For myself, I know my heart was just one dumb prayer for help in this hour of need.  We had come through so much.  We had escaped so many perils; so very much depended on our winning through to Sercq; and failure at this last moment would be so heart-breaking.  Yes, my heart boiled with unspoken prayers and strange vows, which I fear were somewhat in the nature of bargainings,—­future conduct for present aid,—­but which did not seem to me out of place at the moment, and which, in any case, did me no harm, for a man works better on prayers than on curses, I’ll be bound.

Sercq at last grew large in front of us, and our hearts were high.  When we jerked our heads over our shoulders we could see the long green slopes of the Eperquerie beckoning us on, and the rugged brown crests of the Grande and Petite Moies bobbing cheerfully above the tumbling waves, and Le Tas on the other side standing like a monument of Sercq’s unconquerable stubbornness.

And these things spoke to us, and called to us, and braced us with hope, though our flanks clapped together with the strain of that long pull, and our legs trembled, and our hands were cramped and blistered.

Then, of a sudden, Le Marchant jerked a cry, and I saw what he saw—­the topsail of a schooner rising white in the sun above the sky-line, and to our hearts there was menace in the very look of it.

We looked round at Sercq, at the cracks in the headlands, and the green slopes smiling in the sunshine, and the white tongues of the waves as they leaped up the cliffs.

“Five miles!” gasped Le Marchant.

“She must be twelve or more.  We’ll do it.”

“Close work!”

And we bent and rowed as we had never rowed in our lives before.

The schooner had evidently all the wind she wanted.  She rose very rapidly.  To our anxious eyes she seemed to sweep along like a sun-gleam on a cloudy day....  Both her topsails were clear to us....  We could see her jibs swollen with venom, and past them the great sweep of her mainsails with the booms well out over the side to take the full of the wind....  The sweat poured down us, the veins stood out of us like cords....  Once, in the frenzy of my thoughts, the gleaming white sails on our quarter, and the crisp green waves alongside, and the dingy brown boat, and Le Marchant’s fiery crimson neck, all shot with red for a moment, and I loosed one hand and drew it over my brow to see if it was blood or only sweat that trickled there.

On and on she came, a marvel of beauty, though she meant death for us, and showed it in every graceful venomous line, from the sharp white curl at her forefoot to the swelling menace of her sails.

Her long black hull was clear to us now, and still we had a mile to go.  The breath whistled through our nostrils.  Le Marchant’s face when he glanced across his shoulder was twisted like a crumpled mask.  We swung up from our seats and slewed half round to get every pound we could out of the thrashing oars.