"Lie down, dearest," I said sharply.

But she had seen it too, and understood.

"I will not," she said. "The wind is with us, and I help."

But in her mind she believed they would not shoot her, and she sat between
me and them.

It was no time for argument. Safety for both of us lay in my arms and legs,
and their power to gain a landing and get up the slope before the others
could damage them. I accepted her sacrifice, and set my teeth, and strove
to pull harder still.

Young Torode himself was distinguishable in the boat behind, and I knew his
passion for her and did not believe he would deliberately attempt her life.
Nor do I now. Possibly his intent was only to frighten us, but when bullets
fly, lives are cheap.

Torode himself stood up in the stern of his boat, and levelled at us, and
fired. But the shot went wide, and I only pulled the harder, and was not
greatly in fear, for shooting from a jumping boat is easy, but hitting a
jumping mark is quite another matter.

We drove past Moie de Bretagne, with the green seas leaping up its fretted
sides and lacing them with rushing white threads as they fell. How often
had Carette and I sat watching that white lacery of the rocks and swum out
through the tumbling green to see it closer still. Good times they were,
and my thought shot through them like an arrow as we swung past Rouge Cane