than their own, so they sat drinking them turn about, and watching the sun set, and chatting spasmodically, till it grew too dark to do more than sit still with safety.

They were by no means drunk, but the spirits had made them heavy, and when John Drillot solemnly suggested that they should keep watch about, Peter Vaudin as solemnly agreed, and offered to take first duty.

So John curled his length inside the bee-hive, and made himself comfortable with Gard's cloak and blanket, and was presently snoring like a whole pig-sty. And that had a soporific effect on Peter. He had only stopped behind to oblige John, and personally had little expectation of anything coming of it. Moreover, the night air was chilly. If he could get that cloak from John now! He crawled in to try, but big John was rolled up like a caterpillar. It was warmer inside there than out, anyway. And he could keep watch there just as well as outside; so he propped himself up alongside John, and braced his mind to sentry duty.



CHAPTER XXIX

HOW HE CAME INTO AN UNKNOWN PLACE

Having lodged his eggs in a ledge under the big slab, Gard stole away to learn, if he could, if he had the rock all to himself.

He wanted water, and he wanted his bottle of cognac and the tin dipper; for puffins' eggs, while not unpalatable beaten up with cognac, are of a flavour calculated to exercise the strongest stomach when eaten raw.

He feared the men would have made away with all his small possessions, but he could only try. So he stole like a shadow round the crown of the ridge and along towards the shelter, standing at times motionless for whole minutes till the rush of the waves below should pass and give him chance of hearing.

But on L'Etat the sound of many waters never ceases night or day, and the night wind hummed among the stones of the shelter, and, as it happened, John Drillot had just lurched over in avoidance of a lump of rock which was intruding on his comfort, and in so doing had lodged his heavy boot in Peter Vaudin's ribs, and so their sonorous duet was stilled, and neither of them was very sound asleep, when Gard, after listening anxiously and hearing nothing, dropped on his hands and knees and felt cautiously inside.

Peter felt the blind hand groping in the dark, and was wide awake in an instant. He hurled himself at the intruder, as well as a man could who had been lying back against the wall half asleep a moment before; and Gard turned and sped away along the side of the ridge, with Peter at his heels and John Drillot thundering ponderously in the rear.

"What is't, Peter boy?" shouted John.

"It's him. This way!" yelled Peter, out of the dimness in front, as he stumbled and staggered along the ragged inadequacies of the ridge.

If Gard had had time for consideration, he would have led them a chase elsewhere first, but, in the sudden upsetting of lighting on what he had persuaded himself was not there, he lost his head and made straight for cover.

Peter Vaudin was at the base of the rock wall as he wriggled silently under the big slab, and it was only by a violent jerk that he got his foot clear of Peter's grip. And Peter, strung to the occasion, kept his hand on the spot where the foot had disappeared, and waited a moment for John Drillot to come up before he followed it.

"Gone in here," he jerked, as he climbed cautiously up.

"Can't have gone far, then," panted John. "Sure it was him?"

"Had him by the foot, but he got loose. Here we are," as he poked about, and came at last on the hole below the slab. "Come on, John ... can't be far away.... Big hole"—as he kicked about down below—"no bottom, far as I can see."

"Best wait for daylight, to see where we're getting."

"Oui gia! Man doux, it's not me's going down here till I know what's below."

So they sat and kicked their heels and waited for the day, certain in their own minds that their quarry was run to earth and as good as caught.

Gard had swept down both his coat and his cloth full of eggs in his sudden entrance. He stood at the bottom of the well to see if they would follow, while Peter's long legs kicked about for foothold. He heard them decide to wait for daylight, and then he noiselessly picked up his coat and his soppy bundle of broken eggs, pushed them into the tunnel, and crawled in after them.

He was trapped, indeed, but he doubted very much if any fisherman on Sark would venture down that tunnel. They were brawny men, used to leg and elbow room, and, as a rule, heartily detested anything in the shape of underground adventure. They might, of course, get over some miners to explore for them. Or they might content themselves with sitting down on top of his hole until he was starved out. In any case, his rope was nearly run; but yet he was not disposed to shorten it by so much as an inch.

As he wormed his way along the tunnel, the recollection of those other openings off the dead man's cave came back to him. He would try them. He pushed on with a spurt of hope.

The tunnel was not nearly so long now that he knew where he was going; in fact, now that nothing but it stood between him and capture, it seemed woefully inadequate.

When his head and elbows no longer grazed rock he dropped his coat and crawled into the chamber. He felt his way round to the dried packages, and cautiously emptied half-a-dozen and prepared them for his use.

This set him sneezing so violently that it seemed impossible that the watchers outside should not hear him. It also gave him an idea.

He struck a light and kindled one of his torches, and the dead man leaped out of the darkness at him as before. That gave him another idea.

