friends with all the world.

The sun was dropping behind Herm into a dark bank of clouds which lay all
along the western sky. Behind the clouds the heavens seemed ablaze with a
mighty conflagration. Long level shafts of glowing gold streamed through
the rifts, like a hot fire through the bars of a grate, and our faces and
all the bold Sercq cliffs were dyed red. The sun himself looked like a
fiery clot of blood. Everything was very still, as with a sense of
expectation.

Tintageu, and the Platte, and Guillaumesse, and the gleaming Autelets, and
La Grune, and on the other side the great black Gouliot rocks, and Moie
Batarde, and the long dark side of Brecqhou all seemed straining with wide
anxious eyes to learn what was coming. There was a dull growl of surf from
below, and low harsh croakings and mewings from the gulls down in Port a la
Jument. And we seemed to be all waiting for what should come out of Herm
along the red path of the sun.

Carette shivered inside my arm.

"Cold, dearest?" I asked.

"My heart is heavy. Oh, but I wish it was the day after to-morrow, Phil."

"It will come. But we look like having a storm first. Those black clouds--"

"God's storms I do not mind. It is that black Herm--Hark!" and we heard the
sound of guns again along the wind. "Do you think they will come here,
Phil?"

"I think it quite likely, dear. But we are forearmed and we fight for our
homes. If they come, they are a beaten crew bent only on mischief. We shall
beat them again."

"You won't go and get yourself killed, Phil dear, just when you've come
back to me?"

"That I won't. And when they've come and gone--" and I comforted her with
warmer things than words. And Tintageu, and the black Gouliot rocks, and
all the straining headlands seemed to look at us for a moment, and then
turned and stared out anxiously at Herm.

And then I jumped up quickly, and stood for a moment staring as they
stared.

"Tiens!--Yes--they are coming! Allons, ma cherie!" and we set off at a run
for Beaumanoir to give the alarm. For, out of the shadow of Herm, half a
dozen black objects had crept and were making straight for Sercq, and I
understood that the look-out boats, and the boats of those who had hurried
across from Sercq, had been left on the shell beach because the channel was
probably blocked, and that the broken remnants of Herm had fled across the
Island and were coming down to take a bite at us, as Aunt Jeanne had
predicted.

A do