The émigré was just coaxing Anne to finish a slice of bread at which he was languidly nibbling when François bent forward from the tiller and said a couple of words: "The Blues!" La Vireville followed his pointing finger. On the low cliff a little ahead of them, which they would shortly pass to port, was a small wooden building, and, pacing up and down in front of it, a man in uniform with a musket over his shoulder. The Chouan and the fisherman looked at one another. They could not hope, at so short a distance, to escape notice, unless the sentry were blind; the question was whether, in view of the truce, he would or would not consider their craft suspicious. On their present course every moment brought them nearer to the headland, and consequently within better range, while if they tacked and stood out to sea they ran the chance both of attracting more attention and of giving evidence of an uneasy conscience. "We had better continue as we are, eh?" remarked La Vireville. Francois nodded. "I am going to put you back in the bows, Anne," said the émigré. "It is warmer there." And, catching him up, he went forward with him over the uneven stone ballast and deposited him as low as possible among the lobster-pots and nets. The coast was hidden from his own view by the lug-sail, and he could not see what was passing there. The _Marie-François_ held on at a good speed. "He has seen us," observed François after a moment. A sort of smile flickered over his face, and he pulled the mainsheet a little tighter round the thwart. La Vireville came back and stood by the mast. They were now abreast of the guardhouse. "He has roused the others," said François grimly. "He was not blind, that parishioner, worse luck!" And with the words came the sound of a shout from the cliff, then of a shot. A bullet splashed into their wake a yard or so behind them. Fortuné de la Vireville shrugged his shoulders. They were very obviously not out of range. But neither he nor the Norman had any impulse to bring to, which was evidently the course intimated by the bullet. "So much for the truce!" he said aloud, and as the words left his mouth came a second and more menacing crackle from the cliff. At the same moment La Vireville was conscious of a violent blow on the side of the head--so violent, indeed, that it threw him off his balance. He had a lightning impression, compound of resentment and surprise, that the yard had been hit and had fallen on him. And then, suddenly, in the midst of the sunshine, it was night. . . . (2)