Nature, indeed, seemed preternaturally quiet, as though
exhausted with her previous violence or desirous of wiping out the
remembrance of it; just as small humanity after an outbreak endeavours
at times to purge the memory of its offence by display of unusual
amiability and sweetness.
Eager to welcome his confidently expected visitors, Gard crept along the
ridge as soon as it was dark, and posted himself on the point which, in
the daylight, commanded the passage from Breniere.
And he sat there so long--so long after his hopes and wishes had flown
over to Sark and hurried Bernel and Nance into a boat and landed them on
L'Etat--that the night seemed running out, and he began to fear they
were not coming, after all.
In the troubled darkness of the Race, he caught gleams at times which
might be oar-blades or might be only the upfling from the perils below.
The tide was ebbing, and soon the black fangs with which it was strewn
would be showing.
At times he convinced himself that the brief gleams moved; but when, to
ease his eyes of the intolerable strain, he looked up at the stars, it
seemed to him that they moved also, and so he could not be sure.
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