The shore thereabouts was a honeycomb of sharp-toothed rocks. I took an oar
over the stern and sculled slowly and silently out from the land. I turned
to the north and felt my way among the rocks, grazing here, bumping there,
but moving so gently that no great harm was done.

I knew at last, by the changed voice of the sea on the shore, that I had
come to the first beach of shells, and there I turned the boat's nose in
and ran her softly aground.

Here, where the heights of Herm run down in green slopes to the long flat
beaches, I drew the boat well up and crept to the other side of the Island,
keeping as close to the high ground as I dared.

As soon as I came out on the western side I saw that work was still going
on busily in the little roadstead, and so far I was in time. The rocky
heights sloped gradually on that side also. The schooner had to lie in the
roads, and everything had to be conveyed to her by boat. There was much
traffic between her and the shore, and the work was carried on by the light
of many lamps.

Now where would they have stowed Carette? On the ship? In one of the
cottages? In the natural prison where they had kept me? The only three
possibilities I had been able to think of. To reduce them to two I would
try the least hazardous first, and that was the prison in the rock.

I had been carried to and from it blindfolded, but from what I had seen
from its windows I had formed a general idea as to where it lay. So I crept
back half-way towards the shell beach and then struck cautiously up towards
the tumbled masses of rock on the eastern side of the Island.