Propping up his light on the floor, he emptied package after package of the powdered tobacco into the tunnel, and wafted it down towards the entrance with his jacket. Then with his knife he cut the lashings from the dead man's hands and feet, and carried him across—he was very light, for all his substance had long since withered out of him—and laid him in the tunnel as though he was making his way out.

If he knew anything of Sark men and miners, he felt fairly secure for some time to come, so he sat himself down, as far as possible from the snuff, and made such a meal as was possible off puffins' eggs, mixed good and bad and unredeemed by any palliating odour and flavour. They were not appetising, but they stayed his stomach for the time being.

It was only then that he remembered that he had left his gun and powder-flask behind him. He had placed them on a ledge just inside the mouth of the tunnel, and in his haste had forgotten to pick them up. He had no intention of using them, however, and he would not go back for them.

When his scanty meal was done, he cautiously emptied a number of the packages and rolled them into torches, and deliberated as to which of the black openings he should attempt first.

That one opposite, out of which the dead man's legs sprawled grotesquely, was the one by which he had entered. This one, then, near which he sat, must run on towards the centre of the island—if it ran on at all; and, since all were equally unknown and hopeful, he would try this first.

His tarred paper torches, though they burned with a clear flame, gave forth a somewhat pungent odour, so he kicked one of the small barrels to pieces, and with three of the staves and a piece of string made a holder which would carry the torch upright, and also permit him to lay it on the ground or push it in front of him, if need be.

The first tunnel ran in about thirty feet, and then the slant of the roof met the floor at so sharp an angle that further passage was impossible.

The second, third, and fourth the same; and he began to fear they were all blind alleys leading nowhere.

The openings near his own entrance tunnel he had left till the last, since they obviously led outwards.

Two of them shut down in the same way as all the others, and it was only the dogged determination to leave no chance untried that drove him, with a fresh supply of torches, down the last one of all, the one alongside that out of which the dead man's legs projected.

It took a turn to the left within a dozen feet of the entrance, and, like the rest, it presently narrowed down through a slope in the roof; but just at its narrowest, when he feared he had come to the end, there came a dip in the flooring corresponding to the slope up above, and he found he could wriggle through. Once through, the passage widened and continued to widen, and the going became very rough and broken, with piles of ragged rock and deep black pitfalls in between.

Then, of a sudden, he saw the walls and roof of his passage fall away, and his light flickered feebly in the darkness of a vast place, and he crouched on the rock up which he had climbed, and sat in wonder.

Somewhere below him he could hear the slow rise and fall of water, dull and heavy and without any splash, like the dumb breathing of a captive monster.

And every now and again there came, from somewhere beyond, a low dull thud, like the blow of a padded hammer, and a distant subdued rustle along the outside of the darkness. He knew it was not inside the place he was in, for he could hear the soft rise and fall of the water quite clearly, but these other sounds came to him from a distance, muted as though his ears had suddenly gone deaf.

"Those dull blows," he said to himself, "are the waves on the outside of L'Etat. That low rustling is the rush of them along the lower rocks. The water inside here probably comes in through some openings below tide-level. I am quite safe here, even if they get past the dead man's cave—quite safe until I starve. Unless there are fish to be had"—and he felt a spark of hope. "And maybe there are devil-fish"—and he shivered and glanced below and about him fearfully.

His homely torch did no more than faintly illumine the rock he sat on and those close at hand, and cast a gigantic uncouth shadow of himself on the rough wall behind. All beyond was solid darkness, blacker even than a black Sark night.

He sat wondering vaguely if any before him had penetrated to that strange place. It was odd and uncanny to feel that his eyes were the very first to look upon it. And then, away in front, and apparently at a great distance above him, he became aware of a difference in the solid darkness. It seemed almost as though it had thinned. His eye had seemed able for a moment to carry beyond the narrow circle of the torch, but when he peered into the void to see what this might mean, it all seemed solid as before.

As his straining eyes sought relief in something visible, their side-glance caught once more that same impression of movement in the darkness. And presently it came again and stronger—a strange greenish fluttering up in the roof—very faint, as though the roof were smoke on which a soft green light played for a moment and vanished.

But by degrees the light grew, though at no time did it become more than a wan ghost of a light, and from its curious fluttering he judged that it came through water.

Reasoning from the trend of the cavern, he came to the conclusion that somewhere on that further side there were openings into the deep water beyond, on which the sunlight played and struck at times into the cave, and he was keen to look more closely into it.

He lowered his torch to the side of his rock, and its feeble flicker fell on a chaos of rocks below. He looked long and cautiously for supple yellow arms or tiny whip-like threads which might coil suddenly round his legs and drag him to hideous death.

But he saw nothing of the kind. The rocks were dry and bare, not a limpet nor a sea-weed visible, and leaving his jacket for a landmark as before, he slowly let himself down from one huge boulder to another, till he found himself climbing another great pile in front.

