BRECQHOU FROM THE SOUTH. "I looked across at BRECQHOU as I came in sight of the Western Waters." This shows BRECQHOU from the south. The dark gash near the head is THE PIRATES' CAVE. The island behind BRECQHOU is HERM. The end of JETHOU just shows on the left. GUERNSEY lies beyond them.BRECQHOU FROM THE SOUTH. "I looked across at BRECQHOU as I came in sight of the Western Waters." This shows BRECQHOU from the south. The dark gash near the head is THE PIRATES' CAVE. The island behind BRECQHOU is HERM. The end of JETHOU just shows on the left. GUERNSEY lies beyond them.
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 Lâches where he had gone at sound of the firing, and greeted us with amazement.
"Bon Gyu, Phil Carré! 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 à 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 à 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.
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 Galé 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 eyeslike 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 Fauconnière by Jethou, and then cautiously across the narrow channel to the tumbled massesof 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 Grève; and the razor back of the Coupée; 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.
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 flatbeaches, 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 Carré;" 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 almoststraight 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 Carré 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 behindus, 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 aninstant 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.
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 és Saies, Grande Grève, Vermandés, 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.
THE COUPÉE. Leading from SARK to LITTLE SARK. At the time of the story, the path was much narrower than now, there were no supporting walls, and it was continually breaking away. The pinnacles of the buttresses were also much higher. The Island to the left is LE TAS or L'ETAC.THE COUPÉE. Leading from SARK to LITTLE SARK. At the time of the story, the path was much narrower than now, there were no supporting walls, and it was continually breaking away. The pinnacles of the buttresses were also much higher. The Island to the left is LE TAS or L'ETAC.
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-à-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 Coupée.
"If they follow,..." I panted as I ran, "... I will hold them at the Coupée.... 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 onthe Grande Grève 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 Coupée 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."
"Jean Le Marchant and Martin were lying sick on Brecqhou—"
"They are safe at Beaumanoir."
"Carette does not know about Helier yet."
"Better so for the present. We buried him yesterday on Brecqhou. She believed him dead long since, as did the others."
Carette jumped up out of the heather, at sound of our voices, and came running towards us.
"Oh, Phil!" she cried, and flung her arms about my neck before them all, and made me a very happy and satisfied man.
"You are wounded?" she cried, at sight of blood on my sleeve. "Oh, what is it?"
"It is only a trifle, and you have spoiled your sleeve."
"I will keep it so always. Dear stain!" and she bent and kissed the mark my blood had left.
I thanked the neighbours for coming so promptly to my help, and as we stood for a moment at the road leading to Dos d'Ane, where Abraham Guille would break off to get back to his work, my grandfather stopped them.
"Phil brings us strange and monstrous news," he said weightily. "It is well you should know, for we may need your neighbourly help again. John Ozanne's ship was sunk by the French, privateer,Main Rouge, and John Ozanne himself and such of his men as tried to save themselves were shot in the water as they swam for their lives, and that was cold-blooded murder. Phil here saw what was toward and saved his life by floating under a spar and sail. And this Main Rouge who did this thing is Torode of Herm—"
At which they broke into exclamations of astonishment. "He fought under both flags. No wonder he waxed so fat! He knows that Phil has his secret. I fear he will give us no rest, and it is well the matter should be known to others in case—you understand."
"He is preparing to leave Herm," I said. "They were loading the schooner all night long. I ought to have gone across to Peter Port to lay my information before them there, but, you understand, Carette was more important to me. But surely Sercq need fear nothing from Herm," I said, looking round on them.
"Ah, you don't know," said my grandfather. "We are but few here just now. So many are away—to to the wars and the free-trading. How many men does Torode carry?"
"With those on Herm, sixty to eighty, I should say."
"He could harry us to his heart's content if he knew it;" and Abraham Guille went off soberly to Dos d'Ane, and the rest of us went on to our homes.
My grandfather was full of thought, and I saw that he was anxious on our account. And now that the excitement was over, my shoulder began to throb and shoot. Every movement was painful to it, and I felt suddenly worn out and very weary. Carette must have seen it in my face, for she said—
"Lean on me, Phil dear. Aunt Jeanne will doctor you as soon as we get there;" and I leaned on her, for the touch of her was very comforting to me, and my right arm was happy if my left was not, and I was content.
"Go on to Jeanne Falla, you two," said my grandfather, when we came to La Vauroque, "and ask her to see to your arm, Phil. She is a famous doctor. I must see George Hamon."
