"How far have we come, do you think?" Le Marchant asked.

"It felt like fifty miles, but it was such rough work that it's probably nearer five. But it can't be long to daylight. Then we shall know better."

We struggled to a drier hummock and lay down again. The rain had ceased, and presently, while we lay watching for the first flicker of dawn in front or on our left, an exclamation from Le Marchant brought me round with a jerk, to find the sky softening and lightening right behind us. The ditches and the darkness and our many falls had led us astray. Instead of going due east we had fetched a compass and bent round to the north; instead of leaving our prison we had circled round it. And as the shadows lightened on the long dim flats, we saw in the distance the black ring of the stockade on its little elevation.

"Let us get on," said Le Marchant, with a groan at the wasted energies of the night.

"I believe we're safer here. If they seek us it will be farther away. They'd never think we'd be such fools as to stop within a couple of miles of the prison."

And, indeed, before I had done speaking, we could make out the tiny black figures of patrols setting off along the various roads that led through the swamps, and so we lay still, and watched the black figures disappear to the east and south and north.

So long as we kept hidden I had no great fear of them, for the swamps were honeycombed with hiding-places, and to beat them thoroughly would have required one hundred men to every one they could spare.

"I'm not at all sure it's us they're after," I said, by way of cheer for us both. "All that turmoil last night and the fire makes me think some of the others in Number Three were on the same job."

"Like enough, but I don't see that it helps us much. Can we find anything to eat?"

But we had come away too hurriedly to make any provision, and we knew too little of the roots among which we lay to venture any of them. So we lay, hungry and sodden, in spite of the sun which presently set the flats steaming, and did not dare to move lest some sharp eye should spy us. We could only hope for night and stars, and then sooner or later to come across some place where food could be got, if it was only green grain out of a field, for our stomachs were calling uneasily.

Twice during the day we heard guns at a distance, and that confirmed my idea that others besides ourselves had escaped, and by widening the chase it gave me greater hopes. But it was weary work lying there, and more and more painful as regards our stomachs, which from crying came to clamour, and from clamour to painful groanings, and a hollow clapping together of their empty linings.

Not till nightfall did we dare to move, and very grateful we were that the night was fine with a glorious show of stars. By them we steered due east, but still had to keep to the marsh-lands and away from the roads. And now, from lack of food, our hearts were not so stout, and the going seemed heavier and more trying. It brought back to me the times we had in the Everglades of Florida, and I told Le Marchant the story, but it did not greatly cheer him.

Once that night, in our blind travelling, we stumbled out into a road, and while we stood doubtful whether we might not dare to use it for the easement of our bodies, there came along it the tramp of men and the click of arms, and we were barely in the ditch, with only our noses above water, when they went noisily past us in the direction of the prison.

We made a better course that night, in the matter of direction at all events, but our progress was slow, for we were both feeling sorely the lack of food, and our way across the flats was still full of pitfalls, into which we fell dully and dragged ourselves out doggedly. We had been thirty hours without a bite, and suffered severe pains, probably from the marsh water we had drunk and had to drink.

"Two hundred kegs of fine French cognac we dropped overboard outside Poole Harbour," groaned Le Marchant one time, "and a mouthful of it now—!" Ay, a mouthful of it just then would have been new life to us. We stumbled on like machines because our spirits willed it so, but truly at times the weariness of the body was like to master the spirit.

"We must come across something in time," I tried to cheer him with—feeling little cheer myself.

"If it's only the hole they'll find our bodies in," he said down-heartedly.

And a very short while after that, as though to point his words, we fell together into a slimy ditch, and it seemed to me that Le Marchant lay unable to rise.

I put my arms under him, and strove to lift him, and felt a shock of horror as another man's arms round him on the other side touched mine, and I found another man trying to lift him also.

"Bon Dieu!" I gasped in my fright, and let the body go, as the other jerked out the same words, and released his hold also, and the body fell between us.

"Dieu-de-dieu, Carre! But I thought this was you," panted Le Marchant in a shaky voice.

"And I thought it was you."

We bent together and lifted the fallen one to solid ground, but it was too dark to see his face.

"Is he dead?"

"He is dead," I said, for I had laid my hand against his heart, and it was still, and his flesh was clammy cold, and when we found him he was lying face down in the mud.

"He escaped as we did, and wandered till he fell in here and was too weak to rise. Let us go on;" and we joined hands, for the comfort of the living touch, and went on our way more heavily than before.

We kept anxious look-out for lights or any sign of humanity. And lights indeed we saw at times that night, and cowered shivering in ditches and mudholes as they flitted to and fro about the marshes. For these, we knew, were no earthly lights, but ghost flares tempting us to destruction—stealthy pale flames of greenish-blue which hovered like ghostly butterflies, and danced on the darkness, and fluttered from place to place as though blown by unfelt winds. And one time, after we had left the dead man behind, one such came dancing straight towards us, and we turned and ran for our lives till we fell into a hole. For Le Marchant vowed it was the dead man's spirit, and that the others were the spirits of those who had died in similar fashion. But for myself I was not sure, for I had seen similar lights on our masts at sea in the West Indies, though indeed there was nothing to prove that they also were not the spirits of drowned mariners.



CHAPTER XXVI

HOW WE FOUND A FRIEND IN NEED

But—"pas de rue sans but!" as we say in Sercq—there is no road but has an ending. And, just as the dawn was softening the east, and when we were nigh our last effort, we stumbled by sheerest accident on shelter, warmth, and food,—and so upon life, for I do not think either of us could have carried on much longer, and to have sunk down there in the marsh, with no hope of food, must soon have brought us to an end.

It was Le Marchant who smelt it first.

"Carre," he said suddenly, "there is smoke," and he stood and sniffed like a starving dog. Then I smelt it also, a sweet pleasant smell of burning, and we sniffed together.

Since it came to us on the wind we followed up the wind in search of it, and nosed about hither and thither, losing it, finding it, but getting hotter and hotter on the scent till we came at last to a little mound, and out of the mound the smoke came.

A voice also as we drew close, muffled and monotonous, but human beyond doubt. We crept round the mound till we came on a doorway all covered with furze and grasses till it looked no more than a part of the mound. We pulled open the door, and the voice inside said, "Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" and we crept in on our hands and knees.

There was a small fire of brown sods burning on the ground, and the place was full of a sweet pungent smoke. A little old man sat crouched with his chin on his knees staring into the fire, and said, "Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" without ceasing. There was no more than room for the three of us, and we elbowed one another as we crouched by the fire.

He turned a rambling eye on us, but showed no surprise.

"Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" said the little old man.

"Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" said I, deeming it well to fall in with his humour.

"Ay—who?" he asked.

"The one you mean."

"Ay,—Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" and he lifted a bottle from the ground between his knees, and took a pull at it, and passed it on to me. I drank and passed it to Le Marchant, and the fiery spirit ran through my veins like new hot life.

"We are starving. Give us to eat," I said, and the old man pointed to a hole in the side of the hut. I thrust in my hand and found bread, dark coloured and coarse, but amazingly sweet and strengthening, and a lump of fat bacon. We divided it without a word, and ate like famished dogs. And all the time the old man chaunted "Blight him!" with fervour, and drank every now and then from the bottle. We drank too as we ate, but sparingly, lest our heads should go completely, though we could not believe such hospitality a trap.

It was a nightmare ending to a nightmare journey, but for the moment we had food and shelter and we asked no more. When we had eaten we curled ourselves up on the floor and slept, with "Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" dying in our ears.

I must have slept a long time, for when I woke I felt almost myself again. I had dim remembrances of half-wakings, in which I had seen the old man still crouching over his smouldering fire muttering his usual curse. But now he was gone, and Le Marchant and I had the place to ourselves, and presently Le Marchant stretched and yawned, and sat up blinking at the smoke.

"Where is the old one?" he asked. "Or was he only a dream?"

"Real enough, and so was his bread and bacon. I'm hungry again," and we routed about for food, but found only a bottle with spirits in it, which we drank.

We sat there in the careless sloth that follows too great a strain, but feeling the strength grow as we sat.

"Is he safe?" asked Le Marchant at last. "Or has he gone to bring the soldiers on us? And is it night or day?" and he felt round with his foot till it came on the door and let in a bright gleam of daylight.

We crawled out into the sunshine and sat with our backs against the sods of the house, looking out over the great sweep of the flats. It was like a sea whose tumbling waves had turned suddenly into earth and become fixed. Here and there great green breakers stood up above the rest with bristling crests of wire grass, and the darker patches of tiny tangled shrubs and heather and the long black pools and ditches were like the shadows that dapple the sea. The sky was almost as clear a blue as we get in Sercq, and was so full of singing larks that it set us thinking of home.

Away on the margin of the flats we saw the steeples of churches, and between us and them a small black object came flitting like a jumping beetle. We sat and watched it, and it turned into a man, who overcame the black ditches, and picked his way from tussock to tussock, by means of a long pole, which brought him to us at length in a series of flying leaps.

"Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" he said as he landed. "So you are awake at last."

"Awake and hungry," I said.

He loosed a bundle from his back and opened it, and showed us bread and bacon.

"Blight him! Eat!" he said, and we needed no second bidding.

"You are from the cage?" he asked as he sat and watched us.

I nodded.

"All the birds that come my way I feed," he said. "For once I was caged myself. Blight him!"

"Whom do you blight?" I asked.

"Whom?" he cried angrily, and turned a suspicious eye on me. "The Hanover rat,—George!... And the blight works—oh, it works, and the brain rots in his head and the maggots gnaw at his heart. And they wonder why!... an effectual fervent curse!—Oh, it works! For years and years I've cursed him night and day and—you see! Keep him in the dark, they said. Let no man speak to him for a twelvemonth and a day, they said. And no man spoke, but I myself, and all day long and all night I cursed him out loud for the sound of my own voice, since no other might speak to me. For the silence and the darkness pressed upon me like the churchyard mould, and I kept my wits only by cursing. Blight him! Blight him! And now they say—But they may say what they will so they leave me in peace, for I know—and you know"—and he bent forward confidentially—"it's the King that's mad, and soon everyone will know it. Blight him! Blight him! Oh—an effectual fervent curse indeed!"

"We are grateful to you," I said, "for food and shelter. We have money, we will pay."

"As you will. Those who can, pay. Those who can't, don't. All caged birds, I help. Blight him! Blight him!"

"We would rest till night, then you can put us on our way to the coast. This is an ill land to wander in in the dark. Last night we came on one who had strayed and died."

"Where away?" he asked quickly.

"In the marshes—over yonder—about a mile away, I should say."

"Was he clothed?" he snapped.

"Yes, he was clothed."

And he was off with his pole across the flats, in great bounds, while we sat wondering. We could see his uncouth hops as he went to and fro at a distance, and in time he came back with a bundle of clothes tied to his back.

"Food one can always get for the herbs of the marshes," he said, "and drink comes easy when you know where to get it. But clothes cost money and the dead need them not. Blight him!"

Le Marchant begged me to ask if he had any tobacco and a pipe, and I did so. He went inside and came out with a clay pipe and some dried brown herb.

"It is not what you smoke, but such as it is it is there," he said; and Le Marchant tried a whiff or two, but laid the pipe aside with a grunt.

"He speaks as do the others from the cage. How come you to speak as we do?"

"I am from Sercq. It is part of England."

"I never heard of it. Why did they cage you?"

"I was prisoner on a French ship which they captured. I let them believe me French rather than be pressed on board a King's ship."

"Right! Blight him!"

That long rest made men of us again. Our host had little to say to us except that the King was mad, and we concluded that on that subject he was none too sane himself, though in other matters we had no fault to find with him.

We got directions for our guidance out of him during the day, and as soon as it was dark he set off with us across the marshes, and led us at last on to more trustworthy ground and told us how to go. We gave him money and hearty thanks, and shook him by the hand and went on our way. The last words we heard from him, out of the darkness, were the same as we heard first in the darkness—"Blight him! Blight him! Blight him!" and if they did another old man no harm they certainly seemed to afford great satisfaction to this one.

All that night we walked steadily eastward, passing through sleeping villages and by sleeping farmhouses, and meeting none who showed any desire to question us. In the early morning I bought bread and cheese from a sleepy wife at a little shop in a village that was just waking up, and we ate as we walked, and slept in a haystack till late in the afternoon. We tramped again all night, and long before daylight we smelt salt water, and when the sun rose we were sitting on a cliff watching it come up out of the sea.



CHAPTER XXVII

HOW WE CAME UPON A WHITED SEPULCHRE AND FELL INTO THE FIRE

We wandered a great way down that lonely coast before a fishing village hove in sight. At regular intervals we came upon watchmen on the look-out for invaders or smugglers, and to all such we gave wide berth, by a circuit in the country or by dodging them on their beats. It was only towns we feared, and of those there were fortunately not many. In the villages we had no difficulty in buying food, and to all who questioned we were on our way to the Nore to join a King's ship and fight the Frenchmen. To cover Le Marchant's lack of speech, we muffled his face in flannel and gave him a toothache which rendered him bearish and disinclined for talk. And so we came slowly down the coast, with eyes and ears alert for chance of crossing, and wondered at the lack of enterprise on the part of the dwellers there which rendered the chances so few.

Many recollections crowd my mind of that long tramp along the edge of the sea. But greater matters press, and I may not linger on these. We had many a close shave from officious village busybodies, whose patriotism flew no higher than thought of the reward which hung to an escaped prisoner of war or to any likely subject for the pressgang.

One such is burnt in on my mind, because thought of him has done more to make me suspicious of my fellows, especially of such as make parade of their piety, than any man I ever met.

He was a kindly-looking old man with white hair and a cheerful brown face, and his clothes were white with flour dust which had a homely, honest flavour about it. He was in a small shop, where I went for food one evening, engaged in talk with the woman who kept it, and he began to question me as soon as I opened my mouth.

I told him our usual story, and he seemed much interested in it.

"And you're going to the fleet! Well, well! A dreadful thing is war, but if it has to be it's better on sea than on the land here, and the fleet must have sailors, I suppose. But every night I pray for wars to cease and the good times of universal peace to come."

"Yes," I said, "peace is very much the best for everyone. It is those who have seen war who know it best."

"Surely! Yet one hears enough to know how terrible it is. You have seen service then?"

"In the West Indies, both battle and shipwreck," I said, having no wish to come nearer home.

"A wonderful land, I'm told, and very different from this country."

"Very different."

"Where do you rest to-night?" he asked, in the kindest way possible.

"We are pushing on to lose no time. The fleet wants men."

"Brave men are always wanted, and should be well treated. A few hours will not hurt the fleet. You shall sup and sleep with me, and to-morrow I will put you on your way in my gig. It is but a step to the mill."

He seemed so gentle and straightforward, and the prospects of a bed and an ample meal were so attractive, that we went with him without a thought of ill.

The mill stood on rising ground just off the village street. I have never passed under the gaunt arms of a mill since without a feeling of discomfort.

The miller's house, however, was not in the mill itself, but just alongside, under its great bony wings. There was a light in the window, and a sweet wholesome smell all about.

He introduced us to his wife, a very quiet woman, and much less cheerful and hospitable than himself, and bade her hasten the supper and prepare a bed, and we sat and talked while they were getting ready. He showed great concern, too, on Le Marchant's account, and insisted on his wife applying a boiling lotion of herbs, which very soon made his face look as bad as anyone could have wished; and, in consequence of some hasty words the sufferer dropped during this infliction, I found it necessary to explain that we were from the Channel Islands, but good Englishmen, although our native speech was more akin to French. The old miller was very much interested, and asked many questions about the Islands and the land and crops there.

We had an excellent hot supper, with home-brewed ale to drink, and then the old man read a chapter out of the Bible, and prayed at length—for us, and for peace and prosperity, and much more besides.

Then we had a smoke, and he showed us to the most comfortable bed I had seen since I left home.

Le Marchant was not in the best of humours. He chose to regard the old man's hospitality with suspicion, and even went the length of casting doubts upon his piety. But I put it down to the heat of the herb lotion, which had made his face like a full-blown red rose, and had doubtless got into his blood.

I was very sound asleep when a violent shaking of the arm woke me, and Le Marchant's whisper in my ear—"Carre, there's something wrong. Don't speak! Listen!"—brought me all to myself in a moment, and I heard what he heard,—the hushed movement of people in the outer room off which our bedroom opened, the soft creak of a loose board in the flooring.

"Outside the window a minute ago," he murmured in my ear.

Then a sound reached us that there was no mistaking, the tiny click of the strap-ring of a musket against the barrel, and a peaceful miller has no need of muskets.

We had but a moment for thought. I feared greatly that we were trapped, and felt the blame to myself. There would be men outside the window, but more in the room, for they looked to catch us sleeping. I had no doubt, in my own mind, that it was a pressgang, in which case their object was to take us, not to kill us. And, thinking it over since, I have thought it possible that the treacherous old miller may have signalled them by a light in the top of the mill, which would be seen a very long way.

I peeped out of the window. Three men with muskets and cutlasses stood there watching it. We were trapped of a surety. Carette and Sercq seemed to swing away out of sight, and visions of the routine and brutality of the King's service loomed up very close in front.

We had no weapons except my sailor's knife, which would be little use against muskets and cutlasses. But there was a stout oak chair by the bedside, and at a pinch its legs might serve.

We could do nothing but wait to see what their move would be, and that waiting, with the gloomiest of prospects in front, was as long and dismal a time as any I have known.

It was just beginning to get light when a tap came on the door, and the voice of the villainous old miller—

"Your breakfast is ready. We should start in half an hour."

