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Updated: May 7, 2025
If the awful import of that little word! if there was if there could be, any sense in George Hamon's words, the puzzle of Torode's strange treatment of me was explained. I saw that clearly enough, but yet the whole matter held no sense of reality to me. It was all as obscure and shadowy as the dim cross-lights in which we sat, and ate because we were starving.
They were discussing the matter with heat, and I could hear young Torode's voice above the rest urging them forward and girding at their lack of courage. Their broken growls came back to me also. "Girl's yours, 'tis for you to follow her." "Fools!" said Torode. "If he escapes, your necks are in the noose." "He's down cliff, and she ran on." "We'd have seen him fall.
Why, of all our crew, I live, I do not know." "It is the strongest proof we have that what you tell me is untrue." "And yet I tell it at risk of more than my life, monsieur. Torode's last words to me were that if I opened my mouth he would smite my kin in Sercq till not one was left."
We pressed on without a halt, for every moment was of importance, and for the most part we went in silence. For myself, I was already, in my thoughts, clasping my mother and Carette in my arms once more, and then speeding across to Peter Port to rouse them there with the news of Torode's murderous treachery. Le Marchant was the more practical man of the two.
There was excited discussion among his followers, the necessity of securing the wounded man evidently prompting them to an attempt, but no man showing himself desirous of first honours. But presently I heard a shuffling approach along the path, hands and knees evidently, and Torode's body was pulled slowly out of my sight.
I asked hastily, but not without hope, from the lack of signs of disturbance. "Where is she?" he asked feebly, with a touch of impatience. "Is she not here?" "She went out. I thought I heard a shot. Where is she?" "I will go and see," and I ran out again, still not unhopeful. It might be that Krok had seen Torode's ship and his fears for Carette had magnified matters.
Of the first issue, however, I had small doubts in view of Torode's long guns and merciless methods, and though I could see nothing, with our own experiences red in my mind, I could still follow what happened.
And I think it like enough that you, who have read it all in the order in which I have written it, may long since have guessed that thing which had puzzled me so much Torode's strange sparing of my life when he murdered all my comrades.
But, if they all deemed me dead, as by this time I feared they must, though, indeed, they had refused to do so before, my time might already be past, and that which I cherished as hope might be even now but dead ashes. At times I wondered if Jean Le Marchant had not had his suspicions of Torode's treacheries, and how he would regard the young Torode as suitor for Carette in that case.
He had got the walls of a small cabin about half-way up, and had collected drift timber enough to roof it and to spare. I told him how things stood, put in a few hours' work with him on the house, and got back to Rozel. "Has he spoken?" was the doctor's first question next day. "Not a word." "Ah!" with a weighty nod, and he lifted Torode's left hand, and when he let it go it fell limply.
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