"Then you must get him to a doctor. You can't go to Guernsey, so that means Jersey—And afterwards—I don't know—you'll have to see what is best. Wait a moment,"—as we came to his house at La Vauroque. "You'll need money, and take what you can find to eat. I've got a bottle or two of wine somewhere. Before daylight you must be out of sight of Sercq."
"Where will you say I've gone?"
"Bidemme! I don't know ... You can trust old Krok?"
"Then, as soon as you have had the other patched up and settled somewhere in safety, you'd better leave him in Krok's care and get back here. And the sooner the better. The people in Guernsey will want your story from your own lips in this matter."
"How soon can we get into the cave?"
"Nom-de-Dieu, yes!... Voyons donc!—About two o'clock with a wet shirt. This wind will pile the water up, and the Race will be against us in the Gouliot. The sooner we're off the better."
He handed me a sum of money, packed into a basket all the eatables he could find and two bottles of wine, and lit a lantern, and we set off through the gusty night, past the deserted houses, past Beaumanoir all dark and dead, and so down into Havre Gosselin, where the waves were roaring white.
We drew in Uncle George's small boat by its ropes and got aboard his larger one, and tied the smaller to drag astern.
The west wind was still blowing strong, but it had slackened somewhat with the turn of the tide. But when we tried to breast the Gouliot passage with that heavy boat, we found it impossible. Three times we nosed inch by inch into the swirling black waters, which leaped and spat and bit at us with fierce white fangs, and three times we were swept away down past Pierre au Norman, drooping over our oars like broken men.