"Hel-lo?" I asked, in as sleepy a fashion as I could make it.

He repeated his message, and Le Marchant, with his ear against the door, nodded confirmation of our fears. The breakfast we were invited to consisted of muskets and cutlasses and hard blows.

It was Le Marchant's very reasonable anger at this treacherous usage that saved us in a way we had not looked for. But possibly there was in him some dim idea of chances of escape in what might follow. Chance there was none if we walked into the next room or tried the window.

Our comfortable bed consisted of sweet soft hay inside the usual covering. He suddenly ripped this open, tore out the hay in handfuls and flung it under the bedstead, then pulled out his flint and steel and set it ablaze. The room was full of smoke in a moment, and we heard startled cries from the outer room. Taking the stout oak chair by opposite legs we pulled till they parted, and we were armed.

The door burst open and the miller went down headlong under Le Marchant's savage blow.

"Next!" he cried, swinging his club athwart the doorway. But, though there were many voices, no head was offered for his blow.

The flames burned fiercely behind us. With a crack of my chair leg I broke both windows, and the smoke poured out and relieved us somewhat, and the fire blazed up more fiercely still. The flooring was all on fire and the dry old walls behind the bed, and we stood waiting for the next man to appear.

"Better give in, boys," cried someone in the outer room. "You'll only make things worse for yourselves." But we answered never a word, and stood the more cautiously on our guard.

Then they began throwing buckets of water in at the door, and we heard it splashing also on the outer walls, but none came near the fire, since the bed was not opposite the door.

We were scorched and half smothered, but the draught through the door and out at the window still gave us chance to breathe.

The bedstead fell in a blazing heap, the flames crept round the walls. We could not stand it much longer. We would have to lay down our chair legs and surrender.

Then a very strange thing happened.

Le Marchant saw it first and grabbed my arm.

The portion of the blazing bedstead nearest the wall sank down through the floor and disappeared, and at a glance we saw our way, though how far it might lead us we could not tell.

"Allons!" said Le Marchant, and without a moment's hesitation leaped down into the smoke that came rolling up out of the hole, and I followed.

We landed on barrels and kegs covered with blazing embers. Le Marchant gave a laugh at sight of their familiar faces, and, by way of further payment to the miller, dashed his heel through the head of a keg and sped on, while the flames roared out afresh behind us.

For a short way we had the light of the blaze, but soon we were past it and groping in darkness down a narrow tunnel way. It seemed endless, but fresh blowing air came puffing up to us at last, and of a sudden we crept out into the night through a clump of gorse on the side of a cliff. Below us was the sea, and on the shingle lay a six-oared galley such as the preventive men use.

"Devil's luck!" laughed Le Marchant, and we slipped and rolled down the cliff to the shore, with never a doubt as to our next move. We set our shoulders to the black galley, ran it gaily down the shingle, and took to the oars. As we got out from under the land we saw the house blazing fiercely on the cliff. There was a keg in the boat and a mast with a leg-of-mutton sail. We stepped the mast and set the sail and drew swiftly out to sea.

I do not think either of us ever found a voyage so much to our liking as this. Our craft was but a Customs' galley, twenty feet long and four feet in beam, it is true, and we were heading straight out into the North Sea. We had not a scrap of food, but we had fared well the night before, and the keg in the bows suggested hopes. But we were homeward bound, and we had just come through dire peril by the sheer mercy of Providence.

"The old one is well punished for his roguery," said Le Marchant with a relish. "And after his prayers too! Diable, but he stinks!"

"He gave us a good supper, however."

"So that we might breakfast en route for a King's ship! Non, merci! No more mealy mouths for me." And to me also it was a lesson I have never forgotten.

Our first idea had been to run due east till we struck the coast of Holland, which we knew must be something less than one hundred and fifty miles away. But Le Marchant, who knew the smuggling ports better than I, presently suggested that we should run boldly south by east for Dunkerque or Boulogne, and he affirmed that it was little if any farther away than the Dutch coast, and even if it was, we should land among friends and save time and trouble in the end. So, as the weather and wind seemed like to hold, we turned to the south, and kept as straight a course as we could, and met with no interference. The setting sun trued our reckoning and we ran on by the stars.

The keg in the bows contained good Dutch rum, and we drank sparingly at times for lack of other food. Once during the night we heard guns, and our course carried us close enough to see the flashes, but we were content therewith, and went on about our business, glad to be of small account and unseen.

When the sun rose, there stole out of the shadows on our right white cliffs and a smiling green land, which Le Marchant said was the coast of Kent, so we ran east by south and presently raised a great stretch of sandy dunes, along which we coasted till the ramparts and spires of Dunkerque rose slowly before us.

Le Marchant knew his way here, and took us gaily over the bar into the harbour, where many vessels of all shapes and sizes were lying, and he told me what I had heard spoken of on the Josephine, that Bonaparte was said to be gathering a great fleet for the invasion of England.

We landed in a quiet corner without attracting observation, and Le Marchant led the way to a quarter of the town which he said was given up entirely to the smuggling community, and where we should meet with a warm welcome. But we found, on arriving there, that the free-traders had been moved in a body down the coast to Gravelines, half-way to Calais, all but a stray family or two of the better behaved class. These, however, treated us well on hearing our story, and we rested there that day, and left again as soon as it was dark with all the provisions we could carry. We crept quietly out of the harbour and coasted along past the lights of Gravelines, and Calais, and weathered with some difficulty the great gray head of Gris Nez, and were off the sands of Boulogne soon after sunrise.

We kept well out, having no desire for forced service, but only to get home and attend to our own affairs. But even at that distance, and to our inexperienced eyes, the sight we saw was an extraordinary one. The heights behind the town were white with tents as though a snowstorm had come down in the night, and for miles each way the level sand-flats flashed and twinkled with the arms of vast bodies of men, marching to and fro at their drill, we supposed.

We dropped our sail to avoid notice and rowed slowly past, but time and again found ourselves floating idly, as we gazed at that great spectacle and wondered what the upshot would be.

Then we were evidently sighted by some sharp look-out on one of the round towers, for presently a white sail came heading for us, and we hastily ran up our own and turned and sped out to sea, believing that they would not dare to follow us far. They chased us till the coast sank out of our sight, and could have caught us if they had kept on, but they doubtless feared a trap and so were satisfied to have got rid of us. When they gave it up we turned and ran south for Dieppe, and sighted the coast a little to the north of that small fishing port just before sunset.

Here Le Marchant was among friends, having visited the place many times in the way of business, and we were welcomed and made much of. We were anxious to get on, but the wind blew up so strongly from the south-west that we could have made no headway without ratching all the time to windward, and the sea was over high for our small boat. So we lay there three days, much against our will, though doubtless to the benefit of our bodies. And I have wondered at times, in thinking back over all these things, whether matters might not have worked out otherwise if the wind had been in a different quarter. Work out to their fully appointed end I knew they had to do, of course. But that three days' delay at Dieppe brought us straight into the direst peril conceivable, and an hour either way—ay, or ten minutes for that matter—might have avoided it. But, as my grandfather used to say, and as I know he fervently believed, a man's times and courses are ordered by a wisdom higher than his own, and the proper thing for him to do is to take things as they come, and make the best of them.

After three days the wind shifted to the north-west, and we said good-bye to our hosts and loosed for Cherbourg, well-provisioned and in the best of spirits, for Cherbourg was but round the corner from home.

We made a comfortable, though not very quick, passage, the wind falling slack and fitful at times, so that it was the evening of the next day before we slipped in under the eastern end of the great digue they were building for the protection of the shipping in the harbour. It was at that time but a few feet above water level, and its immense length gave it a very curious appearance, like a huge water-snake lying flat on the surface of the sea.

We pulled in under an island which held a fort, and keeping along that side of the roadstead, ran quietly ashore, drew our boat up, and went up into the town.



CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW WE WALKED INTO THE TIGER'S MOUTH

Cherbourg was at that time a town of mean-looking houses and narrow streets, ill-paved, ill-lighted, a rookery for blackbirds of every breed. It was a great centre for smuggling and privateering, the fleet brought many hangers-on, and the building of the great digue drew thither rough toilers who could find, or were fitted for, no other employment.

Low-class wine-shops, and their spawn of quarrellings and sudden deaths, abounded. Crime, in fact, attracted little attention so long as it held no menace to the public peace. Life had been so very cheap, and blood had flowed so freely, that the public ear had dulled to its cry.

Le Marchant led the way through the dark, ill-smelling streets to a cafe in the outskirts.

The Cafe au Diable Boiteux looked all its name and more. It was as ill-looking a place as ever I had seen. But here it was that the free-traders made their headquarters, and here, said Le Marchant, we might find men from the Islands, and possibly even from Sercq itself, and so get news from home.

The cafe itself opened not directly off the road, but off a large courtyard surrounded by a wall, which tended to privacy and freedom from observation.

