vy, but he was strong. She determined to leave nothing to
chance and, carrying the oars down the beach to the break in the cliffs,
she hid them amongst some scrub bushes. Then she remembered the axe,
sought for it and hid it.

Then she came back and sat down to reconsider matters.

The position was as bad as could be.

As bad as La Touche. Once let this man get the upper hand and she was
lost. She would be his slave and worse. She had measured him finely.
Instinct, never at fault, told her that to pull down anything above him
would be meat and drink to La Touche's true nature and that his hatred
of her superiority was deepened by the fact that she was a woman.

Were she weak he would beat her and make her cook for him, trample on
her, make her his woman to fetch and carry, and, if Bompard did not come
back, she was here alone with him and would have to fight this thing
out.

Well, she could not fight it by brooding over it, and she was not
helping to look for Bompard.

She drew the knife from its sheath and held the eight inches of razor
sharp steel balanced in her hand for a moment as though admiring it.
Then she replaced it in the sheath and started towards the Lizard
Point.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DEATH TRAPS

From the highest shoulder of the point she could see La Touche
clambering over the seaward rocks.

He seemed more in search of shells and seaweed than of Bompard. Then,
climbing down, she reached the lower ground and struck off inland. If
she did not succeed in finding Bompard she would at least succeed in
avoiding La Touche.

Right from the Lizard Point the plain stretched to higher ground which
marked the beginning of the sea cliffs, great rocks strewed the way and
the ground was torn by the beds of small water courses, depressions that
would suddenly become little rivers in the deluging rains; stunted
bushes huddled as if for shelter at the rock bases and the voice of the
sea came here, broken and mixing with the whisper of the bushes to the
wind.

This place had once been a glacier bed, rounded boulders standing in
pools of water told that.

A gull flying in from the sea and carrying a fish in its beak drew her
attention; it was being pursued by a larger gull. They were both of the
Burgomaster type, but the fish carrier was noticeable on account of the
intense blackness of its tail plumage.

As they passed the fish dropped, fell on a patch of yellow ground just
in front of the girl, sa