We rushed in between the Moie des Burons and the Burons themselves, and drove straight for the harbour.  For a moment the schooner was hid from us.  Then she came racing out again.  The tide was running like a fury.  We drove swirling through it.

“Ach!” burst out from both of us, as a puff of white smoke whirled from the schooner’s bows and a crash behind told us that a point of rock had saved us....  The coils of the current, which runs there like a mill-race, gripped our rounded bottom and dragged at us like very devils....  It was life and death and a question of seconds....  We were level with the remnant of the old breakwater....  As we tore frantically at the oars to round it, the puff of smoke whirled out again, ... a crash behind us and chips of granite came showering into the smooth water inside, and a boat that lay just off the shore in a line with the opening scattered into fragments before our straining eyes....  We lay doubled over our oars, panting and sobbing and laughing.  We had escaped—­but as by fire.

A moment for breath, and we slipped over the side, grateful for the cold bracing of the water on our sweltering skins, struggled through the few yards to the mouth of the tunnel, and crept through to the road.  We lay there prone till our strength came back, and one full heart, at all events,—­nay, I will believe two,—­thanked God fervently for escape from mighty peril.  For no man may look death so closely in the face as that without being stirred to the depths.

“A close thing!” breathed Le Marchant, as we got onto our feet and found the solid earth still rolling beneath us.

“God’s mercy!” I said, and we sped up the steep Creux Road, among the ferns and flowers and overhanging trees.

My heart was leaping exultantly.  For Carette and my mother and home and everything lay up the climbing way, and I believed, poor fool, that I had got the better of a man like Torode of Herm.

At sight of us, one came running down from Les Laches where he had gone at sound of the firing, and greeted us with amazement.

“Bon Gyu, Phil Carre!  And we thought you dead!  And Helier Le Marchant!  Where do you come from?  Where have you been all the time?”

“Prisoners of war.  We came across from France there.  There’s a boat in the harbour, Elie, that we borrowed and promised to return.  Will you see to it for us?” and we sped on, to meet many such welcomes, and staring eyes and gaping mouths, till we came to Beaumanoir, and walked into the kitchen.

“Oh, bon Dieu!” gasped Aunt Jeanne, and sat down suddenly on the green-bed at sight of us, believing we were spirits bearing her warning.

But I flung my arms round her neck and kissed her heartily, and asked only, “Carette?—­and my mother?”

And she said, “But they are well, mon gars,” and regarded me with somewhat less of doubt, but no less amazement.  And I kissed her again, and said, “Helier will tell you all about it, Aunt Jeanne,” and ran off across the knoll, past Vieux Port, to Belfontaine.