which Angele had paid a
fisherman to keep going every night. This light had caused the French
and English frigates some uneasiness, and they had patrolled the Channel
from Cap de la Hague to the Bay of St. Brieuc with a vigilance worthy
of a larger cause. One fine day an English frigate anchored off the
Ecrehos, and the fisherman was seized. He, poor man, swore that he kept
the light burning to guide his brother fishermen to and fro between
Boulay Bay and the Ecrehos. The captain of the frigate tried severities;
but the fisherman stuck to his tale, and the light burned on as
before--a lantern stuck upon a pole. One day, with a telescope,
Buonespoir had seen the exact position of the staff supporting the
light, and had mapped out his course accordingly. He would head straight
for the beacon and pass between the Marmotier and the Maitre Ile, where
is a narrow channel for a boat drawing only a few feet of water. Unless
he made this, he must run south and skirt the Ecriviere Rock and
bank, where the streams setting over the sandy ridges make a confusing
perilous sea to mariners in bad weather. Else, he must sail north
between the Ecrehos and the Dirouilles, in the channel called Etoc, a
tortuous and dangerous passage save in good weather, and then safe only
to the mariner who knows the floor of that strait like his own hand. De
la Foret was wholly in the hands of Buonespoir, for he knew nothing of
these waters and coasts; also he was a soldier and no sailor.

They cleared Cape Carteret with a fair wind from the north-east, which
should carry them safely as the bird flies to the haven of Rozel. The
high, pinkish sands of Hatainville were behind them; the treacherous
Taillepied Rocks lay to the north, and a sweet sea before. Nothing could
have seemed fairer and more hopeful. But a few old fishermen on shore
at Carteret shook their heads dubiously, and at Port Bail, some miles
below, a disabled naval officer, watching through a glass, rasped out,
"Criminals or fools!" But he shrugged his shoulders, for if they were
criminals he was sure they would expiate their crimes this night, and if
they were fools--he had no pity for fools.

But Buonespoir knew his danger. Truth is, he had chosen this night
because they would be safest from pursuit, because no sensible seafaring
man, were he King's officer or another, would venture forth upon the
impish Channel, save to court disaster. Pirate, and soldier in priest's
garb, had frankly ta