When at last his head rose above this ridge, he almost rolled over at the sight of two huge green eyes blinking lazily at him out of the darkness in front—two great openings far below sea-level, through which filtered dimly the wavering green light whose refractions fluttered in the roof.

The vast trough below him heaved gently now and then, with a ponderous solemnity which filled him with awe. He felt himself an intruder. He felt like a fly creeping about a sleeping tiger. He hardly dared to breathe, lest the brooding spirit of the place should rise suddenly out of some dark corner and squash him on his rock as one does a crawling insect; and his anxious eyes swept to and fro for the smallest sign of danger.

But, plucking up courage from immunity, and dreading to be caught in the dark in that weird place, he crawled over the boulders towards the side wall of the cavern to get as near to those openings as possible. From the very slight movement of the water, which was ever on the boil round the outside of L'Etat, he judged them deep down among the roots of the island, far below the turmoil of the surface, but he must see and make sure.

With infinite toil and many a scrape and bruise, he got round at last, and could look right down into the dim green depths, and what he saw there filled him with sickening fear.

The water was crystal clear, and in through the nearer opening, as he looked, a huge octopus propelled itself in leisurely fashion, its great tentacles streaming out behind, its hideous protruding eyes searching eagerly for prey.

Just inside the opening it gathered itself together for a moment, and seemed to look so meaningly right up into his eyes that he found himself shrinking behind a rock lest it should see him. Then it clamped itself to the side of the opening and spread wide its arms for anything that might come its way.

He watched it, fascinated. He saw fishes large and small unconsciously touch the quivering tentacles, which on the instant twisted round them and dragged them in to the rending beak below the hideous eyes. And then he saw another similar monster come floating in on similar quest, and in a moment they were locked in deadly fight—such a writhing and coiling and straining and twisting of monstrous fleshy limbs, which swelled and thrilled, and loosed and gripped, with venom past believing—such a clamping to this rock and that—such tremendous efforts at dislodgment.

It was a nightmare. It sickened him. He turned and crawled feebly away, anxious only now to get out of this awful place without falling foul of any similar monsters among the rocks.



CHAPTER XXX

HOW NANCE WATCHED FROM AFAR

From the headland above Breniere, Nance had watched the boats go plunging across to L'Etat.

Very early that morning she had sped across the Coupee and up the long roads to the Seigneurie, but the Seigneur was away in Guernsey still, busied on the vital matter of raising still more money for the mines in which he was a firm believer, mortgaging his Seigneurie for the purpose, assured in his own mind that all would be well in the end.

Then to the Vicar and the Senechal, and these set off at once for the harbour, but found themselves powerless in the face of public opinion. Argument and remonstrance alike fell on deaf ears. The Vicar appealed to their sense of right; the Senechal forbade their going. But their minds were doggedly set on it, and they went.

"I shall hold you to account," stormed Philip Guille.

"B'en, M. le Senechal, we'll pay it all among us," and away they went; and back to her look-out by Breniere went Nance, and the Vicar with her for comfort in this dark hour.

They watched the boats circling the rock, round and round. They heard the firing, and Nance flung herself on the ground in an agony of weeping, sure that the end had come. For they could only be firing at Gard, and what could one man do against so many?

"They have killed him," she moaned.

And the Vicar could only tighten his pale lips, and smooth her hair with his thin white hand, as she writhed on the ground at his side. For he could but think she was right. They were good shots, the Sark men, and it needs but one bullet to kill a man.

If Nance had looked a moment longer she might have seen Gard slip down from the ridge to the wall, but the bombardment of the shelter, which gave him his chance, made an end of her hopes, and her face was hidden in the turf.

The Vicar's sight was not keen enough to see clearly what was passing. But when the men landed on the rock, and overran it in their search, he could not fail to see their figures on the ridge against the sky, and an exclamation of surprise roused Nance.

"What is it?" she jerked.

"They have landed over there. They seem to be searching the rock."

"Then—" and she sat up suddenly and gazed intently across at L'Etat, and then sprang to her feet, a new creature. "For, see you, Mr Cachemaille," she cried, "if they had killed him they would not be searching for him, nenni-gia!"

"That is true, child," said the Vicar hopefully, and then, less hopefully, "but where shall a man hide on L'Etat?"

"Ah now! I remember. Just as I was leaving him last night, he told me—"

"As you were leaving him—last night?" and the old man gazed at her as though he doubted his ears or her right senses.

"But yes," she cried impatiently. "I swam across there last night to see if Bernel was there and to take him some food. But you are not to tell that to any one. And he told me—"

"You swam across?—to L'Etat?"

"Yes, yes! We have done it many times, and, besides, I had the bladders—"

The Vicar shook his head helplessly. She forgot to explain so much that he did not understand. But he grasped at one thread.

"And Bernel?"

