.

It was a long time before they heard the laboured sounds of Trevna's
coming. But at last his legs wriggled out, then his body, then with a
lurch he hauled up to the mouth of the tunnel that which he had brought
with him. And at sight of it they all started back against the sides of
the well, with various cries but equal amazement.

"O mon Gyu!" cried Peter Vaudin.

"Thousand devils!" cried John Drillot.

"Heavens an' earth!" gasped Evan Morgan.

John Trevna gazed open-mouthed, for he had little breath left in him.

And from the black mouth of the tunnel the strange and terrible figure
of the dead man looked quietly down at them and filled them with
amazement.

Trevna's heavy charge had blown in the top of the skull. The shrunken
yellow face wore the gaunt eager look of one who had died the slow death
of starvation. It seemed to be trying to get at them to bite and rend
them.

Peter Vaudin was the first to climb the wall behind him, but the rest
were close at his heels, and hustled him up through the crack under the
slab.

Peter struck down towards the landing-place the moment he had wriggled
through.

"Stop then, Peter," called John Drillot, in a low insistent voice, lest
that dreadful thing below should hear him.

"Not me! I've had enough, John Drillot. That is not what we came for ...
and I had hold of its leg last night," and he shivered at the
recollection, and the thought that it might have turned on him and
gripped him with its grisly hands.

"I don't know what it is," began John Drillot, "but--"

"It's the man I shot inside there," said Trevna.

"That man hass peen det a hundert years," said Morgan.

"All the same, he was running about last night," said Peter, "and I had
hold of his leg"--with another shiver.

"He's dead enough now, anyway," said Drillot.

"Eh b'en! leave him where he is, and let's get away. I've heard say
there were ghosts on L'Etat, and now I know it. No good comes of
meddling with these things."

"But we ought to take him with us."

"Take him with us!" almost shrieked Peter. "And let him loose on Sark!
Why then?"

"Whatever he was last night, he's dead enough now.... Will you help me
to get him up, John Trevna?"

"Iss, sure! He's got my belt."

"Not in my boat, John Drillot," cried Peter. "Not in my boat. I've had
enough of him, pardi!" and he set off at speed for the boat.

"Don't be a fool, Peter. You, Evan Morgan, run down and stop him going.
Come on, John