ore than a whisper. "Go!--before I do you ill;" and she looked so like
it that Julie turned and fled, expecting the rock between her shoulders
at every step.

But the rock was on the ground, and Nance was intent again on L'Etat.

She stood there watching, until she saw the boats put off, and then she
turned and sped like a rabbit--across the waste lands--across the
Coupee--over Clos Bourel fields into Dixcart--over Hog's Back to the
Creux.

She ran through the tunnel just as the boats came up, and her eyes were
wide with expectant fear, as they swept them hungrily.

"What have you done then, out there, Philip Vaudin?" she cried, as his
boat's nose grated on the shingle.

"Pardi, ma garche, we have done nothing."

"But the shooting?"

"Some one shot at the shelter to see if he was inside, and the rest shot
because they thought there must be something to shoot at."

"And you have not got him?" asked another disappointedly.

"Never even seen him."

"Ah ba!"

"Either he's gone or he's under cover, though, ma fe, I don't know where
he'd find it on L'Etat," and Nance's heart beat hopefully. "However,
John Drillot and Peter Vaudin are stopping the night in case he is still
there and ventures out of his hole," and her heart sank again, and
kicked rebelliously that a man should be hunted thus, like a rabbit.

She spent a night of misery, wondering what was happening on L'Etat, and
was at her post above Breniere as soon as it was light.

She saw Philip Vaudin come round from the Creux in his boat and run
across to the rock, and almost as soon as he had disappeared round
Quette d'Amont, he came speeding back, alone, and not to the harbour,
but straight to the fishermen's rough landing-place inside Breniere.

"What is it then, Philip?" she asked anxiously, as he hauled himself up
the rocks on to the turf.

"I've come for two miners," he panted, for he had come quickly. "They've
run him to earth in a hole, but they won't either of them go in after
him, and they want some one who will."

"Ah, then!"

"Yes. He came out in the night, and they chased him, but he got into his
hole, and they're sitting on it ever since," and he hurried away through
the waste of gorse and bracken to the miners' cottages.

Volunteers were evidently not over plentiful. It was a considerable time
before he came back with a Welshman, Evan Morgan, and a young
Cornishman, John Trevna, and neither of them seemed over eager for the
job.

"