"Guyabble! This is no good!" gasped Uncle George, as we came whirling back the third time. "We must go round." So we drew in the oars, and hoisted a bit of our lug, and ran straight out past Les Dents, whose black heads were sheets of flying foam, to make a long tack round Brecqhou. Then, with the wind full on our port quarter, we made a quick, straight run for the Boutiques, and found ourselves not very far astray. Dropping the sail, and leaving Krok in charge, Uncle George and I pulled in the small boat to the channel into which his cave opened. It was still awash, but we could not wait. We dragged the boat up onto the shingle just showing at the head of the chasm, then wading out up to our shoulders to the leaning slab, we pulled down the rock screen and crawled into the tunnel.
The wounded man lay just as we had left him, breathing slowly and regularly, but showing no other sign of life. We dropped a little cognac into him, and took him by the shoulders and feet and carried him into the tunnel. How we got him through I cannot tell—inch by inch, shoving and hauling, till the sweat poured down us in that narrow place.
But we got him to the opening at last, and hauled the boat down and hoisted him in, soaked to the skin each one of us. Uncle George carefully closed his door, and we pulled out to Krok, waiting in the lugger.
"Mon Dieu! I have had enough of him," said Uncle George, worn out, I suppose, with all the night's doings. "If he dies, I shall not care much. He is better dead."
We laid him in the bottom of the boat and covered him with the mizzen sail.
"Keep well out round Bec du Nez," said Uncle George, "and run so for half an hour. Then run due east for two hours, and then make for Jersey. God keep you, my boy! It's a bitter duty, but you're doing the right thing."
He wrung my hand, and pushed off and disappeared in the darkness, and we ran up the lug and went thrashing out into Great Russel.
We turned and ran before the west wind straight for the French coast, till the sun rose and the cliffs of Sercq, about twelve miles away, gleamed as though they had but just been made—or had newly risen out of the sea. Then we turned to the south-west and made for Jersey.
As soon as it was light I saw Krok's eyes dwelling on our passenger with a very natural curiosity. Torode was unknown to him as to most of us, but there was a whole world of enquiry in his face as he sat looking down on the unconscious face below—studying it, pondering it, catching, I thought, at times half glimpses of the past in it.
I saw that I must tell him a part of the truth, at all events, for I should need much help from him. My mind had been running ahead of the boat, and trying the ways in front, and it seemed to me that Jersey was no safe refuge for a forfeited life.