"Ah, my poor Bernel! He is drowned," she said, with a heave of the breast, but with her eyes intent on L'Etat. "I wanted him to take the bladders, but he would not; and it was the first night after the storm, you see, and the waves were big still, and he never got to L'Etat, and he never came back; so, you see—"

"Truly, you are being sorely tried, my child. But your brother was a better swimmer than most. May we not hope—"

But she shook her head, intent on the doings on the rock, and full, for the moment, of the hope she could draw from Gard's hint about a hiding-place of which she knew nothing. For if she and Bernel had never discovered it, how should these others? And obviously they were searching, for they prowled about the rock like ants, and poked here and there, and wandered on and came back. And if they still sought they had not yet found; and so there was a new spring of hope in her heart.

"Yes, truly, they are searching," she murmured, and forgot the Vicar and all else.

He tried to induce her to go back home with him, but she would not move. For the moment all her hope in life was in peril on the rock, and she must see all that went on; and finally he had to leave her there, and she hardly knew that he had gone. She wanted only to be left alone, to nurse her new-born hope and watch in fear and trembling for any symptom of its overthrow.

But she was not to be left in peace, for Madame Julie had heard the firing also, and had come round the headland by the miners' cottages, exulting in the fact that her enemy was run to earth at last and was meeting righteous punishment.

And as she prowled about there, chafing at the delay in the return of the boats, she came suddenly on Nance gazing out at L'Etat with a face—not, as Julie would have expected, downcast and woe-begone, but full of eager expectancy. And the sight of her, and in such case, stirred Julie to venom.

"Ah then—there you are, mademoiselle, listening to the end of your fancy gentleman! And the right end, too, ma foi! A man that goes knocking his neighbours on the head—it's right he should be shot like a rabbit—"

Nance's face quivered, but she did not even look round.

"You'll see them coming back presently, and they'll bring his body back with them in the boat, all full of holes. And then I'll feel that my Tom's paid for—"

"Do you hear?" she cried, planting herself in front of Nance, and jerking her hands up and down in her excitement and the exaspeiation of receiving no response. "Do you hear me—you? Or are you gone crazy for love of your murderer?"—and she made as though to lay wild hands on the girl.

"You are wicked! You are evil! You are a devil!" said Nance through her little white teeth, and looked so as though she might fly at her that Julie drew off.

"Aha—spitfire!—wildcat!—you would bite?"

Nance, all ashake with disgust, stooped suddenly and picked up a lump of rock.

"Go!" she said, in a voice of such concentrated fury that it was little more than a whisper. "Go!—before I do you ill;" and she looked so like it that Julie turned and fled, expecting the rock between her shoulders at every step.

But the rock was on the ground, and Nance was intent again on L'Etat.

She stood there watching, until she saw the boats put off, and then she turned and sped like a rabbit—across the waste lands—across the Coupee—over Clos Bourel fields into Dixcart—over Hog's Back to the Creux.

She ran through the tunnel just as the boats came up, and her eyes were wide with expectant fear, as they swept them hungrily.

"What have you done then, out there, Philip Vaudin?" she cried, as his boat's nose grated on the shingle.

"Pardi, ma garche, we have done nothing."

"But the shooting?"

"Some one shot at the shelter to see if he was inside, and the rest shot because they thought there must be something to shoot at."

"And you have not got him?" asked another disappointedly.

"Never even seen him."

"Ah ba!"

"Either he's gone or he's under cover, though, ma fe, I don't know where he'd find it on L'Etat," and Nance's heart beat hopefully. "However, John Drillot and Peter Vaudin are stopping the night in case he is still there and ventures out of his hole," and her heart sank again, and kicked rebelliously that a man should be hunted thus, like a rabbit.

She spent a night of misery, wondering what was happening on L'Etat, and was at her post above Breniere as soon as it was light.

She saw Philip Vaudin come round from the Creux in his boat and run across to the rock, and almost as soon as he had disappeared round Quette d'Amont, he came speeding back, alone, and not to the harbour, but straight to the fishermen's rough landing-place inside Breniere.

"What is it then, Philip?" she asked anxiously, as he hauled himself up the rocks on to the turf.

"I've come for two miners," he panted, for he had come quickly. "They've run him to earth in a hole, but they won't either of them go in after him, and they want some one who will."

"Ah, then!"

"Yes. He came out in the night, and they chased him, but he got into his hole, and they're sitting on it ever since," and he hurried away through the waste of gorse and bracken to the miners' cottages.

Volunteers were evidently not over plentiful. It was a considerable time before he came back with a Welshman, Evan Morgan, and a young Cornishman, John Trevna, and neither of them seemed over eager for the job.

"For, see you," had been Morgan's view, "coing in a hole after a man what hass a gun iss not a nice pissness, no inteet!" and the Cornishman agreed with him.

However, they put off, and Nance crouched in the bracken and watched all their doings.

