. Never had the silver sea danced so
merrily. It might be the last he would see of them.

And the sun wheeled on towards Guernsey, and made his deliberate
preparations for a setting beyond the ordinary; for the sun, you must
know, takes a very special pride in showing the great cliffs of Sark
what he can do in the way of transformation scenes and most transcendent
colouring.

And Stephen Gard lay there under the ridge on L'Etat, with the wonder
and beauty of it all in his face and in his heart, and said to himself
that it was probably the last sunset he would ever see, and he was glad
to have seen it at its best.

He had a vague idea that heaven would be something like that--tenderly
soft and beautiful, and glowing with radiances of unearthly splendour,
which whispered to weary hearts of the peace and joy that lay beyond,
and gently called them home to rest.

His theology was, without doubt, of the most elemental and objective,
and would not have carried him any great lengths in these days; but, for
the time being, at all events, it lifted its possessor to a plane of
thought above his usual, and tended to quietness and peace of mind.

The sky right away into the east was glowing softly with the wonders of
the sunset, and there the delicate tones changed almost momentarily. As
his eye followed the tender grace of their transformations, with a
delight which he could neither have expressed nor explained, it once
more lighted suddenly upon that which he had been looking for so
anxiously all day long, and brought him to earth like a broken bird.

Once more a boat had come round the point of Les Laches, and this time
it was speeding towards him as fast as a sail that was as flat almost as
a board, and looked to him no more than a thin white cone, could bring
it.

So they were coming, after all, and this wonderful sunset might be his
last indeed;--and all the tender beauty of the fleecy clouds thinned and
paled, and the glory faded as though it had all been but a glorious
bubble, and that sharp point of white, speeding across the darkening
sea, had pricked it.

But why on earth were they coming now? They had missed the ebb, and it
was hours yet to next half-ebb, and they could not hope to land. The
white waves were boiling all along the ledges, and the sea for twenty
feet out was a surging dapple of foam laced with seething white bubbles.
It would be more than any man's life was worth to try and get ashore on
L'Etat