It was quite dark when we turned in through a narrow slit of a door, in a larger door which was chained and bolted with a great cross-beam. There were doubtless other outlets known to the frequenters.

Le Marchant led the way across the dark courtyard, which was lighted only by the red-draped windows of the cafe, and opened a door out of which poured a volume of smoke and the hot reek of spirits, and a great clash of talk and laughter.

The room was so thick with smoke that, coming in out of the darkness, I could only blink, though there was no lack of lamps, and the walls were lined with mirrors in gilt frames which made the room look almost as large as the noise that filled it, and multiplied the lights and the smoke and the people in a bewildering fashion.

Three or four men had risen in a corner and were slowly working their way out, with back-thrown jests to those they were leaving. Following close on Le Marchant's heels, I stepped aside to let them pass, and in doing so bumped against the back of a burly man who was leaning over the table in close confidential talk with one opposite him.

"Pardon!" I said, and, looking up, saw two grim eyes scowling at me, through the smoke, out of the looking-glass in front.

I gave but one glance, and felt as if I had run my head against a wall or had received a blow over the heart. For those fierce black eyes were full of menace. They had leaped to mine as blade leaps to blade, touches lightly, slides along, and holds your own with the compelling pressure that presages assault. They were like thunderclouds charged with blasting lightnings. They were full of understanding and dreadful intention, and all this I saw in one single glance.

I gripped Le Marchant's jacket.

"Out quick!" I whispered, and turned and went.

"What—?" he began.

"Torode of Herm is there."

"The devil! Did he see you?"

"I think so. Yes, he looked at me through the looking-glass."

"No time to lose then!" and he sped down the yard, and through the slit of a door, and down the dark road, and I was not a foot behind him.

"You are quite sure, Carre?" he panted, as we ran.

"Quite sure. His eyes drew mine, and I knew him as he knew me."

"Never knew him to go there before. Devil's luck he should be there to-night."

I think it no shame to confess to a very great fear, for of a surety, now, the earth was not large enough for this man and me. I held his life in my hand as surely as though he were but a grasshopper, and he knew it. And he was strong with the strength of many purposeful men behind him, every man as heartless as himself, and Le Marchant and I were but two. My head swam at thought of the odds between us, and hope grew sick in me.

My sole idea of escape, under the spur of that great fear, had been to get to the boat and make for home. But Le Marchant, having less at stake,—so far as he knew at all events,—had his wits more in hand, and used them to better purpose. For, supposing we got away all right in the dark, Torode's schooner could sail four feet to our one, and if he sighted us we should be completely at his mercy, a most evil and cruel thing to trust to. Then, too, there was La Hague, with its fierce waves, and beyond it the wild Race of Alderney with its contrarieties and treacheries,—ill things to tackle even in a ship of size. Le Marchant thought on these things, and before we were into the town he panted them out, and turned off suddenly to the left and made for the open country.

"We'll strike right through to Carteret," he jerked. "The boat must go.... He'll look for us in the town and the wind's against him for La Hague.... We must get across before he can get round."

"How far across?"

"Less than twenty miles.... There soon after midnight.... Steal a boat if necessary."

We settled down into a steady walk and got our wind back, and my spirits rose, and hope showed head once more. If we could get across to Sercq before Torode could lay us by the heels, we would be safe among our own folks, and, unless I was very much mistaken, he would no more than visit Herm and away before I could raise Peter Port against him.

Neither of us had travelled that land before, but we knew the direction we had to take, and the stars kept us to our course.

We pressed on without a halt, for every moment was of importance, and for the most part we went in silence. For myself, I was already, in my thoughts, clasping my mother and Carette in my arms once more, and then speeding across to Peter Port to rouse them there with the news of Torode's murderous treachery.

Le Marchant was the more practical man of the two. As we passed some windmills, and came swinging down towards the western coast, soon after midnight, he gave a cheerful "Hourra!" and in reply to my stare, cried, "The wind, man! It's as dead as St. Magloire. Monsieur Torode will never get round La Hague like this."

"It will come again with the sun, maybe," I said.

"Then the quicker we get home the better," and we hurried on.

When we came out at last on the cliffs the sea lay below us as smooth as a clouded mirror. It would mean a toilsome passage, but toil was nothing compared with Torode. We walked rapidly along till we came to a village, which we learned, afterwards, was not Carteret but Surtainville. There were boats lying on the shore, and we slipped down the cliff before we reached the first house, and made our way towards them. One of those boats we had to use if we had to fight for it, but we had no desire to fight, only to get away at once without dispute and without delay.

We fixed on the one that seemed the least heavy and clumsy, though none were much to our liking, and while Le Marchant hunted up a pair of spare oars in case of accident, I found a piece of soft white stone and scrawled on a board, "Boat will be returned in two days, keep this money for hire"—and emptied all I possessed onto it. Then we ran the clumsy craft into the water and settled down to a long seven hours' pull.

But labour was nothing when so much—everything—waited at the other end of the course. We went to it with a will, and I do not suppose that old boat had ever moved so rapidly since she was built.

We had been rowing hard for, we reckoned, close on three hours when the sun rose. The gray shadows drew slowly off the face of the sea, and we stood up and scanned the northern horizon anxiously. But there was no flaw upon the brimming white rim. Torode had evidently not been able to get round La Hague, and a man must have been blind indeed not to see therein the hand of Providence; for a cap full of wind and he would have been down on us like a wolf on two strayed lambs. But now Sercq lay straight in front of our boat's nose, like a great gray whale nuzzling its young, and every long pull of the oars brought it nearer.

There was time indeed for catastrophe yet, and our anxieties would not be ended till Creux harbour was in sight. For, from Cherbourg to Sercq was but forty miles,—but, fortunately for us, forty miles which included La Hague and the Race,—and if Torode could pick up a fair wind he could do it in four hours—or, with all obstacles, in five, or at most six—whereas, strain as we might, and we were not fresh to begin with, we could not possibly cover the distance in less than seven hours. So, given a wind, the race might prove a tight one, and, as we rowed, our eyes were glued to the northern sky-line, where La Hague was growing dimmer with every lurch of the boat, and our hearts were strong with hope if not entirely free from fear.

We toiled like galley-slaves, for though the danger was not visible as yet, for aught we knew it might appear above the horizon at any moment, and then our chances would be small indeed. Had any eye watched our progress it must have deemed us demented, for we rowed across a lonely sea as though death and destruction followed close in our wake.

For myself, I know my heart was just one dumb prayer for help in this hour of need. We had come through so much. We had escaped so many perils; so very much depended on our winning through to Sercq; and failure at this last moment would be so heart-breaking. Yes, my heart boiled with unspoken prayers and strange vows, which I fear were somewhat in the nature of bargainings,—future conduct for present aid,—but which did not seem to me out of place at the moment, and which, in any case, did me no harm, for a man works better on prayers than on curses, I'll be bound.

Sercq at last grew large in front of us, and our hearts were high. When we jerked our heads over our shoulders we could see the long green slopes of the Eperquerie beckoning us on, and the rugged brown crests of the Grande and Petite Moies bobbing cheerfully above the tumbling waves, and Le Tas on the other side standing like a monument of Sercq's unconquerable stubbornness.

And these things spoke to us, and called to us, and braced us with hope, though our flanks clapped together with the strain of that long pull, and our legs trembled, and our hands were cramped and blistered.

Then, of a sudden, Le Marchant jerked a cry, and I saw what he saw—the topsail of a schooner rising white in the sun above the sky-line, and to our hearts there was menace in the very look of it.

We looked round at Sercq, at the cracks in the headlands, and the green slopes smiling in the sunshine, and the white tongues of the waves as they leaped up the cliffs.

"Five miles!" gasped Le Marchant.

"She must be twelve or more. We'll do it."

"Close work!"

And we bent and rowed as we had never rowed in our lives before.

The schooner had evidently all the wind she wanted. She rose very rapidly. To our anxious eyes she seemed to sweep along like a sun-gleam on a cloudy day.... Both her topsails were clear to us.... We could see her jibs swollen with venom, and past them the great sweep of her mainsails with the booms well out over the side to take the full of the wind.... The sweat poured down us, the veins stood out of us like cords.... Once, in the frenzy of my thoughts, the gleaming white sails on our quarter, and the crisp green waves alongside, and the dingy brown boat, and Le Marchant's fiery crimson neck, all shot with red for a moment, and I loosed one hand and drew it over my brow to see if it was blood or only sweat that trickled there.

On and on she came, a marvel of beauty, though she meant death for us, and showed it in every graceful venomous line, from the sharp white curl at her forefoot to the swelling menace of her sails.

Her long black hull was clear to us now, and still we had a mile to go. The breath whistled through our nostrils. Le Marchant's face when he glanced across his shoulder was twisted like a crumpled mask. We swung up from our seats and slewed half round to get every pound we could out of the thrashing oars.

