He watched it, fascinated. He saw fishes large and small unconsciously touch the quivering tentacles, which on the instant twisted round them and dragged them in to the rending beak below the hideous eyes. And then he saw another similar monster come floating in on similar quest, and in a moment they were locked in deadly fight—such a writhing and coiling and straining and twisting of monstrous fleshy limbs, which swelled and thrilled, and loosed and gripped, with venom past believing—such a clamping to this rock and that—such tremendous efforts at dislodgment.
It was a nightmare. It sickened him. He turned and crawled feebly away, anxious only now to get out of this awful place without falling foul of any similar monsters among the rocks.
CHAPTER XXX
HOW NANCE WATCHED FROM AFAR
From the headland above Brenière, Nance had watched the boats go plunging across to L'Etat.
Very early that morning she had sped across the Coupée and up the long roads to the Seigneurie, but the Seigneur was away in Guernsey still, busied on the vital matter of raising still more money for the mines in which he was a firm believer, mortgaging his Seigneurie for the purpose, assured in his own mind that all would be well in the end.
Then to the Vicar and the Sénéchal, and these set off at once for the harbour, but found themselves powerless in the face of public opinion. Argument and remonstrance alike fell on deaf ears. The Vicar appealed to their sense of right; the Sénéchal forbade their going. But their minds were doggedly set on it, and they went.
"I shall hold you to account," stormed Philip Guille.
"B'en, M. le Sénéchal, we'll pay it all among us," and away they went; and back to her look-out by Brenière went Nance, and the Vicar with her for comfort in this dark hour.