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