We rushed in between the Moie des Burons and the Burons themselves, and drove straight for the harbour. For a moment the schooner was hid from us. Then she came racing out again. The tide was running like a fury. We drove swirling through it.

"Ach!" burst out from both of us, as a puff of white smoke whirled from the schooner's bows and a crash behind told us that a point of rock had saved us.... The coils of the current, which runs there like a mill-race, gripped our rounded bottom and dragged at us like very devils.... It was life and death and a question of seconds.... We were level with the remnant of the old breakwater.... As we tore frantically at the oars to round it, the puff of smoke whirled out again, ... a crash behind us and chips of granite came showering into the smooth water inside, and a boat that lay just off the shore in a line with the opening scattered into fragments before our straining eyes.... We lay doubled over our oars, panting and sobbing and laughing. We had escaped—but as by fire.

A moment for breath, and we slipped over the side, grateful for the cold bracing of the water on our sweltering skins, struggled through the few yards to the mouth of the tunnel, and crept through to the road. We lay there prone till our strength came back, and one full heart, at all events,—nay, I will believe two,—thanked God fervently for escape from mighty peril. For no man may look death so closely in the face as that without being stirred to the depths.

"A close thing!" breathed Le Marchant, as we got onto our feet and found the solid earth still rolling beneath us.

"God's mercy!" I said, and we sped up the steep Creux Road, among the ferns and flowers and overhanging trees.

My heart was leaping exultantly. For Carette and my mother and home and everything lay up the climbing way, and I believed, poor fool, that I had got the better of a man like Torode of Herm.

At sight of us, one came running down from Les Laches where he had gone at sound of the firing, and greeted us with amazement.

"Bon Gyu, Phil Carre! And we thought you dead! And Helier Le Marchant! Where do you come from? Where have you been all the time?"

"Prisoners of war. We came across from France there. There's a boat in the harbour, Elie, that we borrowed and promised to return. Will you see to it for us?" and we sped on, to meet many such welcomes, and staring eyes and gaping mouths, till we came to Beaumanoir, and walked into the kitchen.

"Oh, bon Dieu!" gasped Aunt Jeanne, and sat down suddenly on the green-bed at sight of us, believing we were spirits bearing her warning.

But I flung my arms round her neck and kissed her heartily, and asked only, "Carette?—and my mother?"

And she said, "But they are well, mon gars," and regarded me with somewhat less of doubt, but no less amazement. And I kissed her again, and said, "Helier will tell you all about it, Aunt Jeanne," and ran off across the knoll, past Vieux Port, to Belfontaine.

I looked across at Brecqhou as I came in sight of the western waters, and said to myself, "In an hour I will be over there to see Carette," and my heart leaped with joy. Away up towards Rondellerie I thought I saw my grandfather in the fields. I jumped over the green bank and came down to the house through the orchard. The door stood wide and I went in. My mother looked up in quick surprise at a visitor at so unusual an hour, and in a moment she was on my neck.

"My boy! my boy!" she cried. "Now God be praised!" and sobbed and strained me to her, and I felt all her prayers thrill through her arms into my own heart.

It was quite a while before we could settle to reasonable talk, for, in spite of her repeated assertions that she had never really given me up, she could still hardly realise that I was truly alive and come back to her, and every other minute she must fling her arms round my neck to make sure.

Then up she jumped and set food before me, in quantity equal almost to the time I had been away, as though she feared I had eaten nothing since I left home. And I had an appetite that almost justified her, for the night had been a wasteful one.

And while I ate, I told her briefly where I had been, and what had kept me so long, and touched but lightly on the matter of Torode, for I saw that was not what she would care to hear.

"And Carette?" I asked. "I know she is well, for Aunt Jeanne told me so;" and she looked up quickly, and I hastened to add,—"We had to pass Beaumanoir, and I left Helier Le Marchant there. I only stopped long enough to ask if you were all right—and Carette." If I had told her I had kissed Aunt Jeanne before herself, I really believe she would have felt hurt, though I had never thought of it so when I did it.

But her nature was too sweet, and her heart too full of gratitude, to allow long harbourage to any such thoughts.

"Carette," she said with a smile, "has been much with me. But"—and her face saddened—"you do not know what has befallen them."

"Helier feared they were wiped out."

"Almost. Monsieur Le Marchant and Martin, the eldest boy, got home sorely wounded. They are still there on Brecqhou, and Carette is nursing them back to life. But I think"—and there was a touch of pride in her pleasure at it—"she has been here every time she has come across to see Jeanne Falla. She is a good girl ...and I think she is prettier than ever." But for myself I thought that was perhaps because she saw her with new eyes.

"And my grandfather?—and Krok?"

"Both well, only much troubled about you. I do not think they ever expected to see you again, my boy. Your grandfather has blamed himself, I think, for ever letting you go, and it has aged him. Krok gave you up too, I think, but he has never ceased to keep an eye on Carette for you. I doubt if he has missed going over to Brecqhou any single day, except when the weather made it quite impossible."

"God bless him for that!"

And even as I spoke, the door opened and Krok came in, but a Krok that we hardly knew.

He was in a state of most intense agitation. I thought at first that it was on my account,—that he had heard of my arrival. But in a moment I saw that it was some greater thing still that moved him.

At sight of me he stopped, as if doubting his senses,—or tried to stop, for that which was in him would not let him stand still. He was bursting with some news, and my heart told me it was ill news. His eyes rolled and strained, his dumb mouth worked, he fairly gripped and shook himself in his frantic striving after communication with us.

My mother was alarmed, but yet kept her wits. Truly it seemed to me that unless he could tell us quickly what was in him something inside must give way under the strain. She ran quickly to a drawer in her dresser, and pulled out a sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal, and laid them before him on the table. He jumped at them, but his hand shook so that it only made senseless scratches on the paper. I heard his teeth grinding with rage. He seized his right hand with his left, and held it and quieted himself by a great effort. And slowly and jerkily he wrote, in letters that fell about the page,—"Carette—Torode—" and then the charcoal fell out of his hand and he rolled in a heap on the floor.

My heart gave a broken kick and fell sickly. It dropped in a moment to what had happened. Failing to end us, Torode had swung round Le Tas and run for Brecqhou, where Carette, alone with her two sick men, would be completely at his mercy. He would carry her off, gather his gear on Herm, and be away before Peter Port could lift a hand to stop him. If I held his life in my hand, he held in his what was dearer far than life to me. And I had been pluming myself on getting the better of him!

"See to him, mother. I must go. Carette is in danger," and I kissed her and ran out.

I went down the zigzag at Port a la Jument in sliding leaps, tumbled into the boat from which Krok had just landed, and once more I was pulling for life and that which was dearer still.



CHAPTER XXIX

HOW THE HAWK SWOOPED DOWN ON BRECQHOU

The Race was running furiously through the Gouliot, but I would have got through it if it had been twice as strong. There was a wild fury in my heart at thought of Carette in Torode's hands, which ravened for opposition—for something, anything, to rend and tear and overcome.

If I had come across Torode himself I would have hurled myself at his throat, though all his ruffians stood between; and had I clutched it they had hacked my hands off before I had let go.

I whirled up to the Gale de Jacob before prudence told me that two men armed are of more account than one man with nothing but a heart on fire, and that it would have been good to run round for Le Marchant. But my one thought had been to get to the place where Carette was in extremity, and the fire within me felt equal to all it might encounter.

I climbed the rocky way hot-foot, and sped down through the furze and golden-rod to the house. The door was open and I ran in. A drawn white face, with grizzled hair and drooping white moustache, and two dark eyes like smouldering fires, jerked feebly up out of a bunk at the far end, and then sank down again. It was Jean Le Marchant.

There was no sign of disorder in the room. In the next bunk another man lay apparently asleep.

"Where is Carette?" I asked hastily, but not without hope, from the lack of signs of disturbance.

"Where is she?" he asked feebly, with a touch of impatience.

"Is she not here?"

"She went out. I thought I heard a shot. Where is she?"

"I will go and see," and I ran out again, still not unhopeful. It might be that Krok had seen Torode's ship and his fears for Carette had magnified matters.

I searched quickly all round the house. I cried "Carette! Carette!" But only a wheeling gull squawked mockingly in reply. Then I ran along the trodden way to their landing-place. There was a boat lying there with its nose on the shore,—no sign of outrage anywhere. Could Krok be mistaken? Could Carette just have rowed over to Havre Gosselin for something she was in need of?

I went down to the boat, doubtful of my next move.

In the boat that nosed the shore lay Helier Le Marchant, my comrade in prison, in escape, in many perils, with a bullet-hole in his forehead—dead. And I knew that Krok was right and my worst fears were justified.

Torode had landed, had caught Carette abroad, in carrying her off they had met Le Marchant hastening to her assistance, and had slain him,—the foul cowards that they were.