Aunt Jeanne cut away the sleeves of my coat and shirt, and saw to my wound with the tenderest care, and many a bitter word for the cause of it. The bullet had gone clean through the muscles and had probably grazed the bone, she thought, but had not broken it. She washed it, and bound it up with soft rags and simples of her own compounding, while Carette fetched and carried for her. Then she set my arm in a sling, and but for the fact that I had only one arm to use, and so felt very lopsided, and deadly tired, Iwas still in much greater content than two whole arms and the highest of spirits had ever found me.
I was also feeling very empty, though with no great appetite for food. But she insisted on my eating and drinking, and saw to it herself in her sharp, masterful way.
She was tying the sling behind my neck when my grandfather and George Hamon came in together.
Uncle George gave me very hearty greeting, and they complimented Aunt Jeanne on her handiwork, and then asked her advice, and all the while I was in fear lest some incautious word from one or the other should weight Carette's heart with over-sudden news of her brother's death.
"Jeanne Falla, we want your views," said my grandfather. "It is in my mind that Torode will come back for these two. Phil holds his life in his hand. What others know is hearsay, but Phil can swear to it. I cannot believe he will rest while Phil lives. He can bring sixty or eighty ruffians down on us, and I doubt if we can put thirty against them. What does your wit suggest?"
"Ma fé!" said Aunt Jeanne, "you are right. Torode will be after them, and they are not safe here. Can you not get them over to Peter Port, or to Jersey?"
"They are watching the ways," I said, for I was loth to start on any fresh voyaging now that Carette and home were to my hand. "Their boats were out all night on the look-out."
"We might get through one way or another, if we started at once," said my grandfather, looking doubtfully at me,
"I can't do another thing till I've had some rest," I said. "It is so long since I slept that I cannot remember when it was;" and indeed, what with want of food, and want of sleep, and loss of blood, now that the excitement was over I was feeling weary unto death.
"Then hide them," said Aunt Jeanne. "George Hamon knows hiding-places, I trow,"—at which Uncle George grinned knowingly. "And if Torode comes, swear they are safe in Peter Port. One does not cut gorse without gloves, and lies to such as Torode don't count. Bon Gyu, non!"
"That is right," said Uncle George, "and what I advised myself. Philip thinks we might hold them at arm's length, but—"
"It would mean many lives and to no purpose, may be, in the end," said Aunt Jeanne, shaking her head.
"I can hide them where none will ever find them," said Uncle George.
"Ma fé! it does not sound too tempting," said Carette.
"Since we are together, I am content," I said; for rest and the assurance of Carette's safety were the only things I cared about just then.
"Bien! So am I," said Carette. "When will you put us in the hole?"
"At once. Torode is not the man to waste time when so much is at stake."
"And how long will you keep us there?" she asked.
"That may depend on Torode," said Uncle George. "But no longer than is necessary."
"Ma fé, it may be days! We must take food—"
"There is a pie and a ham, and I made bread and gâche to-day," said AuntJeanne, picking up a big basket and beginning to pack it with all she could think of and lay hands on.
"Water?" asked Carette.
"Plenty of water, both salt and fresh," said Uncle George.
"All the same, a can of milk won't hurt," said Aunt Jeanne. "Carette, ma fille, fill the biggest you can find."
"And Mistress Falla will give us two sacks of hay to soften the rocks," said Uncle George, "and a lantern and some candles, lest they get frightened of one another in the dark,"—which I knew could never happen. All the same, Carette asked, "Is it dark thereallthe time?"
"Not quite dark all the time, but a light is cheerful."
"Lend me a pipe, Uncle George," I said, and the good fellow emptied his pockets for me.
So presently we set out, all laden to the extent of our powers, and went first to Belfontaine, since our way lay past it. And there my mother fell gratefully on Carette and me, as though she had feared she might never see either of us again, and I was well pleased to see the tender feeling that lay between these two who were dearest to me in all the world.
"Wherever George Hamon puts you you will be safe," said my mother, at which Uncle George's face shone happily, "and I hope it will not be for long."
"Not for long," nodded my grandfather, with assurance. "We must give Monsieur Torode business of his own to attend to nearer home. Once Peter Port knows all we know, his fat will be in the fire."
"And the sooner the better," said Carette.
"And Krok?" I asked, tardily enough, though not through lack of thought of him.
"Your grandfather thinks he must have broken a blood-vessel yesterday. He is in there."