"I could not tell, citoyen," said the sergeant; "they went straight down the cliff first, then disappeared behind some boulders.""Hush! what was that?"
All three men listened attentively. In the far, very far distance, could be heard faintly echoing and already dying away, the quick, sharp splash of half a dozen oars. Chauvelin took out his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"The schooner's boat!" was all he gasped.
Evidently Armand St. Just and his three companions had managed to creep along the side of the cliffs, whilst the men, like true soldiers of the well-drilled Republican army, had with blind obedience, and in fear of their own lives, implicitly obeyed Chauvelin's orders--to wait for the tall Englishman, who was the important capture.
They had no doubt reached one of the creeks which jut far out to see on this coast at intervals; behind this, the boat of the DAYDREAM must have been on the lookout for them, and they were by now safely on board the British schooner.
As if to confirm this last supposition, the dull boom of a gun was heard from out at sea.
