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 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.
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 on the 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, I was 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 Aunt Jeanne, 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 there all the 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.