There was nothing I could do for him. I lifted him gently out onto the shingle, and turned to and pulled out of the harbour. Others, I knew, would soon be across to Brecqhou, and would see to him and the rest. My work lay on Herm, and as like as not might end there, for death as sudden and certain as Helier Le Marchant's awaited me if Torode set eyes on me, and that I knew full well.

Had my brain been working quietly I should probably have doubted the wisdom of crossing to Herm in daylight. But all my thoughts were in a vast confusion, with this one thought only overtopping all the rest,—Carette was in the hands of Torode, and I must get there as quickly as possible.

There are times when foolish recklessness drives headlong through the obstacles which reason would bid one avoid, and so come desperate deeds accomplished while reason sits pondering the way.

I have since thought that the only possible reason why I succeeded in crossing unseen was that the boiling anxiety within drove me to the venture at once. I followed so closely on their track that they had not yet had time to take precautions, which presently they did. But at the time my one and only thought—the spring and spur of all my endeavour—was this,—Carette was on Herm and I must get there too.

The toil of rowing, however, relieved my brain by degrees to the point of reasonable thinking. One unarmed man against a multitude must use such strategy as he can devise, and so such little common-sense as was left me took me in under the Fauconniere by Jethou, and then cautiously across the narrow channel to the tumbled masses of dark rock on the eastern side of Herm. Here were hiding-places in plenty, and I had no difficulty in poling my boat up a ragged cleft where none could see it save from the entrance. And here I was safe enough, for all the living was on the other side of the island, the side which lay towards Guernsey.

Instinct, I suppose, and the knowledge of what I myself would have done in Torode's place, told me what he would do. And, crawling cautiously about my hiding-place, and peering over the rocks, I presently saw a well-manned boat row out from the channel between Herm and Jethou, and lie there in wait for anything that might attempt the passage from Sercq to Peter Port.

Nothing would pass that day, that was certain, for Torode would imagine Sercq buzzing with the news of his treacheries and bursting to set Peter Port on him. I had got across only just in time.

On the other side of the island I could imagine all that was toward,—the schooner loading rapidly with all they wished to take away, the bustle and traffic between shore and ship, and Carette prisoner, either on board, or in one of the houses,—or, as likely as not, to have her out of the way, in my old cleft in the rock.

I wondered how long their preparations would take, for all my hopes depended on that. If they cleared out before dark I was undone. If they stayed the night I might have a chance.

It was about midday now. Could they load in time to thread their way through the maze of hidden rocks that strew the passages to the sea, and try the skilful pilot even in the daytime? I thought not. I hoped not. He would be a reckless, or a sorely pressed, man who attempted it. And with his boat on the watch there, and no word able to get to Peter Port unless after dark, and the time then necessary for an organised descent on Herm, I thought Torode would risk it and lie there quietly till perhaps the early morning.

It was a time of weary waiting, with nothing to do but think of Carette's distress, and watch the white clouds sailing slowly along the blue sky, while my boat rose high and fell low in the black cleft, now ten feet up with a rush and a swirl, then as many feet down, with deep gurglings and rushing waterfalls from every ledge. She was getting sorely bruised against the rough rock walls in spite of all my fendings, but there was no help for it.

I could make no plans till I knew where Carette was lodged, and that I could not learn until it was dark, and I remembered gratefully that the new moon was not due for several days yet.

In thinking over things while I lay waiting, I took blame to myself, and felt very great regret, that I had not taken the time to see my grandfather and tell him about Torode. For if the night saw the end of me, as it very well might, no other was cognisant of the matter, and Torode would go unpunished. But go he would I felt sure, for he would never believe that it was all still locked up in me. Of course Helier Le Marchant might have told Jeanne Falla. But even then Jeanne Falla would only have on hearsay from Helier what he had heard from me, whereas I was an eye-witness, and could swear to the facts. And yet I could not but feel that if I had not got across to Herm when I did, I should not have got across at all, and Carette's welfare was more to me than the punishment of Torode.

That day seemed as if it never would end. Sercq and Brecqhou lay basking in the sun, as though no tragedies lurked behind their rounded bastions. The sun seemed fixed in the sky. The shadows wheeled so slowly that only by noting them against the seams in the rocks could I be sure that they moved at all. Then even that was denied me, as the headland, in a cleft of whose feet I lay, cut off the light, and flung its shadow out over the sea.

But—"pas de rue sans but." At last the red beams struck level across the water, and all the heads of Sercq and the black rocks of Brecqhou were touched with golden fire. I could see the Autelets flaming under the red Saignie cliffs; and the green bastion of Tintageu; and the belt of gleaming sand in Grande Greve; and the razor back of the Coupee; and the green heights above Les Fontaines; and all the sentinel rocks round Little Sercq.

And then the colours faded and died, and Brecqhou became a part of Sercq once more, and both were folded softly in a purple haze, and soon they were shadows, and then they were gone. And I could not but think that I might never see them again; and if I did not, that was just how I would have wished to see them for the last time.



CHAPTER XXX

HOW I FOUND MY LOVE IN THE CLEFT

Waited till the night seemed growing old to me, for the waiting in that dark cleft was weary work, with the water, which I could no longer see, swelling and sinking beneath me, carrying me up and up and up, pumping and grinding against the unseen rocks, then down and down and down into the depths, wet and wallowing, and fearful every moment of a wound beyond repair to my frail craft.

But at last I could wait no longer. With my hands in the rough wet walls I hauled out of the cleft and started on my search for Carette.

The shore thereabouts was a honeycomb of sharp-toothed rocks. I took an oar over the stern and sculled slowly and silently out from the land. I turned to the north and felt my way among the rocks, grazing here, bumping there, but moving so gently that no great harm was done.

I knew at last, by the changed voice of the sea on the shore, that I had come to the first beach of shells, and there I turned the boat's nose in and ran her softly aground.

Here, where the heights of Herm run down in green slopes to the long flat beaches, I drew the boat well up and crept to the other side of the Island, keeping as close to the high ground as I dared.

As soon as I came out on the western side I saw that work was still going on busily in the little roadstead, and so far I was in time. The rocky heights sloped gradually on that side also. The schooner had to lie in the roads, and everything had to be conveyed to her by boat. There was much traffic between her and the shore, and the work was carried on by the light of many lamps.

Now where would they have stowed Carette? On the ship? In one of the cottages? In the natural prison where they had kept me? The only three possibilities I had been able to think of. To reduce them to two I would try the least hazardous first, and that was the prison in the rock.

I had been carried to and from it blindfolded, but from what I had seen from its windows I had formed a general idea as to where it lay. So I crept back half-way towards the shell beach and then struck cautiously up towards the tumbled masses of rock on the eastern side of the Island.

It was chancy work at best, with a possible stumble up against death at every step. But life without Carette—worse still, life with Carette in thrall to young Torode—would be worse to me than death, and so I take no credit to myself for risking it for her. It was hers already, it did but seek its own.

In daylight I could have gone almost straight to that cleft, steering my course by the sea rocks I had noted from the window. But in the dark it was different. I could only grope along in hope, with many a stop to wonder where I had got to, and many a stumble and many a bruise. Stark darkness is akin to blindness, and blindness in a strange land, and that a land of rocks and chasms, is a vast perplexity. I wandered blindly and bruised myself sorely, but suffered most from thought of the passing minutes, for the minutes in which I might accomplish anything were numbered, and they passed with no result.

I was half minded to give up search for the cleft, and steal down to the houses and see what I could learn there. And yet I was drawn most strongly to that cleft in the rock.

If only I could find it and satisfy myself!

My wandering thoughts and wandering body came to sudden and violent pause at bottom of a chasm. I had stepped incautiously, and found myself a mass of bruises on the rocks below. I felt sore all over, but I could stand and I could stretch my arms, so no bones were broken.

I rubbed the sorest bruises into some approach to comfort, and wondered where I had got to. I could feel rock walls on either side, and the rocks below seemed roughly levelled. With a catch of the breath, which spelled a mighty hope, I began to grope my way along, and found that the way sloped up and down. I turned and groped up it. On, and on, and on, and at last I brought up suddenly against iron bars, and knew where I was. And never, sure, to any man was the feel of iron bars so grateful as was the touch of these to me.

I shook them gently, but the gate was locked. I strained my ears for any sound inside, strained them so that I heard the breaking of the waves on the rock below the window at the other end of the rock chamber.

Then I cried softly, "Carette!"—and listened—and thought I heard a movement.

"Carette!" I cried again.

And out of that blessed darkness, and the doubt and the bewilderment, came the sweetest voice in all the world, in a scared whisper, as one doubtful of her own senses—

"Who is it? Who calls?"

"It is I, Carette—Phil Carre;" and in a moment she was against the bars, and my hands touched her and hers touched me.

"Phil!" she cried, in vast amazement, and clung tight to my hands to make sure. "Is it possible? Oh, my dear, is it truly, truly you? I knew your voice, but—I thought I dreamed, and then I thought it the voice of the dead. You are not dead, Phil?" with a doubtful catch in her breath, as though a doubt had caught her suddenly by the throat.