She had long since caught sight of John Drillot and Peter Vaudin sitting on the rock wall, and wondered what kind of a hiding-place Gard could possibly have found therein. A poor one, she feared, and that the end would be quick.

The boat disappeared round the corner, and presently she saw the three men join the others at the wall, and they all clustered there and talked, and then one by one they disappeared into the wall itself, and she sat watching in fear and trembling.



CHAPTER XXXI

HOW TWO WENT IN AND THREE CAME OUT

"It iss better to sit here two, three days till he comse out than to go in and get yourself killt, yes inteet!" was the burden of Evan Morgan's answer to all their arguments for a speedy assault. And "Iss, sure!" was Trevna's curt, complete endorsement.

But when, at John Drillot's suggestion, they had squeezed under the slab to have a look at what lay below, and had peered down the slit that Gard tried first, and had then lighted on the tunnel, and had found the gun and powder-flask jammed in a crevice—that put a different face on the matter.

And, after prolonged discussion as to the proper method of procedure, especially in the matter of precedence, it was at last arranged that Evan Morgan should go first with his miner's lamp, and that John Trevna should follow close behind, carrying the gun.

"And iss it understood that I shoot him if I see him?" asked Trevna, to make sure of his ground and make his conscience easy.

"Pardi, yes, mon gars! Shoot straight, and the Island will thank you," asserted John Drillot.

"Ant for Heaven's sake, John Trevna, see you ton't shoot me behint by mistake," urged Evan Morgan; and they disappeared slowly into the tunnel, while the other two stood waiting expectantly in the well.

Accustomed as they were to narrow places, this long worm-hole of a tunnel, with the doubtful possibilities that lay beyond it, seemed as endless to the militant members of the expedition as it did to the waiters outside.

Occasionally a hollow sound came booming down the tunnel, when one or other grunted out a word of objurgation on the narrowness of things, but for the most part they wormed along in silence, Morgan shifting forward his lamp, foot by foot, and straining his eyes into the darkness ahead, Trevna close behind with his gun at full cock and ready for instant action.

"Gad'rabotin, but they take their time, those two!" said John Drillot, impatiently, outside.

"It iss going right through to Wailee, I do think," growled Evan Morgan inside.

And it was just after that that there broke out in the depths of the tunnel a commotion so extraordinary that the listeners outside could make nothing at all of it, and could only lurch about in amazement and climb up and push their heads into the tunnel, and wonder what it all meant. Then, in the midst of the turmoil, there came the thunderous bellow of the gun, and after a time a trickle of thin blue smoke floated lazily out and hung about the well; and the men outside sniffed appreciatively, and said, "Ch'est b'en!" and waited hopefully.

Evan Morgan, shifting forward his light, got an impression of something in the narrow way in front, and suddenly he was taken with the biggest fit of sneezing he had ever had in his life. He banged down the lamp and threw up his head till it cracked against the roof, then banged his chin against the floor, and finally propped himself, like a sick dog, on his two front paws, and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed for dear life.

Then John Trevna began. He had the sense to lay down his gun, or Morgan might have got the charge in his back. And so they sneezed in concert, until their heads were clearer than they had been for many a day. And the sound of it all to those outside was like the sound of mortal combat.

Then Morgan, wiping his streaming eyes on the sleeve of his coat, in a state of extreme exhaustion, caught sight of that which lay just beyond him, and he saw that it was a man crawling down the tunnel to meet him.

"Shoot, John, shoot! He iss here," he yelled, and laid himself flat to give Trevna his chance.

And Trevna, between two sneezes, picked up his gun, though he could see nothing to shoot at, and ran the barrel forward above Morgan's head and fired, and the roar of it in that confined space came near to deafening them both.

The smoke hung thick and choked them, as they gasped it in in gulps while they sneezed, and the light had gone out with the concussion.

They lay for a time exhausted. Then the atmosphere cleared somewhat, and they lay in the thick darkness straining their ears for any sound, but heard nothing.

"What did you see, Evan Morgan?" whispered Trevna at last.

"It wass a man."

"Then I have killed him, for he does not move. Can you light the lamp?"

"I can not—in here. I am coing out. I haf hat enough of this."

"We must take him out, too."

"You can tek him, then, John Trevna. I haf hat enough of him and this hole."

"Don't be a fool, Evan Morgan. If it wass a man, and he got that load in him as close as that, he iss deader than Tom Hamon."

"Well, you can go an' see. I am coing out," and he began to wriggle backwards, and Trevna was fain to go too.

But presently they came to one of the somewhat wider places where the wall had fallen away, and Trevna squeezed himself tightly into this.

"You go on, then, Evan Morgan," he said, "if you can get past, and I will go back and bring him out."

"You are a fool, John Trevna, to meddle with him any more. Iff the man iss dead, he iss just as well left there."

"If he iss dead he cannot harm me, and I would like to see the man I have killed."

"Ugh!" grunted Morgan, and crawled on, legs first.

