HOW THE OTHERS CAME TO MAKE AN END
He woke next morning with a start. The sun was high, by the shadow of his doorway; and by that same token the tide would be at half-ebb, if not lower, and the gates of his fortress at his enemy's mercy.
He picked up his gun, listened anxiously for sound of him, and then crept cautiously out, with a quick glance along each slope.
Nothing!—nothing but the cheerful sun and the cloudless sky, and the empty blue plain of the sea, and the birds circling and diving and squabbling as usual—and Nance's little parcel lying where she had dropped it. He had had other things to think about last night.
The composure of the birds reassured him somewhat. Still, they might have landed on the other side of the rock and be lying in wait for him.
He picked up Nance's parcel with a feeling of reverence. It might have cost her her life, in spite of her bladders. Then he climbed cautiously to the ridge and peered over.
Sark lay basking in the sunshine, peaceful and placid, as if no son of hers had ever had an ill thought of his neighbour, much less sought his blood.
Not a boat was in sight, and the birds on the north slope seemed as undisturbed as their fellows on the south.
The invasion in force needed time perhaps to prepare and would be all the more conclusive when completed.
Meanwhile, he would eat and watch at the same time, for he felt as empty as a drum, and an empty man is not in the pinkest of condition for a fight.
Never in his life had he tasted bread so sweet!—and the strips of boiled bacon in between came surely from a most unusual pig—a porker of sorts, without a doubt, and of most extraordinary attainment in the nice balancing of lean and fat, and the induing of both with vital juices of the utmost strength and sweetness. Truly, a most celestial pig!—and he was very hungry.
Had he been a pagan he would most likely have offered a portion of his slim rations as thank-offering to his gods, for they had come to him at risk of a girl's life. As it was, he ate them very thoughtfully to the very last crumb, and was grateful.
They had been wrapped in a piece of white linen, and then tied tightly in oiled cloth, and were hardly damped with sea-water. The piece of linen and the oiled cloth and the bits of cord he folded up carefully and put inside his coat.
They spoke of Nance. If they had drowned her she would have gone with them tied on to her head. He took them out again, and kissed them, and put them back.
Thank God, she had got through safely! Thank God! Thank God!
He shivered in the blaze of the sun as his eyes rested on the waves of the Race, bristling up against the run of the tide as usual, and he thought of what it might have meant to him this morning.
It had swallowed Bernel. In spite of his hopeful words to Nance, he feared the brave lad was gone. And it might have swallowed Nance. And if it had—it might as well have him, too. For it was only thought of Nance that made life bearable to him.
The sun wheeled his silvery dance along the waters; the day wore on;—and still no sign of the invaders. Sark looked as utterly deserted as it must have done in the lone days after the monks left it, when, for two hundred years, it was given over to the birds, till de Carteret and his merry men came across from Jersey and woke it up to life again.
And then, of a sudden, his heart kicked within him as if it would climb into his throat and choke him; for, round the distant point of the Lâches, a boat had stolen out, and, as he watched it anxiously, there came another, and another, and another. They were coming!
Four boat-loads! That ought to be enough to make full sure of him. He wondered why they had not come sooner, for the tide was on the rise, and the landing-places did not look tempting.
His gun was under his hand, and his powder-flask and his little bag of shot. He had no more preparations to make, and he had no wish to fight.
No wish? The thought of it was hateful to him, and yet it was not in human nature to give in without a struggle.
But it should be all their doing. All he wanted was to be left in peace. Every man has the right to defend his own life.
But then, again—there could be only one end to it, he knew. So why fight?
They were coming to make an end of him. What good was it to make an end of any of them?
Even if he should succeed in keeping them off this time, the end would come all the same, only it would be longer of coming. Why prolong it?
The boats came bounding on like hounds at sight of the quarry. They were well filled, four or five men in each boat, besides the oarsmen. Enough, surely, to make an end of one lone man.
Would they attempt to land in different places and rush him, he wondered. Or would they content themselves with lying off and attempting to shoot him down from a distance? The last would be the safest all round, both for them and for him—for, landing, they would, for the moment, be more or less at his mercy; and, snapping at him from a distance, he would have certain chances of cover in his favour.
The top of the ridge was flattened in places, there were even depressions here and there, very slight, but quite enough to shelter any one lying prone in them from bombardment from sea-level. He chose the deepest he could find, and crawled into it, and lay, with his chin in his hands, watching the oncoming boats.
If he could have managed it, he would have slipped down to the rock wall and crept into his burrow, but it was on that side the boats were coming, and the sharp eyes on board would inevitably see him, and so get on the track of his hiding-place.
If the chance offered—if they left that end of the rock unspied upon for three minutes—he would try it.
They parted at the Quette d'Amont, two going along the south side and two along the north. He could hear their voices, their rough jests and brief laughter, as they crept past.
It was an odd sensation, this, of lying there like a hunted hare, knowing that it was him they were after.
