"Ah, bah!" growled one of the diners inside. "What's to do now, then?"
"He's there ... Peter ... under Coupée ... Where Tom Hamon...." panted the news-bearer as he tore past to his own home. And the rest of Vauroque emptied itself into the road and stood looking along it, as the stragglers came up, white-faced and wild-eyed.
"He's there," confirmed one woman, twisting up her loosened hair. "And just same place where Tom Hamon lay."
"'Tweren't Gard killed him, then," said one of the diners, chewing over that thought with his last mouthful.
"Nor Tom neither, then, maybe," said another.
"We've bin on wrong tack, then;" and they went off round the corner at a speed their build would hardly have credited them with.
One to the Sénéchal and one to the Doctor, and then to the Creux, both telling the news as they went. So that when the officials came hurrying through the tunnel the greater part of the Island was waiting for them on the shingle, except those who preferred the wider view from the cliff above.
Some of the men had been for pulling across at once, but they were overborne.
"Doctor said he'd like to have seen him afore he was moved last time," said old John de Carteret weightily, and would not let a boat go out till the Doctor and the Sénéchal came.
It was all waiting for them the moment they arrived, however, and they stepped in and swung away round Les Lâches, and three other boats followed them so closely that it looked almost like a gruesome race who should get there first.