hness would take
care of herself; she would sleep with Suzette. Catch her lying out on
the bare ground like her master when she could curl herself up at the
foot of two fuzzy blankets in a tiny room next to the warm kitchen.

* * * * *

It was after midnight when Pierre crawled over to me again, and pointed
to a black patch of mussel rocks below.

"There are the two men Gaston saw," he whispered. "They are waiting to
signal the channel to their comrades."

I strained my eyes in the direction he indicated.

"I cannot see," I confessed.

"Here, take the glass," said he. "Those two humps behind the big one are
the backs of men. They have a lantern well hidden--you can see its glow
when the glass is steady."

I could see it all quite clearly now, and occasionally one of the humps
lift a head cautiously above the rock.

"She must be lying off close by," muttered Pierre, hoarse with
excitement. Again he hurriedly ran his hand over the breech of my
carbine. "The trigger pulls light," he breathed. "Courage, monsieur! We
have not long to wait now." And again he was gone.

I felt like a hired assassin weakening on the verge of a crime. The next
instant I saw the lantern hidden on the mussel rocks raised and lowered
thrice.

It was the signal!

Again all was darkness save the gleaming line of surf. My heart thumped
in my ears. Ten minutes passed; then again the lantern was raised, the
figures of the two men standing in silhouette against its steady rays.

I saw now a small sloop rear itself from the breakers, a short, squat
little craft with a ghostly sail and a flapping jib. On she came,
leaping and dropping broadside among the combers. The lantern now shone
as clearly as a beacon. A sea broke over the sloop, but she staggered up
bravely, and with a plunge was swept nearer and nearer the jagged point
of rocks awash with spume. Braced against the tiller was a man in
drenched tarpaulins; two other men were holding on to the shrouds like
grim death. On the narrow deck between them I made out a bale-like
bundle wrapped in tarpaulin and heavily roped, ready to be cast ashore.

A moment more, and the sloop would be on the rocks; yet not a sound came
from the thicket. The suspense was sickening. I had once experienced
buck-fever, but it was nothing compared to this. The short carbine began
to jump viciously under my grip.

The sloop was nearly on the rocks! At that critical moment overboar