They crawled back into the roadway, and she took his hand in hers again which shook more than ever, and they sped away into Little Sark.
"Now tell me, Nance. What is it all about?" he panted, as she nipped through an opening in a green bank and led the way towards the eastern cliffs over by the Pot.
"Oh—it's you they want," she gasped, and he stopped instantly and stood, as though he would turn and go back.
"It is no use," she jerked emphatically, between breaths, and dragged impatiently at his arm. "You don't know our Sark men.... They do things first and are sorry after.... Bernel heard them planning it all.... The men from Sark were to meet these ones, and then—"
"But," he said angrily, "running away looks like—"
"No, no! Not here.... And it is only for a time. The truth will come out, but it would be too late if they had got you."
"What would they have done with me?"
"Oh—terrible things. They are madmen when they are angry."
He had yielded to her will, and they were speeding swiftly along the downs. The path was quite invisible to him. He tripped and stumbled at times on tangled roots of gorse and bracken, but she kept on swiftly and unerringly, as though the night were light about her.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked, as they crept past the miners' cottages on the cliff above Rouge Terrier.