"I am glad that I have it with me," she remarked, as she complied. "I think there is a storm coming up."
La Vireville looked round. She was right; and he, used as he was to scanning the horizon in sailor fashion, had been too much absorbed to notice it. A continent of cloud was rising out of the sea to the north-east.
"I think it will pass over," pronounced the Chouan, looking at it. "But in any case we ought to hasten."
And soon they were making their way over the short turf of the down that runs to the head of the tiny Baie des Eperqueries, where Fortuné had left his boat, the only one riding in that small and solitary harbourage. A rusty culverin of Elizabethan days lay embedded in the short grass at the top. It was nearly low tide; down beneath the cove was tapestried with seaweed, green and purple and spotted, fan-shaped or ribbon-fashioned, and a pair of puffins, from their breeding-place at the other side of the island, sat solemnly side by side, like parrots, on a crag.
"I told the boatman to wait for me here," remarked La Vireville, as they made their way down the zigzag path. "I do not see him anywhere; ah, there he is!"
A jerseyed figure was, in fact, lying on its face about half-way down the slope.
"Come, wake up!" said the émigré, bending over him when they reached him. There being no response to this invitation, he shook the sleeper vigorously.
"Ma foi, this is a very sound sleep!" He stooped and picked up something. "And this is its cause!" He held out to Raymonde an empty brandy flask. "Cognac from our native land! He is dead drunk. What are we to do? Sail without him?"
"Yes," said she, without hesitation.
La Vireville weighed the thought. It was what he wished. Their time together was already so brief, that to put to sea together without a third, even for that short voyage, was a great temptation. "I do not know the channel," he said reflectively, "but the wind will not serve us ill for Guernsey."