oon have him back!"

"That's a brave garche! Don't cry about it now!"

"We'll make it up to him, lass. We'll all come and dance at the
wedding"--and so on.

But the Senechal patted her on the shoulder and asked--

"And where is your brother? He should come, too. I hear you have both
been in this matter."

"Ah, monsieur!" she said, with brimming eyes and a pathetic little lift
and fall of the hand, which expressed far more than she could put into
words. "We fear ... we fear he is drowned. He swam out to the rock taking
food, and ... and ... we have not seen him since;" and her hand was over
her face and the tears streaming through.

"Mon Dieu! Another!" said the Senechal, aghast. "When, child? When was
this?"

"The night after the storm, monsieur."

"Perhaps he is there, on the rock."

"No, monsieur. I was over there myself last night. He never got there,
and we fear he must be drowned."

"You were over there, child? Why, how did you get across?"

"I swam, monsieur;" and he stared at her in amazement.

"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! You make up for some of the others," he said
bluntly. "Come then, and we will make sure of this one, anyhow;" and he
led the way to John de Carteret's boat, and all the people gave them a
cheer as they pulled out of the harbour to catch the breeze off the
Laches.

Then the crowd waited for their return, and talked by snatches of all
these strange happenings, and discussed and discounted the chances of
Bernel's being still alive.

"For, see you, the Race! And that was the first night after the storm,
and it would be running like the deuce, bidemme!" "It's best not to know
how to swim if it leads you to do things like that, oui-gia!" "When a
man's time comes, he cuts his cleft in the water, whether he can swim or
not, crais b'en!" "And that slip of a Nance had been over there last
night--par made, some folks have the courage!" "All the same, it was
madness--"

But behind all the broken chatter, in every mind was the grim question,
"Who is it, then, that is doing these things amongst us?" And there was
a feeling of mighty discomfort abroad.

All the same, they cheered vigorously as the boat came speeding back,
and they saw Gard sitting between Nance and the Senechal, and crowded
round as it ran up the shingle, and would have lifted him out and
carried him shoulder-high through the tunnel and up the road, if he
would have had it.

They saw how his imprisonment on the rock--"Ma fe, th