and lay listening doubtfully. Then he perceived that his
ears had not deceived him. There was someone in the room,--or
something,--and for a moment all the superstitions among which he had been
bred crawled in his back hair and held his breath.

Then a hand dropped out of the darkness and touched his shoulder, and he
sprang at the touch like a coiled spring.

"Diable!"

It was Martel's voice and usual exclamation, and in a moment Hamon had him
by the throat and they were whirling over the floor, upsetting the table
and scattering the chairs, and George Hamon's heart was beating like a
merry drum at feel of his enemy in the flesh.

But wrestling blindly in a dark room did not satisfy him. That which was
in him craved more. He wanted to see what he was doing and the full effects
of it.

He shook himself free.

"Come outside and fight it out like a man--if you are one," he panted. "And
we'll see if you can beat a man as you can a woman."

"Allons!" growled Martel. He was in the humour to rend and tear, and it
mattered little what. For the authorities in Guernsey, after due
deliberation, had decided that what was not good enough for Sercq was not
good enough for Guernsey, and had shipped him back with scant ceremony. He
had been flung out like a sack of rubbish onto the shingle in Havre
Gosselin, half an hour before, had scaled the rough track in the dark, with
his mouth full of curses and his heart full of rage, and George Hamon
thanked God that it was not Rachel and the boy he had found in the cottage
that night.

Hamon slipped on his shoes and tied them carefully, and they passed out and
along the narrow way between the tall hedges. The full moon was just
showing red and sleepy-looking, but she would be white and wide awake in a
few minutes. The grass was thick with dew, and there was not a sound save
the growl of the surf on the rocks below.

Through a gap in the hedge Hamon led the way towards Longue Pointe.

"Here!" he said, as they came on a level piece, and rolled up the sleeves
of his guernsey. "Put away your knife;" and Martel, with a curse at the
implication, drew it from its sheath at his back and flung it among the
bracken.

Then, without a word, they tackled one another. No gripping now, but hard
fell blows straight from the shoulder, warded when possible, or taken in
grim silence. They fought, not as men fight in battle,--for general
principles and with but dim understanding of the rights and wro