“Are they fighting still at Dixcart?” I asked the Guernsey man.

“There was firing over yonder as we came along,” he said, pointing to the south-west.  “But it is finished now.”

“That was their chief attack.  The Senechal was shot at Eperquerie.  George Hamon is in charge at Dixcart.  We had better see how they have fared.”

“Allons!  I know Hamon.”

He left four of his comrades to guard the prisoners, and the rest of us set off by the way I had already passed twice that night, and came down over Hog’s Back into Dixcart.

They heard us coming, and George Hamon’s quick order to his men to stand by told me all was well, and a shout from myself set his mind at rest.

“Mon Dieu!  Phil, my boy, but I’m glad to see you safe and sound.  You’ve been on my mind since ever you left.  Who are—­Why—­Krok—­and Henri Tourtel?  Nom d’Gyu!  Where do you come from?”

“From Herm last.  We came across after those black devils.  Old Carre said they would take a bite at you as they passed.  We landed on the other side, and scrambled up a deuce of a cliff, and got to the tunnel there just in the nick of time.  Young Carre here was fighting a dozen of them and a carronade single-handed.”

“Bon Gyu, Phil!  We’re well through with it.  I oughtn’t to have let you go alone, but you were gone before I knew, and we had all we could manage here.  There are ten of them dead, and the rest are in our hands—­about twenty, I think—­and every man of them damaged.  They fought like devils.”

“Many of ours hurt?” I asked.

“We’ve not come out whole, but there’s no one killed.  Where’s your grandfather?”

“Wounded on Herm, but not seriously, M. Tourtel says.”

“Seen anything of Torode himself, Hamon?” asked Tourtel.

“Haven’t you got him?  Better look if he’s among our lot.  You would know him better than we would.  They’re all down yonder.  I must go and see after Amice Le Couteur.  We left him bleeding at Eperquerie.  Get anything you want from our people, Tourtel.  Krok, you come along with us;” and we set off over the hill past La Jaspellerie to get to La Vauroque.

“Phil, my son,” he said in my ear, “your work is cut out for you this night.  Are you good for it?”

“Yes.”

“For her sake, and your grandfather’s and your own, we must get him away at once—­now.  Tomorrow will be too late.  We don’t want him swinging in chains at Peter Port and all the old story raked up.  I wish to God you had killed him!—­Mon Dieu!  I forgot—­you’re you and he’s your father.  All the same, it would have saved much trouble.”

“What’s to be done with him?”

“He may be dead—­Mon Dieu!  I keep forgetting.  If he’s alive you will take him away in my boat—­”

“Where to?”

“You want him to live?”

“I don’t want to have killed him.”

“Then you must get him to a doctor.  You can’t go to Guernsey, so that means Jersey—­And afterwards—­I don’t know—­you’ll have to see what is best.  Wait a moment,”—­as we came to his house at La Vauroque.  “You’ll need money, and take what you can find to eat.  I’ve got a bottle or two of wine somewhere.  Before daylight you must be out of sight of Sercq.”