"But no! I am not dead, my dear one;" and I drew the dear little hands through the bars and covered them with hot kisses.

"But how come you here, Phil? What brings you here?"

"You yourself, Carette. What else?"

"Bon Dieu, but it is good to hear you again, Phil! Can you get me out? They carried me off this morning—"

"I know. I reached Sercq this morning, and Krok brought us the word an hour later. I have been trying ever since to find where you were. I knew this place, for I was prisoner here myself for many weeks."

"You, Phil?"

"Truly yes. This Torode is a murderer and worse. He fights under both flags. He is Main Rouge in France and Torode of Herm. He slaughtered John Ozanne and all our crew before my eyes, and why my life was spared I know not."

"If he sees you he will kill you."

"Or I kill him."

"Phil, he will kill you. Oh, go!—go quick and rouse the Sercq men and Peter Port. You need not fear for me. I will never wed with young Torode—not if they kill me for it—"

And my heart was glad in spite of its heaviness and perplexity.

"When will they come to you again, Carette? And who is it comes?"

"A woman—madame, I suppose. She brought me my supper. I think they are going away."

"Yes, they are going. They are going because I have come back alive, and Torode knows the game is up if I get to Peter Port."

And that started her off again on that string, but I understood the tune of it quite well.

"That is it," she urged. "Get across to Peter Port, Phil, and rouse them there, and stop their going." But she only said it to get me away out of danger, and I knew it.

"Peter Port can wait the news, and Torode can wait his dues. I am not going till I take you with me, Carette."

"They will kill you!" she cried, and let go my hands to wring her own.

"Not if I can help it," I said stubbornly. "I want to live and I want you, and God fights on the right side. If they do get you away, Carette, remember that if I am alive I will follow you to the end of the world."

"They will kill you," she repeated.

"They are very busy loading the schooner. If the woman comes to you in the morning I shall be able to get you out. My boat waits on the shell beach."

"You would do better to get round to Peter Port," she persisted.

"Torode would be off before they would be ready. If it was one man to convince he would act, but where there are many time is wasted. I will see you safe first and then see to Torode;" and seeing that I was fixed on this, she urged my going no more.

She gave me her hands again through the bars and I kissed them, and kissed them again and again, and would not let them go. That which lay just close ahead of us was heavy with possibilities of separation and death, but I had never tasted happiness so complete as I did through those iron bars. The rusty bars could keep us apart, but they could not keep the pure hot love that filled us from head to foot from thrilling through by way of our clasped hands.

"Kiss me, Phil!" she said, of a sudden.

And I pressed my face into the rough bars, and could just touch her sweet lips with mine.

"We may never come closer, dear," she said. "But if they kill you I will follow soon, and—oh, it is good to feel you here!"

When the first wild joy of our uncovered hearts permitted us to speak of other things, she had much to ask and I much to tell. I told her most of my story, but said no word as yet of her brother Helier, for she had quite enough to bear.

And, through all her askings, I could catch unconscious glimpses of the faith and hope and love she had borne for me all through those weary months. She had never believed me dead, she said, though John Ozanne and all his men had long since been given up in Peter Port.

"Your mother and I hoped on, Phil, in spite of them all; for the world was not all dark to us, and if you had been dead I think it would have been."

"And it was thought of you, Carette,—of you and my mother,—that kept my heart up in the prison. It was weary work, but when I thought of you I felt strong and hopeful."

"I am glad," she said simply. "We have helped one another."

"And we will do yet. I am going to get you out of this."

"The good God help you!"

When the night began to thin I told her I must go, though it would not be out of hearing.

"Be ready the moment I open the gate," I said, "for every second will be of consequence. Now, good-bye, dearest!" and we kissed once more through the rusty bars, and I stole away.

The passage in the rock which led up to the gate was a continuation of the natural cleft which formed the chamber. The slope of the rocks left the gateway no more than eight or nine feet high, though, at the highest point inside, the roof of the chamber was perhaps twenty feet above the floor. The same slope continued outside, so that the side walls of the passage were some eight or nine feet high, and fell almost straight to the rock flooring. Both cleft and passage were made, I think, like the clefts and caves on Sercq, by the decay of a softer vein of rock in the harder granite, so leaving, in course of time, a straight cleavage, which among the higher rocks formed the chamber, and on the lower slope formed the passage up to it.

My very simple plan was to lie in wait, crouched flat upon the top wall of the passage close to the gateway, and from there to spring down upon the unsuspecting warder, whoever it might be—Torode, or his wife, or any other. And by such unlooked-for attack I hoped to win the day, even though it should be Torode himself who came. But I did not believe it would be Torode, for he had his hands full down below, and Carette was to him only a very secondary matter.

I half hoped it might be young Torode, for the hurling of my hatred on him would have been grateful to me. But I thought it would be the mother, and in that case, though I would use no more violence than might be necessary, nothing should keep me from Carette.

I lay flat on the rough rock wall and waited. "Carette!" I whispered.

"Phil!"

"I am here just above you, dearest. When you hear them coming, be ready."

The thin darkness was becoming gray. In the sky up above, little clouds were forming out of the shadows, and presently they were flecked with pink, and all reached out towards the rising sun. The rocks below me began to show their heads. It was desperately hard work waiting. I hungered anxiously for someone to come and let me be doing.

What if they left her till the very last, and only came up, several of them, to hurry her on board the schooner? The possibility of that chilled me more than the morning dews. My face pinched with anxiety in accord with my heart. I felt grim and hard and fit for desperate deeds.

And now it was quite light, and I could see across the lower slope of rocks to St. Sampson's harbour and the flat lands beyond it.

Would they never come? Hell is surely an everlasting waiting for something that never comes.

I was growing sick with anxiety when at last the blessed sound of footsteps on the rocky path came to me, and in a moment I was Phil Carre again, and Carette Le Marchant, the dearest and sweetest girl in all the world, was locked behind iron bars just below me, and I was going to release her or die for it.

But my heart gave a triumphant jump, and there was no need to think of death, for the coming one was a woman, and she came up the ascent with bent head and carried food in her hands.

I let her get right to the gate, then, from my knees, launched myself onto her, and she went down against the bars in a heap, bruising her face badly. But Carette was all my thought. Before the woman knew what had struck her, I had her hands tied behind her with twisted strips of her own apron, and had gagged her with a bunch of the same, and had the key in the lock, and Carette was free.

The woman was dazed still with her fall. We bound her feet with a strip of blanket and laid her on the bed, locked the gate again behind us, and sped down the rocky way till a gap let us out into the open. Then swiftly among the humps of rock, hand in hand, down the slope, towards the shell beach where the boat lay. I had left it close under the last of the high ground, and had drawn it well up out of reach of the tide, as I believed. But there was no boat there. The beach lay shining in the sun, bare and white, and my heart gave a jerk of dismay.

"There it is!" panted Carette, pointing the opposite way along the shore. And there, among a tumbled heap of rocks, whose heads just showed above the water, I saw my boat mopping and mowing at me in the grip of the tide.

I ran along to the nearest point on the beach, calling over my shoulder to Carette, "If they come after you, take to the water; I will pick you up,"—and dashed in, as we used to do in the olden days, till the water tripped me up, and then swam my fastest for the boat, and thanked God that swimming came so natural to me.

I had the boat back to the beach and Carette aboard within a few minutes, and we each took an oar and pulled for Brecqhou with exultant hearts. We thought our perils were past—and they were but just beginning.

For as we cleared the eastern point which juts out into the sea, and opened Jethou and the dark channel between the two islands, our eyes lighted together on a boat which was just about to turn the corner into the Herm roadstead. Another minute and it would have been gone, and we should have been free.

I stopped rowing and made to back in again out of sight, but it was not to be. They sighted us at the same moment, and in an instant were tugging at their oars to get their boat round, while we bent and pulled for our lives.

Fortunately for us, the tide was running swiftly between the islands, and the time it took them to get round gave us a start. Moreover, their course, till they got clear of the land, was set thick with perils, and they had to go cautiously, while nothing but clear sea lay between us and Brecqhou.



CHAPTER XXXI

HOW I HELD THE NARROW WAY

And so, once again I was pulling for dear life, and now indeed for more than life, with death, and more than death, coming on astern in venomous jerks and vicious leaps.

Carette's soft hands were not equal to work of this kind, and she saw it. There were but the two oars in the boat. I bade her hand me hers, and she did it instantly, sliding it along to my rowlock and losing but a single stroke.

The odds were somewhat against us, but not so much as I feared. For, if I was single-handed against their six oars, their boat was heavier, and carried four armed men in addition to the oarsmen.

