HOW THE HAWK SWOOPED DOWN ON BRECQHOU
The Race was running furiously through the Gouliot, but I would have got
through it if it had been twice as strong. There was a wild fury in my
heart at thought of Carette in Torode's hands, which ravened for
opposition--for something, anything, to rend and tear and overcome.
If I had come across Torode himself I would have hurled myself at his
throat, though all his ruffians stood between; and had I clutched it they
had hacked my hands off before I had let go.
I whirled up to the Galé de Jacob before prudence told me that two men
armed are of more account than one man with nothing but a heart on fire,
and that it would have been good to run round for Le Marchant. But my one
thought had been to get to the place where Carette was in extremity, and
the fire within me felt equal to all it might encounter.
I climbed the rocky way hot-foot, and sped down through the furze and
golden-rod to the house. The door was open and I ran in. A drawn white
face, with grizzled hair and drooping white moustache, and two dark eyes
like smouldering fires, jerked feebly up out of a bunk at the far end, and
then sank down again. It was Jean Le Marchant.
There was no sign of disorder in the room. In the next bunk another man
lay apparently asleep.
"Where is Carette?" I asked hastily, but not without hope, from the lack of
signs of disturbance.
"Where is she?" he asked feebly, with a touch of impatience.
"Is she not here?"
"She went out. I thought I heard a shot. Where is she?"
"I will go and see," and I ran out again, still not unhopeful. It might be
that Krok had seen Torode's ship and his fears for Carette had magnified
matters.
I searched quickly all round the house. I cried "Carette! Carette!" But
only a wheeling gull squawked mockingly in reply. Then I ran along the
trodden way to their landing-place. There was a boat lying there with its
nose on the shore,--no sign of outrage anywhere. Could Krok be mistaken?
Could Carette just have rowed over to Havre Gosselin for something she was
in need of?
I went down to the boat, doubtful of my next move.
In the boat that nosed the shore lay Helier Le Marchant, my comrade in
prison, in escape, in many perils, with a bullet-hole in his
forehead--dead. And I knew that Krok was right and my worst fears were
justified.
Torode had landed, had caught Carette abroad, in carrying her off they had
met Le Marchant hastening to her assistance, and had slain him,--the foul
cowards that they were.
There was nothing I could do for him. I lifted him gently out onto the
shingle, and turned to and pulled out of the harbour. Others, I knew, would
soon be across to Brecqhou, and would see to him and the rest. My work lay
on Herm, and as like as not might end there, for death as sudden and
certain as Helier Le Marchant's awaited me if Torode set eyes on me, and
that I knew full well.
Had my brain been working quietly I should probably have doubted the wisdom
of crossing to Herm in daylight. But all my thoughts were in a vast
confusion, with this one thought only overtopping all the rest,--Carette
was in the hands of Torode, and I must get there as quickly as possible.
There are times when foolish recklessness drives headlong through the
obstacles which reason would bid one avoid, and so come desperate deeds
accomplished while reason sits pondering the way.
I have since thought that the only possible reason why I succeeded in
crossing unseen was that the boiling anxiety within drove me to the venture
at once. I followed so closely on their track that they had not yet had
time to take precautions, which presently they did. But at the time my one
and only thought--the spring and spur of all my endeavour--was
this,--Carette was on Herm and I must get there too.
The toil of rowing, however, relieved my brain by degrees to the point of
reasonable thinking. One unarmed man against a multitude must use such
strategy as he can devise, and so such little common-sense as was left me
took me in under the Fauconnière by Jethou, and then cautiously across the
narrow channel to the tumbled masses of dark rock on the eastern side of
Herm. Here were hiding-places in plenty, and I had no difficulty in poling
my boat up a ragged cleft where none could see it save from the entrance.
And here I was safe enough, for all the living was on the other side of
the island, the side which lay towards Guernsey.
Instinct, I suppose, and the knowledge of what I myself would have done in
Torode's place, told me what he would do. And, crawling cautiously about my
hiding-place, and peering over the rocks, I presently saw a well-manned
boat row out from the channel between Herm and Jethou, and lie there in
wait for anything that might attempt the passage from Sercq to Peter Port.
Nothing would pass that day, that was certain, for Torode would imagine
Sercq buzzing with the news of his treacheries and bursting to set Peter
Port on him. I had got across only just in time.
On the other side of the island I could imagine all that was toward,--the
schooner loading rapidly with all they wished to take away, the bustle and
traffic between shore and ship, and Carette prisoner, either on board, or
in one of the houses,--or, as likely as not, to have her out of the way, in
my old cleft in the rock.
I wondered how long their preparations would take, for all my hopes
depended on that. If they cleared out before dark I was undone. If they
stayed the night I might have a chance.
It was about midday now. Could they load in time to thread their way
through the maze of hidden rocks that strew the passages to the sea, and
try the skilful pilot even in the daytime? I thought not. I hoped not. He
would be a reckless, or a sorely pressed, man who attempted it. And with
his boat on the watch there, and no word able to get to Peter Port unless
after dark, and the time then necessary for an organised descent on Herm, I
thought Torode would risk it and lie there quietly till perhaps the early
morning.
It was a time of weary waiting, with nothing to do but think of Carette's
distress, and watch the white clouds sailing slowly along the blue sky,
while my boat rose high and fell low in the black cleft, now ten feet up
with a rush and a swirl, then as many feet down, with deep gurglings and
rushing waterfalls from every ledge. She was getting sorely bruised against
the rough rock walls in spite of all my fendings, but there was no help for
it.
I could make no plans till I knew where Carette was lodged, and that I
could not learn until it was dark, and I remembered gratefully that the new
moon was not due for several days yet.
In thinking over things while I lay waiting, I took blame to myself, and
felt very great regret, that I had not taken the time to see my grandfather
and tell him about Torode. For if the night saw the end of me, as it very
well might, no other was cognisant of the matter, and Torode would go
unpunished. But go he would I felt sure, for he would never believe that it
was all still locked up in me. Of course Helier Le Marchant might have told
Jeanne Falla. But even then Jeanne Falla would only have on hearsay from
Helier what he had heard from me, whereas I was an eye-witness, and could
swear to the facts. And yet I could not but feel that if I had not got
across to Herm when I did, I should not have got across at all, and
Carette's welfare was more to me than the punishment of Torode.
That day seemed as if it never would end. Sercq and Brecqhou lay basking in
the sun, as though no tragedies lurked behind their rounded bastions. The
sun seemed fixed in the sky. The shadows wheeled so slowly that only by
noting them against the seams in the rocks could I be sure that they moved
at all. Then even that was denied me, as the headland, in a cleft of whose
feet I lay, cut off the light, and flung its shadow out over the sea.
But--"pas de rue sans but." At last the red beams struck level across the
water, and all the heads of Sercq and the black rocks of Brecqhou were
touched with golden fire. I could see the Autelets flaming under the red
Saignie cliffs; and the green bastion of Tintageu; and the belt of gleaming
sand in Grande Grève; and the razor back of the Coupée; and the green
heights above Les Fontaines; and all the sentinel rocks round Little Sercq.
And then the colours faded and died, and Brecqhou became a part of Sercq
once more, and both were folded softly in a purple haze, and soon they were
shadows, and then they were gone. And I could not but think that I might
never see them again; and if I did not, that was just how I would have
wished to see them for the last time.