es half glimpses of the past in it.

I saw that I must tell him a part of the truth, at all events, for I should
need much help from him. My mind had been running ahead of the boat, and
trying the ways in front, and it seemed to me that Jersey was no safe
refuge for a forfeited life.

Torode of Herm was a name known in all those coasts. The news of his
treacheries and uprooting was bound to get there before long. Some
long-headed busybody might stumble on our secret and undo us. My mind had
been seeking a more solitary place, and, ranging to and fro, had lighted on
the Ecrehou rocks, which I had visited once with my grandfather and Krok
and had never forgotten.

"Do you know who this is, Krok?" I asked, and he raised his puzzled face
and fixed his deep-set eyes on mine.

He shook his head, and sat, with his chin in his hands and his elbows on
his knees, gazing down into the face below, and I sat watching him what
time I could spare from my steering.

And at last he knelt down suddenly and did exactly as Uncle George had
done--lifted the black moustache from off the unconscious man's mouth, and
threw back his own head to study the result. Then I saw a wave of hot
blood rush into his face and neck, and when it went it left his face gray.
He looked at me with eyes full of wonder and pain, and then nodded his big
head heavily.

"Who, then?" and he looked round in dumb impatience for something to write
with, and quivered with excitement. But the ballast was bars of iron
rescued from the sea, and there was nothing that would serve.

Then of a sudden he whipped out his knife, and with the point of it jerkily
traced on the thwart where I sat, the word "FATHER," and pointed his knife
at me.

"Yes," I nodded. "It is my father come back, when we all thought him dead.
He comes in disgrace, and his life would be forfeited if they found him, so
you and I are going to hide him for a time--till he is himself, and can go
away again."

Krok nodded, and he was probably thinking of my mother, for his fist
clenched and he shook it bitterly at the unconscious man.

Then he knelt again, and looked at his wound, and shook his head.

"It was I shot him, not knowing who he was. And so I must save his life, or
have his blood on my hands."

From Krok's grim face I judged that the latter would have been most to his
mind.

"I thought of trying the Ecrehous. We could build a shelter with some of
the old stones, and he will be safer th