Trevna wormed along up the tunnel, groping cautiously in front of him at each forward lurch, and at last his hands fell on what he sought, and at the same moment he began sneezing again.

It would be no easy job dragging a dead man all down that tunnel, he thought. But when, after cautious feeling here and there, he got a grip of the man's coat collar, to his surprise it came away in his hand, but at the same time it seemed to him that the body was extraordinarily light.

He tried again with a fresh grip on the coat, but it tore like paper, and, after thinking it over, he unstrapped his leather belt and got it round the man below the armpits, and so was able to haul him slowly along.

When Evan Morgan's wriggling legs came slowly out of the tunnel, John Drillot and Peter Vaudin were almost dancing with excitement, and their first surprise was the sight of him when, by rights, John Trevna should have been the one to come out first.

"Well then? What have you done? And where is John Trevna?" cried John Drillot.

"Ach! He iss a fool. He hass shot the man and now he will pring him out when he woult pe much petter buried where he iss."

"He's quite right. What was all the noise about?"

"That wass the shooting."

"Before that. You all seemed to be howling at once."

"That wass the sneezing. It iss full of sneezing down there," and his red eyes still showed the effect of it.

It was a long time before they heard the laboured sounds of Trevna's coming. But at last his legs wriggled out, then his body, then with a lurch he hauled up to the mouth of the tunnel that which he had brought with him. And at sight of it they all started back against the sides of the well, with various cries but equal amazement.

"O mon Gyu!" cried Peter Vaudin.

"Thousand devils!" cried John Drillot.

"Heavens an' earth!" gasped Evan Morgan.

John Trevna gazed open-mouthed, for he had little breath left in him.

And from the black mouth of the tunnel the strange and terrible figure of the dead man looked quietly down at them and filled them with amazement.

Trevna's heavy charge had blown in the top of the skull. The shrunken yellow face wore the gaunt eager look of one who had died the slow death of starvation. It seemed to be trying to get at them to bite and rend them.

Peter Vaudin was the first to climb the wall behind him, but the rest were close at his heels, and hustled him up through the crack under the slab.

Peter struck down towards the landing-place the moment he had wriggled through.

"Stop then, Peter," called John Drillot, in a low insistent voice, lest that dreadful thing below should hear him.

"Not me! I've had enough, John Drillot. That is not what we came for ... and I had hold of its leg last night," and he shivered at the recollection, and the thought that it might have turned on him and gripped him with its grisly hands.

"I don't know what it is," began John Drillot, "but—"

"It's the man I shot inside there," said Trevna.

"That man hass peen det a hundert years," said Morgan.

"All the same, he was running about last night," said Peter, "and I had hold of his leg"—with another shiver.

"He's dead enough now, anyway," said Drillot.

"Eh b'en! leave him where he is, and let's get away. I've heard say there were ghosts on L'Etat, and now I know it. No good comes of meddling with these things."

"But we ought to take him with us."

"Take him with us!" almost shrieked Peter. "And let him loose on Sark! Why then?"

"Whatever he was last night, he's dead enough now.... Will you help me to get him up, John Trevna?"

"Iss, sure! He's got my belt."

"Not in my boat, John Drillot," cried Peter. "Not in my boat. I've had enough of him, pardi!" and he set off at speed for the boat.

"Don't be a fool, Peter. You, Evan Morgan, run down and stop him going. Come on, John Trevna," and after peering cautiously down to make sure the dead man had not moved, they dropped into the well again.

The shrivelled figure was very light, as Trevna had found. It was only their repugnance at handling it that made their task a heavy one. One above and one below, they managed at last to get it up above ground, and then John Trevna slipped his belt to its middle, and carried it with one hand down the slope to the boat.

There they found Evan Morgan holding the approach to the landing-place against Peter, with a lump of rock, while Philip, in the boat below, stood shouting at them to know what was the matter.

At sight of the others and their burden, however, he had no eyes for anything else.

"What have you got there, John Drillot?"

"A dead man."

"Aw, then! That's not Gard."

"It's the only man here, anyway. Pull close up, Philip—"

"Not in my boat, John Drillot!" from Peter.

"We must take this to the Senechal," said John angrily. "If you don't want to come you can wait here. If you don't make less noise, I will knock you on the head myself," and he jumped down into the boat, and took the dead man from Trevna, and laid him carefully in the bows. The others jumped in, and Peter, sooner than be knocked on the head or left behind, sulkily followed, and sat himself on the extreme edge of the stern as far away from the dead man as he could get.



CHAPTER XXXII

HOW JULIE MEDITATED EVIL

Nance had crouched all the morning, in the bracken above Breniere, on the knife-edge of expectancy. And behind her, at a safe distance, crouched Julie Hamon, watching Nance and L'Etat at the same time, as a cat in the shade watches a sparrow playing in the sunshine.

