Maurice Leblanc

“ Francois and Stephane Maroux had taken to flight.
Honorine muttered between her teeth:
“Yes, yes, that's it: he understands how to work the boat.”
Veronique perhaps felt a certain relief at knowing that the boy had gone and that she would not see him again. But Honorine, seized with a renewed fear, exclaimed:
“Then... then what are we to do?”
“You must leave at once, Ma'me Honorine. The boats are ready... everybody's packing up. There'll be no one in the village by eleven o'clock.” ”

“ The sea never gives up its dead at Sarek: it keeps them. It has its coffins all ready: thousands and thousands of hidden coffins.... Oh, my head is bursting!... I shall go mad... mad like Francois, my poor Francois!”
Veronique did not answer. She was grey in the face. With clutching fingers she clung to the balcony, gazing downwards as one gazes into an abyss into which one is about to fling oneself. What would her son do? Would he save those people, whose shouts of distress now reached her ears, would he save them without delay? One may have fits of madness ”

“ Veronique protested angrily; but Honorine repeated:
“With Francois, I tell you, and with M. Stephane. And as soon as possible. I also want to go... and to take you with me... and Francois too. There is death in the island. Death Is the master here. We must leave Sarek. We shall all go.”
Veronique did not wish to thwart her. But at nine o'clock hurried steps were heard outside. It was Correjou, coming from the village. On reaching the door he shouted:
“They've stolen your motor-boat, Ma'me Honorine! She's disappeared!” ”

“ The motor-boat was drifting forward down below, with the two marksmen at their posts, holding their guns ready for murder.
The survivors fled. Two of them hung back in the rear.
These two were aimed at. Their heads disappeared from view.
“But look at them!” Honorine said, explosively, in a hoarse voice. “They're hunting them down! They're killing them like garnet... Oh, the poor people of Sarek!...”
Another shot. Another black speck vanished.
Veronique was writhing in despair. She shook the rails of the balcony, as she might have shaken the bars of a cage in which she was imprisoned. ”

“ She ended by dozing off and was wakened by the Breton woman, who said to her, in one of those accesses of fever in which the brain still retains a certain lucidity:
“Francois must be hiding... and M. Stephane too... The island has safe hiding-places, which Maguennoc showed them. We shan't see them, therefore; and no one will know anything about them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite, do listen to me. To-morrow, when everybody has left Sarek and when we two are alone, I shall blow the signal with my horn and he will come here.”
Veronique was horrified:
“But I don't want to see him!” ”

“ Her son killing her father at the moment when, after all these years of separation and sorrow, she was on the point of embracing them both and living with them in sweet and homely intimacy! Her son a murderer! ”

“ They are heavy boats: and there's a wider passage at the point.”
The next moment, Veronique saw the bow of a boat project beyond the end of the headland. The boat lay low in the water, being very heavily laden, crammed with crates and parcels on which women and children were seated. Four men were rowing lustily.
“That's Correjou's,” said Honorine, who had left her bed, half-dressed. “And there's the other: look.”
The second boat came into view, equally burdened. Only three men were rowing, with a woman to help them. ”