Gard's mind was in a tumult of revolt, but he sensibly drove his
feelings through his muscles to the blade of his oar, and said nothing.
Nance and Bernel were not likely to have gone to these lengths without
what seemed to them sufficient reason.
And he remembered Nance's trembling arm on the Coupee, and her agonies
of fear on his account, and so came by degrees to a certain acceptance
of their view of matters, and therewith a feeling of gratitude for their
labours and risks on his behalf. For he did not doubt that, should the
self-appointed administrators of justice learn who had baulked them of
their prey, they would wreak upon them some of the vengeance they had
intended for himself.
He saw that it was no light matter these two had undertaken, and as he
thought it over, and told the black welter under his oar what he thought
of these wild and hot-headed Sark men, his gratitude grew.
The thin orange sickle of a moon rose at last, high by reason of the
mists banked thick along the horizon, and afforded them a welcome
glimmer of light--barely a glimmer indeed, rather a mere thinning of the
clinging darkness, but enough for Bernel's tutored eye.
Pages:
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195