"What will be the end? What will be the end?" sighed Nance. They had all gone down out of sight, across there, and it was terrible to sit here waiting, waiting, waiting for what she feared.

If they had indeed run Gard to his hiding-place, as Philip Vaudin had said, there could be but one possible end to it; and she sat, sad-eyed and wistful, waiting for them to come up again.

It seemed as if they would never come, and she never took her eyes off the rock wall on L'Etat.

And then at last she sprang to her feet. One of them had come up again. She could not see which. Then the others appeared, and they seemed to stand talking. Then one went off round the slope and another ran after him, and the other two went back into the rock wall.

What could they be at? She stood gazing intently.

The two came up again, and—yes—they carried something, or one of them did, and they two went off round the corner also. And presently she saw the boat coming round, and saw by its head that it was for the Creux. She turned and sped across by the same way as yesterday, and Julie followed her at a safe distance. And it seemed to Nance, as she hurried through the familiar hedge-gaps and lanes and across the headlands, that the world had lost its brightness, and that life was desperately hard and trying.

On Derrible Head there might be a chance of seeing. She ran up to the highest point by the old cannon, just as the boat was coming in under La Conchee.

And—oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! yes—there, in the bows, lay the body of a man!—and the tears she had kept back all day broke out now in a fury of weeping. She could hardly see, but she ran on, falling at times and bruising herself, staggering to her feet again, stumbling blindly through a mist of tears.

The boat was drawn up by the time she got there, and a curious crowd surrounded it. She pushed through. She must see.

And then the weight fell off her heart, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming. For this poor thing, whatever it was, was not Stephen Gard and never had been.

She wanted to sing and dance and scream her joy aloud. They had not found him.

"What is this, John Drillot?" asked Julie, alongside her, black with anger, as she pointed to the body.

"Ma fe—a ghost, they say. John Trevna shot him, but he had been dead a long time before that, though he was alive last night, for Peter had hold of his leg as he ran."

"And where is the other—the one you went for?"

"He's not on L'Etat, anyway, ma fille," and they lifted the body on to a piece of sailcloth, and carried it off through the tunnel for the Senechal to look into.

So Stephen Gard's hiding-place had proved effective, and they had not found him. But, of a certainty, he must be starving, and so away home sped Nance, to prepare a parcel of food to take across to him. And Julie, her black brows pinched together and her face set in a frown of venomous intention, never once let her out of her sight.

It was after midnight when Nance stole across the fields, carrying her little parcel and her swimming-bladders, and made her way to Breniere point.

It was a still night, with a sky full of stars, and her heart was high for the moment, though when her thoughts ran on, in spite of her, it fell again. For things could not go on this way for ever, and she saw no way out.

She dropped her outer things by a bush, and let herself quietly down the rocks and into the water, and the black-faced woman who presently stood by that bush snarled curses after her and was filled with unholy exultation. For Nance could have only one reason for going across there, and on the morrow the men should hear of it, and she would give them no rest till Gard was made an end of.

What that thing was that they had brought home, she did not know, but they were fools to be satisfied with that when the man they had gone after was undoubtedly still on the rock.

So she sat down by Nance's gown and cloak, and revolved schemes for her discomfiture and the undoing of Stephen Gard.



CHAPTER XXXIII

HOW HOPE CAME ONCE AGAIN

Nance found the passage of the Race more trying then ever before. The strain of these latter days had been very great, and the thought of Bernel tended to unnerve her.

On the other hand, the knowledge that Gard had outwitted the whole strength of the Island cheered and braced her, and she struggled valiantly through the broken waters till at last she hung panting on the black ledge where she was in the habit of landing.

She scrambled up among the boulders and made straight for the great wall. She had decided in her own mind that he would probably be somewhere in there, possibly afraid to come out, as he would not know if the Sark men were still on the rock.

As nearly as she could, she climbed to the place she had seen the men go in, and then she cried softly, "Steve! Mr. Gard!" and went on calling, as she moved up and down along the base of the wall.

And at last her heart jumped wildly as she heard her name faintly from inside the wall, and presently Gard himself came crawling from under the big slab and jumped down to her side.

"Nance! You are a good angel to me," and he flung his arms round her and kissed her again and again.

"But oh, my dear, I would not have you risk your life for me like this."

"It is nothing. I am all right," said Nance, forgetting the weariness and dangers of the passage in her joy at finding him alive and well. "I have brought you food," and she pushed her little parcel into his hands.

"I hardly dare to eat it when I think what it has cost you."

"That would be foolish, and you must be starving."

"Truly, I am hungry—"

"Eat, then!" and she seized the package and began to tear it open. "It will make me still more glad to see you eat."

"Well, then—" and Nance was gladder than ever that she had come.

"Have they all gone back?" he asked anxiously, as he munched.

"They came back this morning, bringing a strange dead man."

"I know. I put him there—"

"Who is he?"

