They stumbled through the darkness and the sleeping gulls, which woke in fright, and volubly accused one another of nightmares and riotous behaviour—and Bernel hauled in his boat, and handed Gard the tin dipper and three good-sized bream.
"If you can't eat them all at once, split them open and dry them in the sun," he said. "They'll keep for a week that way."
"Tell Nance I think of her every hour of the day, and I pray God the truth may come out soon."
"I'll tell her. It'll come out. She says so," and he pulled out into the darkness and was gone.
And the Solitary went back to his shelter, secure in the knowledge that the tide was on the rise, and half-ebb would not be till well on into next day. And he thought of Nance, and of Bernel, and of all the whole matter again; white thoughts and black thoughts, but chiefly white because of Nance, and Nance was a fact, while the black thoughts were shadows confusing as the mist.
He could only devoutly hope and pray that a clean wind might come and put the shadows to flight and let the sun of truth shine through.
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW HE SAW STRANGE SIGHTS
Living thus face to face with Nature, and drawn through lack of other occupation into unusually intimate association with her, Gard found his lonely rock a centre of strange and novel experience.