He knew that her eyes were on him now.  He felt like a general on the eve of an engagement.  By the almanac the tide would not turn until 4.35.  At four, perhaps, they could begin; but even at four the winter twilight would be on them, and he had taken care to provide torches and distribute them among the crowd.  His own men were making the most of the daylight left, drilling holes for dear life in the upper surface of the boulder, and fixing the Lewis-wedges and rings.  They looked to him for every order, and he gave it in a clear, ringing voice which he knew must carry to the cliff top.  He did not look at George.

He felt sure in his own mind that the wedges and rings would hold; but to make doubly sure he gave orders to loop an extra chain under the jutting base of the boulder.  The mason who fixed it, standing waist-high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched it round the ankle of the dead man.  The dead man’s brother jumped down beside him and grasped the slack of it.

At a signal from Taffy the crowd began to light their torches.  He looked at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the windlasses.  Then with a glance towards the cliff he started the working chant—­“Ayee-ho, Ayee-ho!” The two gangs—­twenty men to each windlass—­took it up with one voice, and to the deep intoned chant the chains tautened, shuddered for a moment, and began to lift.

“Ayee-ho!”

Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed.  To Taffy it seemed an endless time, to the crowd but a few moments before the brute mass swung clear.  A few thrust their torches down towards the pit where the sailor knelt.  Taffy did not look, but gave the word to pass down the coffin which had been brought in readiness.  A clergyman—­his father’s successor, but a stranger to him—­climbed down after it:  and he stood in the quiet crowd watching the light-house above and the lamps which the groom had lit in Honoria’s carriage, and listening to the bated voices of the few at their dreadful task below.

It was five o’clock and past before the word came up to lower the tackle and draw the coffin up.  The Vicar clambered out to wait it, and when it came, borrowed a lantern and headed the bearers.  The crowd fell in behind.

“I am the resurrection and the life. . . .”

They began to shuffle forwards and up the difficult track; but presently came to a halt with one accord, the Vicar ceasing in the middle of a sentence.

Out of the night, over the hidden sea, came the sound of men’s voices lifted, thrilling the darkness thrice:  the sound of three British cheers.

Whose were the voices?  They never knew.  A few had noticed as twilight fell a brig in the offing, standing inshore as she tacked down channel.  She, no doubt, as they worked in their circle of torchlight, had sailed in close before going about, her crews gathered forward, her master perhaps watching through his night-glass had guessed the act, saluted it, and passed on her way unknown to her own destiny.