It ran furiously enough, but, he said to himself, it would slacken on the ebb, and they were so familiar with it that it would take more than that to stop them coming.

Before dark the great seas were rolling past, a little quicker than usual, he thought, but in long, smooth undulations, which slipped, unbroken and soundless, even along the black ledges of his rock.  And when the stars came out—­brighter than ever with the burnishing of the gale—­the long black backs of the waves, and the darker hollows between, were sown so thick with trailing gleams that he could not be certain whether it was only star-shine or phosphorescence.

It was all very peaceful and beautiful, however, and very welcome to eyes that had not looked upon sun, moon, or star for eight whole nights and days, and whose ears had grown hardened to the ceaseless clamour of the gale.  Nature, indeed, seemed preternaturally quiet, as though exhausted with her previous violence or desirous of wiping out the remembrance of it; just as small humanity after an outbreak endeavours at times to purge the memory of its offence by display of unusual amiability and sweetness.

Eager to welcome his confidently expected visitors, Gard crept along the ridge as soon as it was dark, and posted himself on the point which, in the daylight, commanded the passage from Breniere.

And he sat there so long—­so long after his hopes and wishes had flown over to Sark and hurried Bernel and Nance into a boat and landed them on L’Etat—­that the night seemed running out, and he began to fear they were not coming, after all.

In the troubled darkness of the Race, he caught gleams at times which might be oar-blades or might be only the upfling from the perils below.  The tide was ebbing, and soon the black fangs with which it was strewn would be showing.

At times he convinced himself that the brief gleams moved; but when, to ease his eyes of the intolerable strain, he looked up at the stars, it seemed to him that they moved also, and so he could not be sure.

But surely there was a gleam that seemed to move and come fitfully towards him—­or was it only star-shine dancing on the waves of the Race which always ran against the tide?

He stood to watch, then lost the gleam, and crouched again disappointed.

The boat must come round Quette d’Amont, the great pile of rock that lay off the eastern corner, and the first glimpse he could hope to get of it in the darkness would be there.

Then, suddenly, in that curious way in which one sometimes sees more out of the tail of one’s eye than out of the front of it, he got an impression—­and with it a start—­of something moving noiselessly among the tumbled rocks below on his left.

It was a dark night, but the glory of the stars lifted it out of the ebony-ruler category.  It was a wide, thin, lofty darkness, but still black enough along the sides of his rock, and down there it seemed to him that something moved, something dim and shadowy and silent.