"I found him in a cave inside the rock. He had been left there very many years ago with his hands and feet tied. I think he must have been a Customs officer of long ago."

Nance shivered, and he felt it.

"You are cold, Nance dear, and I am thinking only of myself;" and he took off his jacket and put it over her slim wet shoulders, in spite of herself.

"If they have all gone back we could go to the shelter. They may have left some of the things there;" and they went along and found the cloak and blanket, and he wrapped them about her.

"I found a still larger cave out of the other one, and I was in there when they came after me. I had put the dead man in the tunnel, and when I came back he was gone; but I did not dare to come out, for I was afraid they might be on the watch still."

"The dead man frightened them. I do not think they will come back. They are afraid of ghosts."

"I hoped he would scare them. But what is to be the end of it all, Nance dear? Things cannot go on this way. Would it be possible to get me a boat and let me get over to Guernsey?"

"If you will wait a little time, that is what we must do, if the truth does not come out."

"And meanwhile you may be drowned in trying to keep me from starving."

"I shall not be drowned and you shall not starve," she said resolutely.

"I would sooner live on puffins' eggs than have you swim across that place. My heart goes right down into my feet when I think of it."

"There is no need. I am all right."

"The Senechal and the Seigneur could not stop them?"

"Mr. Le Pelley is in Guernsey still. The Senechal they would not listen to. But the truth will come out if only you will wait."

"If I get away, will you come to me, Nance? And all my life I will give to making you happy."

"Yes, I will come. But it will be sore leaving Sark. To a Sark-born there is no other place in the world like Sark."

"All my life I will give to making up for it."

"We will see. Now I must go, or it will be daylight before I get back."

"I shall be in misery till I know you are safe."

"It will be nearly light. I will wave to you from Breniere;" and they went slowly round to the ledges, and parted with kisses; and in the grey morning light he could, for a time, follow the little white figure as it slipped bravely through the bristling black waves of the Race.

But presently he could see her no more, and could but wait, full of anxiety and many prayers, for the signal that should tell of her safety.

But it did not come, and he grew desperate and full of fears.



CHAPTER XXXIV

HOW JULIE'S SCHEMES FELL FLAT

Nance found the return journey still more trying to her strength, but she struggled through, and was devoutly thankful when the slack water under Breniere was reached.

She waded ashore almost too weary to stand, and had to cling to the rough rocks till she recovered her breath. Then, slowly and heavily, she dragged herself up the lower ledges to the little plateau where her clothes were.

Julie had sat revolving grim schemes in that black head of hers.

She hated the girl. She hated Gard. She hated Sark and every one in it. Why had she ever come into these outer wilds? She would have done with it all and get away back to the life that was more to her taste.

But first—yes, mon Dieu, she would leave them something to remember her by.

She had not a doubt that Gard was still on L'Etat. Nothing else would take this girl across there. The shameless hussy!—to go swimming across to see her man with nothing but a white shift on!

She could wound Gard through Nance. She could wound Nance through Gard.

She could wait for the girl as she came up the side of the Head, and push her down again or crush her with a lump of rock.

But that might mean reprisals on the part of the Islanders. She had had experience of the way in which they resented any ill done to one of their number by an outsider. She had no wish to join Gard on his rock.

It would be better to hold the girl up to the scorn and contempt of the neighbours; that would punish her. And by setting the men on Gard's track again, that would punish him and her too.

And so she restrained the natural violence of her temper, which would have run to rocks and bodily injury, and waited in the bracken till Nance came stumbling along in the half-light. Then up she sprang, with an unexpectedness that for the moment took Nance's breath and set her heart pounding with dreadful certainties of ghosts.

"So this is how you go to visit your fancy monsieur on the rock, is it, little Nance? And with nothing on but that! Oh shame! What will the neighbours say when they hear how you swim across to him, and you will not dare deny it?"

But Nance, relieved in her mind on the score of ghosts, and regaining her composure with her breath, simply turned her back on her and proceeded as if she were not there.

"And he is there still!" screamed Julie, dancing round with rage to keep face to face with her. "I was sure of it, though those fools could not find him. I'll see that he's found or starved out, b'en sur! Yes, if I have to go myself and see to it. As for you—shameless one!—it's the last time you'll swim across there, yes indeed!"—and she raved on and on, as only an angry woman with a grievance can.

Nance slipped her dress over her head and, under cover of it, dropped off her wet undergarment, coolly wrung it out, put on her cloak and walked away, Julie raging alongside with wild words that tumbled over one another in their haste.

Nance walked to the highest point behind Breniere, and waved her white garment a dozen times to let Gard know she was safe, and then turned and set off home through the waist-high bracken and the great cushions of gorse. And close alongside her went Julie, raging and raving the worse for her silence; for there is nothing so galling to an angry soul as to find its most venomous shafts fall harmless from the triple mail of quiet self-possession.