He pressed still closer to the rock, and did not dare to raise his head for a look. The voices and the sound of the oars died away, came again, died again, as the boats slowly circled the rock, every keen eye on board, he knew, searching every nook and cranny for sign of him.
Then a shot rang out, over there towards the south-west, and another, and another. Tired of inaction, they were peppering his bee-hive to stir him up in case he was fast asleep inside.
The other boats rowed swiftly round to the firing, and he could imagine them clustered there in a bunch, watching hopefully for him to come out; and his blood boiled and chilled again at thought of what might have been if he had been caught napping.
And then, seizing his chance, he crawled to the opposite side of his hollow, peeped over, and saw the way clear. If only they would go on peppering the bee-hive for another minute or two, he would have time to slip down the Sark side of his rock and get to the great wall, and so down into his new hiding-place.
If they tried to land, he could perhaps kill or wound two, three, half-a-dozen, at risk of his own life. But the end would be the same. With a dozen good shots coolly potting at him, he must go down in time, and he had no desire either to kill or to be killed.
He wormed himself over the edge of his hollow and hurried along to the tumbled rocks, carrying his gun and powder-flask—not that he wanted them, but wanted still less to leave them behind. He scrambled over, found his marked rocks, and slipped safely under the overhanging slab. There he could peep out without danger of being seen; and he was barely under cover when the first boat came slowly round again, every bearded face intent on the rock, every eye searching for sign of him.
The other boats passed, and as each one came it seemed to him that every eye on board looked straight up into his own, and he involuntarily shrank down into the shadow of the slab. They could not possibly see him, he was certain; and yet a thrill ran through him each time their searching glances crossed his own.
The rough jests and laughter of the boats had given way now to angry growls at his invisibility. He could hear them cursing him as they passed, and even casting doubts on the veracity of his visitors of the previous night. And these latter upheld their statements with such torrents of red-hot patois that, if they had come to grips and fought the matter out, he would not have been in the least surprised.
Then there came a long interval, when no boats came round. They had probably taken their courage in their hands and landed, and were searching the island. He dropped noiselessly into his well and clambered up into the tunnel, and lay there with only his head out.
And, sure enough, before long he heard the sound of big sea-boots climbing heavily over the rock wall, and the voices of their owners as they passed.
What would they do next, he wondered. Would they imagine him flown, as the result of their last night's visit? Or would they believe him still on the island and bound to come out of his hiding-place sooner or later? Would they give it up and go home? Or would they leave a guard to trap him when hunger and thirst brought him out?
He lay patiently in the mouth of his tunnel till long after the last glimmer of light had faded from under the big slabs that covered in his well. More than once he heard voices, and once they came so close that he was sure they had come upon his tracks, and he crept some distance down his tunnel to be out of sight. But the alarm proved a false one, and the time passed very slowly.
As he lay, he thought of the dead man with the bound hands and feet in the silent chamber behind him, bound by the forebears of these men, who, in turn, were seeking him, and would treat him as ruthlessly if they found him.
He took the lesson to heart, and braced himself to patient endurance, though, indeed, he began to ask himself gloomily what was the use of it all. In the end, their venomous persistence must make an end of him. One man could not fight for ever against a whole community.
And at that he chided himself. Not a whole community! For was not Nance on his side—hoping and praying and working for him with all her might and main? And her mother, and Grannie, and the Vicar, and the Doctor, and the Sénéchal? He was sure they all knew him far too well to doubt him. And all these and the Truth must surely prevail.
But the long strain had been sore on him, and in spite of his anxieties he fell asleep in his hole, and dreamed that the dead man came crawling down the tunnel, and dragged him back into the chamber, and tied his hands and feet, and went away, and left him to die there all alone. And so strong was the impression upon him that, when he woke, he lay wondering who had loosed his bonds, and could not make out how he had got back into the mouth of the tunnel.
It was still quite dark. He was stiff with lying in that cramped place. He was strongly tempted to climb out and see how matters lay. For he might be able to find out in the dark, whereas daylight would make him prisoner again.
He wanted eggs, too. Nance's provision had served him well all day, but if he had to spend another day there something more would be welcome.
But then it struck him that if he went up in the dark he might never be able to find his way back again. The cleft under the slab was difficult to hit upon even in daylight. There were scores of just similar ragged black holes among the tumbled rocks of the great wall.
As he lay pondering it all, the grim idea came into his head of dragging the dead man through the tunnel, and hoisting him up outside, and leaving him propped up among the boulders where they would be sure to find him.
He knew how arrantly superstitious they were, most of them. They had been brought up on ghosts and witches and evil spirits, and, fearless as they might be of things mortal and natural, all that bordered on the unknown and uncanny held for them unimaginable terrors. The dead man might serve a useful purpose after all; and the grim idea grew.
He could decide nothing, however, till he learned if he had the rock to himself; and he determined to take the risk of finding this out.
He cautiously climbed the well, and by the look of the stars he judged it still very early morning. A brooding grey darkness covered the sea; the sky was dark even in the east.
