Things were taking on an ugly look for me. Those men were growing ten times more savage since the grave had been discovered; they were in a heat of excitement. In their movements, in their faces, in their words, a violent ferocity was evident. They had made their bargain with me, but would they keep it once they had the plan in their hands? I had no doubt their arrangements were made for an instant departure from the islands. One could not be a day upon Tresco without hearing some hint of the luggers which did a great smuggling trade between Scilly and the port of Roscoff in Brittany. No doubt Glen and Tortue had made their account with one of these to carry them into France. I was the more sure of this when Blads returned. I could not but think he had been sent so that a boat might be ready, and it seemed unlikely they would leave me alive behind them when the mere scruple of a bargain only held their hands. We were now come to the grave. It had a headstone but no slab to cover it; only a boulder from the seashore by which Adam had lived was with a pretty fancy imposed upon the mound. Roper hung the lantern on to a knob of the headstone; and already Glen had snatched the pick and thrust it under the boulder. It needed but one heave upon the pick, and the boulder tottered and rolled from the grave with a crash. It stopped quite close to my feet. I looked at it, then I looked at the grave, and from the grave to the sailors. But they had noticed nothing; they were already digging furiously at the grave. In their excitement they had noticed nothing; even Tortue was kneeling in the lantern-light watching the gleam of the spades, sensible of nothing but that each shovelful cast up on the side brought them by a shovelful nearer to their prize. And they dug with such furious speed, taking each his turn, each anticipating his turn! For before one man had stepped, dripping with sweat from the trench, another had leaped in, and the spade fell from one man's grasp into the palm of another. Once a spade jarred upon a piece of rock, and the man who drove it into the earth cursed. I had a sudden flutter of hope that the spade was broken, and that by so much the issue would be delayed, but the digger resumed his work. I looked over to St. Mary's, but the town was quiet; one light gleamed, it was only the light at the head of the jetty. And even in Tresco such infinitesimal chance of interruption as there had ever been had disappeared. For the men had ceased even from their oaths. There was not even a whisper to be shared amongst them; there was no sound but the laboured sound of their breathing. They worked in silence.