But there was no doubt as to their intentions. They were coming in.
"Sheer off there!" cried Gard.
Dead silence below. They had come in some doubt, but their doubts were
solved now, and there was no longer need for curbed tongues, though,
indeed, his hollow voice made some of them wonder if it was not a spirit
that spoke to them.
"It's him!" "The man himself!" "We have him!" "In now and get him!"--was
the burden of their growls, as they hung on their oars.
"See here, men!" said Gard, invisible even to Sark eyes, against the
solid darkness of the slope. "There has been trouble and loss enough
over this matter already, and none of it my making. Do you hear? I say
again--none of it my making. If you attempt to come ashore there will be
more trouble, and this time it will be of my making. Keep back!"--as an
impulsive one gave a tug at his oar. "If you force me to fire, your
blood be on your own heads. I give you fair warning."
Growls from the boat carried up to him an impression of mixed doubt and
discomfort--ultimate disbelief in his possession of arms, an energetic
oath or two, and another creak of the oar.
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