He slipped off his coat and left it hanging out of the cleft as a landmark, and lowered himself silently from rock to rock, till he stood among the rank grasses below.
Food first—so, after patient listening for smallest sound or sign of a watch, he crept down to the slope where the puffins' nests were, and, wrapping his hand in Nance's napkin, managed to get out a dozen eggs from as many different holes, in spite of the fierce objections of their legitimate owners.
He tied these up carefully in the blood-spotted cloth, and carried them up to his cleft. Then he stole away like a shadow, to find out, if he could, if there was any one else on the rock besides himself and the dead man.
There had been hot disputes on that head in the boats. Those who were there for the first time had even gone the length of casting strongest possible doubts as to whether those who were there the night before had seen or heard anything whatever, and did not hesitate to state their belief that they were all on a fool's errand. The others replied in kind, and when the further question was mooted as to keeping watch all night, the scoffers told the others to keep watch if they chose; for themselves, they were going home to their beds.
"Frightened of ghosts, I s'pose," growled one.
"No more than yourself, John Drillot. But we've wasted a day on this same fooling, and the man's not here; and for me, I doubt if he's ever been here."
"And what of the things we found in the shelter?" said Drillot. "Think they came there of themselves?"
"I don't care how they came there. It's not old cloaks and blankets we came after. Maybe he has been here. I don't know. But he's not here now, and I've had enough of it."
"B'en! I'm not afraid to stop all night—if anyone'll stop with me"—and if no one had offered he would have been just as well pleased. "Don't know as I'd care to stop all alone."
"Frightened of ghosts, maybe," scoffed the other.
"You stop with me, Tom Guille, and we'll see which is frightenedest of ghosts, you or me."
But Tom Guille believed in ghosts as devoutly as any old woman in Sark, and he was bound for home, no matter what the rest chose to do.
"There's not a foot of the rock we haven't searched," said he, "and the man's not here; so what's the use of waiting all night?"
"Because if he's in hiding it's at night he'll come out."
"Come out of where?"
"Wherever he's got to."
"That's Guernsey, most likely. His friends have arranged to lift him off here first chance that came; and it came before we did, and you'll not see him in these parts again, I warrant you."
"I'll wait with you, John, if you're set on it, though I doubt Tom's right, and the man's gone," said Peter Vaudin of La Ville. And John Drillot found himself bound to the adventure.
"Do we keep the boat?" asked Vaudin.
"No ... for then one of us must sit in her all night, or she will bump herself to pieces. You will come back for us in the morning, Philip."
"I'll come," said Philip Guille, and presently they stood watching the boats pulling lustily homewards, and devoutly wishing they were in them.
Every foot of the rock, as they knew it, had already been carefully raked over. The possible hiding-places were few. But no one knows better than a Sark man what rocks can do in the way of slits and tunnels and caves, and it was just this possibility that had set John Drillot to his unwonted, and none too welcome, task. The murderer—as he deemed Gard—might have found some place unknown to any of them, and might be lying quietly waiting for them to go. If that was so, he must come out sooner or later, and the chances were that he would steal out in the night.
So the two watchers prowled desultorily about the rock, poking again into every place that suggested possible concealment for anything larger than a puffin. There might be openings in the rifted basement rocks which only the full ebb would discover, and these might lead up into chambers where a man could lie high and dry till the tide allowed him out again. And so they hung precariously over the waves and poked and peered, and found nothing.
They had clambered over the great wall more than once before Vaudin said: "G'zamin, John, I wonder if there's any holes here big enough to take a man?"
"He'd have to be a little one, and this Gard's not that," and they stood looking at the wall. "'Sides, them rocks lie on the rock itself, and there's no depth to them."
But Vaudin was not sure that there might not be room for a man to lie flat under some of the big slabs, and began to poke about among them.
"Some one's been up here," he said, pointing to one of Gard's own scorings.
"Bin up there four times myself," said Drillot, "an' so have all the rest. There's no room to hide a man there, Peter. If he's hid anywhere, he'll come out in the night. Maybe Philip Guille's right, and he's safe in Guernsey by this. Come along to that shelter and let's have a drink."
They had their bottle out of the boat, and they had also come upon Gard's bottle of cognac, of which quite half remained. It was a finer cordial than their own, so they sat drinking them turn about, and watching the sun set, and chatting spasmodically, till it grew too dark to do more than sit still with safety.
They were by no means drunk, but the spirits had made them heavy, and when John Drillot solemnly suggested that they should keep watch about, Peter Vaudin as solemnly agreed, and offered to take first duty.
So John curled his length inside the bee-hive, and made himself comfortable with Gard's cloak and blanket, and was presently snoring like a whole pig-sty. And that had a soporific effect on Peter. He had only stopped behind to oblige John, and personally had little expectation of anything coming of it. Moreover, the night air was chilly. If he could get that cloak from John now! He crawled in to try, but big John was rolled up like a caterpillar. It was warmer inside there than out, anyway. And he could keep watch there just as well as outside; so he propped himself up alongside John, and braced his mind to sentry duty.