Coupee.

There she took his hand, as once before, to lead him safely across, and
her hand, he perceived, was trembling violently.

They were half way along the narrow path when the hollow way in front
leading up into Little Sark resounded suddenly with the tramp of heavy
feet.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" panted Nance, and he could feel her turn and look
round like a hunted animal.

"Quick!" she whispered. "Behind here! and oh, grip tight!" and she knelt
and crawled on hands and knees round the base of the nearest pinnacle.

In those days the pinnacles which buttress the Coupee were considerably
higher and bulkier than they are now, and along their rugged flanks the
adventurous or sorely-pressed might find precarious footing. But it was
a nerve-racking experience even in the day-time when the eye could guide
the foot. Now, in the ebon-black night, it was past thinking of.

Dazed by the suddenness and strangeness of the whole matter, and without
an inkling of what it all meant, Gard clung like a fly to the bare rock
and tried his hardest not to think of the sheer three hundred feet that
lay between him and the black beach below.

In grim and menacing silence, save for the crunch of their heavy feet on
the crumbling pathway, the men went past, a dozen or more, as it seemed
to Gard. When the sound of them had died in the hollow on the Sark
side, Nance whispered, "Quick now! quick!"

They crawled back into the roadway, and she took his hand in hers again
which shook more than ever, and they sped away into Little Sark.

"Now tell me, Nance. What is it all about?" he panted, as she nipped
through an opening in a green bank and led the way towards the eastern
cliffs over by the Pot.

"Oh--it's you they want," she gasped, and he stopped instantly and
stood, as though he would turn and go back.

"It is no use," she jerked emphatically, between breaths, and dragged
impatiently at his arm. "You don't know our Sark men.... They do things
first and are sorry after.... Bernel heard them planning it all.... The
men from Sark were to meet these ones, and then--"

"But," he said angrily, "running away looks like--"

"No, no! Not here.... And it is only for a time. The truth will come
out, but it would be too late if they had got you."

"What would they have done with me?"

"Oh--terrible things. They are madmen when they are angry."

He had yielded to her will, and they were speeding swiftly along the
downs. The path was qu