O RICH TREASURE 373

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE WEST COAST OF SARK AND BRECQHOU _Frontispiece_
THE CREUX ROAD _Facing Page_ 5
HAVRE GOSSELIN 19
TINTAGEU 47
THE LADY GROTTO 65
A QUIET LANE 117
THE EPERQUERIE 132
IN THE CLEFT OF A ROCK 197
BELOW BEAUMANOIR 226
BRECQHOU FROM THE SOUTH 273
THE COUPEE 297
THE CHASM OF THE BOUTIQUES 308
THE WATER CAVE 321
EPERQUERIE BAY 349
DIXCART BAY 352
CREUX TUNNEL 355

CHAPTER I

HOW PAUL MARTEL FELL OUT WITH SERCQ

To give you a clear understanding of matters I must begin at the beginning
and set things down in their proper order, though, as you will see, that
was not by any means the way in which I myself came to learn them.

For my mother and my grandfather were not given to overmuch talk at the
best of times, and all my boyish questionings concerning my father left me
only the bare knowledge that, like many another Island man in those
times--ay, and in all times--he had gone down to the sea and had never
returned therefrom.

That was too common a thing to require any explanation, and it was not till
long afterwards, when I was a grown man, and so many other strange things
had happened that it was necessary, or at all events seemly, that I should
know all about my father, that George Hamon, under the compulsion of a very
strange and unexpected happening, told me all he knew of the matter.

This, then, that I tell you now is the picture wrought into my own mind by
what I gathered from him and from others, regarding events which took place
when I was close upon three years old.

And first, let me say that I hold myself a Sercq man born and bred, in
spite of the fact that--well, you will come to that presently. And I count
our little isle of Sercq the very fairest spot on earth, and in that I am
not alone. The three years I spent on ships trading legitimately to the
West Ind