The west coast of Sark and Brecqhou Frontispiece
THE CREUX ROAD Facing Page 5
HAVRE GOSSELIN 19
TINTAGEU 47
THE LADY GROTTO 65
A QUIET LANE 117
THE EPERQUERIE 132
IN THE CLEFT OF A ROCK 197
BELOW BEAUMANOIR 226
BRECQHOU FROM THE SOUTH 273
THE COUPEE 297
THE CHASM OF THE BOUTIQUES 308
THE WATER CAVE 321
EPERQUERIE BAY 349
DIXCART BAY 352
CREUX TUNNEL 355

CHAPTER I

HOW PAUL MARTEL FELL OUT WITH SERCQ

To give you a clear understanding of matters I must begin at the beginning and set things down in their proper order, though, as you will see, that was not by any means the way in which I myself came to learn them.

For my mother and my grandfather were not given to overmuch talk at the best of times, and all my boyish questionings concerning my father left me only the bare knowledge that, like many another Island man in those times—­ay, and in all times—­he had gone down to the sea and had never returned therefrom.

That was too common a thing to require any explanation, and it was not till long afterwards, when I was a grown man, and so many other strange things had happened that it was necessary, or at all events seemly, that I should know all about my father, that George Hamon, under the compulsion of a very strange and unexpected happening, told me all he knew of the matter.

This, then, that I tell you now is the picture wrought into my own mind by what I gathered from him and from others, regarding events which took place when I was close upon three years old.

And first, let me say that I hold myself a Sercq man born and bred, in spite of the fact that—­well, you will come to that presently.  And I count our little isle of Sercq the very fairest spot on earth, and in that I am not alone.  The three years I spent on ships trading legitimately to the West Indies and Canada and the Mediterranean made me familiar with many notable places, but never have I seen one to equal this little pearl of all islands.

You will say that, being a Sercq man, that is quite how I ought to feel about my own Island.  And that is true, but, apart from the fact that I have lived there the greater part of my life, and loved there, and suffered there, and enjoyed there greater happiness than comes to all men, and that therefore Sercq is to me what no other land ever could be,—­apart from all that, I hold, and always shall hold, that in the matter of natural beauty, visible to all seeing eyes, our little Island holds her own against the world.