The Belovéd Traitor

by Frank L. Packard

"Marie-Louise," he whispered through white lips.

Far out on the extremity of the reef, a figure stood silhouetted against the spray for an instant—and blackness fell again.

— II —

THE KEEPERS OF THE LIGHT

For a moment's space Jean stood there measuring, as it were, the sweep of waters, as one might measure the strength of some antagonist thrust suddenly upon him—and then, turning, he ran back to the boats, and began to drag one down the beach.

No man in all Bernay-sur-Mer would dare to venture out. He had said that himself—but there was no thought of that now. Marie-Louise was on the Perigeau Reef. He was strong, strong as a young bull, and he tugged now at the heavy boat with the added nervous strength of a man near mad with desperation, heaving it swiftly across the sand. At high tide even in calm weather the Perigeau was awash—in storm, far better to plunge into the water than to be pounded to death upon those diable rocks, lifted up and pounded upon the rocks, and lifted up and pounded again, when the water should be high. At ten o'clock it would be full tide. Thanks to the bon Dieu it was not eight o'clock when the water would be at its height, or else—

"Sacré nom d'un nom, d'un nom"—Jean was grinding words from between his teeth. They came utterly without volition, utterly meaningless, utterly spontaneous from the brain afire.

It was the lee of the headland, and it was the mercy of the Sainte Vierge that it was so; otherwise, baptême de baptême! no boat could live where a fish would drown. But it was the smoother water of a mill-race—in with the tide, out with the tide—between the headland and the Perigeau it was like that.

With a wrench, Jean swung the boat around—he had been dragging it by the stern—and, at the water's edge now, the dying efforts of a spent and broken wave wrapped and curled around the bow in creamy foam. Then, racing up the beach once more to the shelter of the bluff, he knelt there to plant his lantern in the sand, ballasting it securely with rocks, flung his jacket down beside it, and ran back to the water's edge again.