and seating himself, he could brace his feet against
a ledge of rock. Then he pulled on the rope. It was round Carterette's
waist!

Carterette had told her falsehood without shame, for she was of those
to whom the end is more than the means. She began climbing, and Ranulph
pulled steadily. Twice he felt the rope suddenly jerk when she lost her
footing, but it came in evenly still, and he used a nose of rock as a
sort of winch.

The climber was nearly two-thirds of the way up when a cannon-shot
boomed out over the water, frightening again the vast covey of birds
which shrieked and honked till the air was a maelstrom of cries. Then
came another cannon-shot.

Ranulph's desertion was discovered. The fight was begun between a single
Jersey shipwright and a French war-ship.

His strength, however, could not last much longer. Every muscle of his
body had been strained and tortured, and even this lighter task tried
him beyond endurance. His legs stiffened against the ledge of rock, the
tension numbed his arms. He wondered how near Alixandre was to the top.
Suddenly there was a pause, then a heavy jerk. Love of God--the rope
was shooting through his fingers, his legs were giving way! He gathered
himself together, and then with teeth, hands, and body rigid with
enormous effort, he pulled and pulled. Now he could not see. A mist swam
before his eyes. Everything grew black, but he pulled on and on.

He never knew how the climber reached the top. But when the mist cleared
away from his eyes, Carterette was bending over him, putting rum to his
lips.

"Carterette-garcon Carterette!" he murmured, amazed. Then as the truth
burst upon him he shook his head in a troubled sort of way.

"What a cat I was!" said Carterette. "What a wild cat I was to make you
haul me up! It was bad for me with the rope round me, it must have been
awful for you, my poor esmanus--poor scarecrow Ranulph."

Scarecrow indeed he looked. His clothes were nearly gone, his hair was
tossed and matted, his eyes bloodshot, his big hands like pieces of raw
meat, his feet covered with blood.

"My poor scarecrow!" she repeated, and she tenderly wiped the blood from
his face where his hands had touched it. Meanwhile bugle-calls and cries
of command came up to them, and in the first light of morning they could
see French officers and sailors, Mattingley, Alixandre, and others,
hurrying to and fro.

When day came clear and bright, it was known that Carterette as w