Four boat-loads!  That ought to be enough to make full sure of him.  He wondered why they had not come sooner, for the tide was on the rise, and the landing-places did not look tempting.

His gun was under his hand, and his powder-flask and his little bag of shot.  He had no more preparations to make, and he had no wish to fight.

No wish?  The thought of it was hateful to him, and yet it was not in human nature to give in without a struggle.

But it should be all their doing.  All he wanted was to be left in peace.  Every man has the right to defend his own life.

But then, again—­there could be only one end to it, he knew.  So why fight?

They were coming to make an end of him.  What good was it to make an end of any of them?

Even if he should succeed in keeping them off this time, the end would come all the same, only it would be longer of coming.  Why prolong it?

The boats came bounding on like hounds at sight of the quarry.  They were well filled, four or five men in each boat, besides the oarsmen.  Enough, surely, to make an end of one lone man.

Would they attempt to land in different places and rush him, he wondered.  Or would they content themselves with lying off and attempting to shoot him down from a distance?  The last would be the safest all round, both for them and for him—­for, landing, they would, for the moment, be more or less at his mercy; and, snapping at him from a distance, he would have certain chances of cover in his favour.

The top of the ridge was flattened in places, there were even depressions here and there, very slight, but quite enough to shelter any one lying prone in them from bombardment from sea-level.  He chose the deepest he could find, and crawled into it, and lay, with his chin in his hands, watching the oncoming boats.

If he could have managed it, he would have slipped down to the rock wall and crept into his burrow, but it was on that side the boats were coming, and the sharp eyes on board would inevitably see him, and so get on the track of his hiding-place.

If the chance offered—­if they left that end of the rock unspied upon for three minutes—­he would try it.

They parted at the Quette d’Amont, two going along the south side and two along the north.  He could hear their voices, their rough jests and brief laughter, as they crept past.

It was an odd sensation, this, of lying there like a hunted hare, knowing that it was him they were after.

He pressed still closer to the rock, and did not dare to raise his head for a look.  The voices and the sound of the oars died away, came again, died again, as the boats slowly circled the rock, every keen eye on board, he knew, searching every nook and cranny for sign of him.

Then a shot rang out, over there towards the south-west, and another, and another.  Tired of inaction, they were peppering his bee-hive to stir him up in case he was fast asleep inside.