The passage in the rock which led up to the gate was a continuation of the natural cleft which formed the chamber.  The slope of the rocks left the gateway no more than eight or nine feet high, though, at the highest point inside, the roof of the chamber was perhaps twenty feet above the floor.  The same slope continued outside, so that the side walls of the passage were some eight or nine feet high, and fell almost straight to the rock flooring.  Both cleft and passage were made, I think, like the clefts and caves on Sercq, by the decay of a softer vein of rock in the harder granite, so leaving, in course of time, a straight cleavage, which among the higher rocks formed the chamber, and on the lower slope formed the passage up to it.

My very simple plan was to lie in wait, crouched flat upon the top wall of the passage close to the gateway, and from there to spring down upon the unsuspecting warder, whoever it might be—­Torode, or his wife, or any other.  And by such unlooked-for attack I hoped to win the day, even though it should be Torode himself who came.  But I did not believe it would be Torode, for he had his hands full down below, and Carette was to him only a very secondary matter.

I half hoped it might be young Torode, for the hurling of my hatred on him would have been grateful to me.  But I thought it would be the mother, and in that case, though I would use no more violence than might be necessary, nothing should keep me from Carette.

I lay flat on the rough rock wall and waited.  “Carette!” I whispered.

“Phil!”

“I am here just above you, dearest.  When you hear them coming, be ready.”

The thin darkness was becoming gray.  In the sky up above, little clouds were forming out of the shadows, and presently they were flecked with pink, and all reached out towards the rising sun.  The rocks below me began to show their heads.  It was desperately hard work waiting.  I hungered anxiously for someone to come and let me be doing.

What if they left her till the very last, and only came up, several of them, to hurry her on board the schooner?  The possibility of that chilled me more than the morning dews.  My face pinched with anxiety in accord with my heart.  I felt grim and hard and fit for desperate deeds.

And now it was quite light, and I could see across the lower slope of rocks to St. Sampson’s harbour and the flat lands beyond it.

Would they never come?  Hell is surely an everlasting waiting for something that never comes.

I was growing sick with anxiety when at last the blessed sound of footsteps on the rocky path came to me, and in a moment I was Phil Carre again, and Carette Le Marchant, the dearest and sweetest girl in all the world, was locked behind iron bars just below me, and I was going to release her or die for it.

But my heart gave a triumphant jump, and there was no need to think of death, for the coming one was a woman, and she came up the ascent with bent head and carried food in her hands.