wo watchers prowled desultorily about the rock, poking again
into every place that suggested possible concealment for anything larger
than a puffin. There might be openings in the rifted basement rocks
which only the full ebb would discover, and these might lead up into
chambers where a man could lie high and dry till the tide allowed him
out again. And so they hung precariously over the waves and poked and
peered, and found nothing.

They had clambered over the great wall more than once before Vaudin
said: "G'zamin, John, I wonder if there's any holes here big enough to
take a man?"

"He'd have to be a little one, and this Gard's not that," and they
stood looking at the wall. "'Sides, them rocks lie on the rock itself,
and there's no depth to them."

But Vaudin was not sure that there might not be room for a man to lie
flat under some of the big slabs, and began to poke about among them.

"Some one's been up here," he said, pointing to one of Gard's own
scorings.

"Bin up there four times myself," said Drillot, "an' so have all the
rest. There's no room to hide a man there, Peter. If he's hid anywhere,
he'll come out in the night. Maybe Philip Guille's right, and he's safe
in Guernsey by this. Come along to that shelter and let's have a drink."

They had their bottle out of the boat, and they had also come upon
Gard's bottle of cognac, of which quite half remained. It was a finer
cordial than their own, so they sat drinking them turn about, and
watching the sun set, and chatting spasmodically, till it grew too dark
to do more than sit still with safety.

They were by no means drunk, but the spirits had made them heavy, and
when John Drillot solemnly suggested that they should keep watch about,
Peter Vaudin as solemnly agreed, and offered to take first duty.

So John curled his length inside the bee-hive, and made himself
comfortable with Gard's cloak and blanket, and was presently snoring
like a whole pig-sty. And that had a soporific effect on Peter. He had
only stopped behind to oblige John, and personally had little
expectation of anything coming of it. Moreover, the night air was
chilly. If he could get that cloak from John now! He crawled in to try,
but big John was rolled up like a caterpillar. It was warmer inside
there than out, anyway. And he could keep watch there just as well as
outside; so he propped himself up alongside John, and braced his mind to
sentry duty.

CHAPTER XXIX

HOW HE CAME