arms convulsively above her head, turned towards the group below, and
cried in a loud, clear voice, "Le Géant brûle!"

The words fell on the ears of the listening crowd as if with an electric
shock. As they repeated them to each other with fear and amazement, and
scattered hither and thither to saddle a horse, or to catch the runaway
steed, that they might carry the news in time over the two miles that
lay between them and the harbour, the fact that the dumb had spoken,
seemed for the moment hardly noticed by them. For might not the
fishing-fleet even now be rounding the point, with darkness coming on,
and the misleading light burning on the giant rock to lure them to
destruction? A light which, as they knew too well, was not visible from
the harbour, and which might be shewing its fatal signal unguessed the
whole night through, unless as now, by favour of the saints, and
doubtless by the quick eyes of some fisherman of the neighbouring
village, who had chanced to be far enough out to sea at the time, it
were perceived before darkness should fall.

The girl turned back again, and went up to the top of the hill to tend
the fallen rider. The sun was sinking, and threw the shadow of the
menhir, enlarged to a monstrous size, across her path. A few yards
further on lay the senseless form of the Breton horseman, and it was
clear to Annette that Jean of Kerdual had purposely stayed the rider by
throwing the shadow across the road to startle his horse.

But a new exhilaration had taken possession of Annette's whole body and
mind. She feared the menhir no longer: its power over her was gone. She
kept repeating the words that had come to her at the crisis, the first
she had spoken articulately all her life, "Le Géant brûle--Le Géant
brûle," with a confidence in herself and the future, which was like new