But I saw that Brecqhou would be impossible to us, and moreover must prove but a cul-de-sac if we got there, for at best there were but two sick men there, and they could give us no help. The house indeed might offer us shelter for a time, but the end would only be delayed. So I edged off from Brecqhou, thinking to run for Havre Gosselin, and then, with senses quickened to the occasion, I saw that Havre Gosselin would serve us no better.

Port es Saies, Grande Greve, Vermandes, Les Fontaines, Port Gorey,—I ran them rapidly through my mind and saw the same objection to all. For in all, the ascent to the high lands was toilsome and difficult, and one, so climbing, could be picked off with a musket from below as easily as a rabbit or a sitting gull. And that any mercy would be shown, to one of us at all events, I did not for one moment delude myself. I saw again the round hole bore itself in John Ozanne's forehead, and Helier Le Marchant's dead body lying in the boat.

But past Gorey, where the south-west gales have bitten deep into the headlands, there were places where a quick leap might carry one ashore at cost of one's boat, and then among the ragged black rocks a creeping course might be found where bullets could not follow.

So I turned for Little Sercq, and rowed for dear life and that which was dearer still, and the venomous prow behind followed like a hound on the scent.

The black fangs of Les Dents swept past us. La Baveuse lay ahead. If I could get past Moie de Bretagne before they could cripple me I would have good hope, for thereabouts the sea was strewn with rocks and I knew my way as they did not.

They were gaining on me, but not enough for their liking. I saw the glint of a musket barrel in the sun.

"Lie down, dearest," I said sharply.

But she had seen it too, and understood.

"I will not," she said. "The wind is with us, and I help."

But in her mind she believed they would not shoot her, and she sat between me and them.

It was no time for argument. Safety for both of us lay in my arms and legs, and their power to gain a landing and get up the slope before the others could damage them. I accepted her sacrifice, and set my teeth, and strove to pull harder still.

Young Torode himself was distinguishable in the boat behind, and I knew his passion for her and did not believe he would deliberately attempt her life. Nor do I now. Possibly his intent was only to frighten us, but when bullets fly, lives are cheap.

Torode himself stood up in the stern of his boat, and levelled at us, and fired. But the shot went wide, and I only pulled the harder, and was not greatly in fear, for shooting from a jumping boat is easy, but hitting a jumping mark is quite another matter.

We drove past Moie de Bretagne, with the green seas leaping up its fretted sides and lacing them with rushing white threads as they fell. How often had Carette and I sat watching that white lacery of the rocks and swum out through the tumbling green to see it closer still. Good times they were, and my thought shot through them like an arrow as we swung past Rouge Cane Bay and opened Gorey.

But these times were better, even though death came weltering close behind us. For, come what might, we were man and woman, and all the man within me, and what there might be of God, clave to this sweet woman who sat before me—who sat of her own choice between me and death—and I knew that she loved me as I loved her, and my heart was full and glad in spite of the hunting Death behind.

We were in among the tumbled rocks. I knew them like a book. We swept across the dark mouth of Gorey. In among the ragged heads and weltering white surf of the Pierres-a-Beurre; past the sounding cave where the souffleur blows his spray a hundred feet into the south-west gale. We swung on a rushing green-white swirl towards a black shelf, behind which lies a deep dark pool in a mighty hollow worn smooth and round with the ceaseless grinding of the stones that no tide can ever lift.

"Ready!" I cried.

And at the next wave we leaped together, and the hand that I held in mine was steadier than my own, for mine was all of a shake with the strain.

Without a look behind we dived in among the black rocks, and a bullet spatted white alongside.

Now we were hidden from them for the moment, until they should land and follow. We scrambled up the yellow grit above, joined hands, and raced along the rabbit tracks, through waist-high bracken and clumps of gorse, for the Coupee.

"If they follow,..." I panted as I ran, "... I will hold them at the Coupee.... No danger.... Behind pillar.... You run on and rouse neighbours.... Our only chance.... They can shoot us as we run."

She had been going to object, but saw that I was right, and on we went—past the old mill, past the old fort, and a bullet buzzed by my head like a droning beetle. Down the narrow way to the razor of a path that led to Sercq, and half the way along it, I ran with her. Then—

"Go!" I panted, and flung myself behind the great rock pillar that buttressed the path on the Grande Greve side and towered high above me.

She ran on obediently, and one shot followed her, for which I cursed the shooter and heard young Torode do the same. I was their quarry; but one, in the lust of the chase, had lost his head.

I leaned panting against the rock, and saw Carette's skirts disappear over the brow of the Common at the Sercq end, with thankfulness past words. For myself, I was safe enough. No shot could reach me so long as I kept cover. From no point on Little Sercq could they snap at me by any amount of climbing. I was as safe as if in a fortress, and Carette was speeding to rouse the neighbours, and all was well.

I had no weapon, it is true, and if they had the sense and the courage to come in a body along the narrow way, things might go ill with me. The first comer, and the second, I could dispose of, but if the others came close behind they could end me, as I fought. But I did not believe they would have the courage, even though they saw it was the only possible chance. For that knife-edge of a path—two hundred yards in length and but two feet wide in places, with the sea breaking on the rocks three hundred feet below on each side—set unaccustomed heads swimming, and put tremors into legs that were steady even at sea.

My sudden disappearance had puzzled them. They were discussing the matter with heat, and I could hear young Torode's voice above the rest urging them forward and girding at their lack of courage. Their broken growls came back to me also.

"Girl's yours, 'tis for you to follow her."

"Fools!" said Torode. "If he escapes, your necks are in the noose."

"He's down cliff, and she ran on."

"We'd have seen him fall. He's behind one of them stacks, an'—"

"Not me—on an edge like that—and ne'er a rope to lay hold of."

"Ropewalking's no part of a seaman's duty,"—and the like, while Torode stormed between whiles and cursed them for cowards.

"Bien!" I heard at last. "If you are all such curs, I'll go myself. If he shows, shoot him. You're brave enough for that. He can't hurt you."

I heard his steps along the narrow path, and wrenched out a chunk of rock from the crumbling pillar to heave at him.

He came on cautiously, and I stood with the missile poised to hurl the moment he appeared. He was evidently in doubt as to my hiding-place. I pressed away round the pillar as far as I dared—till another step must have landed me on the rocks below. I wanted him in sight before I showed myself, for one chance was all I could expect.

The men behind watched him in silence now. I held my breath. A second or two would decide the matter between us.

A musket barrel came poking round my bastion, but I was balanced like a fly on the seaward side. Then Torode's dark eyes met mine as he peered cautiously round the corner. He fired instantly, and my footing was too precarious to let me even duck. My left arm tingled and went numb, but before he could draw a pistol I stepped to safer ground and launched my rock at him. It caught him lower than I intended, but that was the result of my insecure foothold. I meant it for his head. It took him between neck and shoulder. He dropped like an ox, and his musket went clattering down the steep. He lay still across the path, very near to the place where, as I looked, I could see again Black Boy's straining eyes and pitiful scrabbling feet as he hung for a moment before falling into the gulf.

A howl and a burst of curses from the cautious ones behind greeted his fall, but I heard no sound of footsteps coming to their leader's assistance.

With another rock I could have smashed him where he lay, and at small risk to myself; but hurling rocks in hot blood is one thing and smashing fallen men is another; and Torode, lying on his face, was safer from harm than Torode on his feet with his gun in his hand.

There was excited discussion among his followers, the necessity of securing the wounded man evidently prompting them to an attempt, but no man showing himself desirous of first honours.

But presently I heard a shuffling approach along the path, hands and knees evidently, and Torode's body was pulled slowly out of my sight. And then, along the narrow way that leads up into Sercq, there came the sound of many feet, and I knew that all was well.

They came foaming up over the brow, an urgent crowd—Abraham Guille from Clos Bourel, and Abraham Guille from Dos d'Ane, William Le Masurier from La Jaspellerie, Henri Le Masurier from Grand Dixcart, Thomas Godfray from Dixcart, and Thomas De Carteret from La Vauroque—just as Carette had come across them and told them of my need. They had snatched their guns from the hanging racks and come at once.

They gave a shout at sight of me behind the stack and Torode's body being dragged slowly up the path. The Herm men gave them a hasty volley and went off over Little Sercq towards Gorey, two of them carrying young Torode between them, and the Sercq men came running across the Coupee to greet me.

"Sercq wins!" cried one.

"Wounded, Phil?" asked another, at sight of my arm, which hung limp and bleeding.

"A scratch on the shoulder. Torode fired and I downed him with a rock."

"Shall we follow them and give them a lesson?"

"Let them go," I said. "I have got all I wanted, since Carette is safe."

"Come, then. She is just round the corner there, getting her breath. We wouldn't let her come any nearer. And here comes your grandfather."

My grandfather took me to his arms with much emotion.

"Now, God be thanked!" he said, in his great deep voice, which shook as he said it. "You are come back as from the dead, my boy. I had given you up before, and when I knew you had gone across to Herm I gave you up again. Jeanne Falla told me what poor Helier Le Marchant had told her."