When it was dark, Vorski gave the signal for departure.
"Then you're still determined?" asked Otto, in a voice betraying a certain hostility.
"More so than ever. What's your reason for asking?"
"Nothing . . . . But, all the same . . ."
"Well, I may as well out with it, we only half like the job."
"You don't mean to say so! And you only discover it now, my man, after stringing up the sisters Archignat and treating it as a lark!"
"I was drunk that day. You made us drink."
"Well, get boozed if you want to, old cock. Here, take the brandy-bottle. Fill your flask and shut up . . . . Conrad, is the stretcher ready?"
"A polite attention for you, my dear . . . . Two old stilts of your brat's, fastened together with straps . . . . It's very practical and comfortable."
At half-past eight, the grim procession set out, with Vorski at the head, carrying a lantern. The accomplices followed with the litter.
The clouds which had been threatening all the afternoon had now gathered and were rolling, thick and black, over the island. The night was falling swiftly. A stormy wind was blowing and made the candle flicker in the lantern.
"Brrrr!" muttered Vorski. "Dismal work! A regular Golgotha evening."
He swerved and grunted at the sight of a little black shape bounding along by his side:
"What's that? Look. It's a dog, isn't it?"
"Oh, of course, the famous All's Well! The brute's come in the nick of time. Everything's going jolly well! Just wait a bit, you mangy beast!"
He aimed a kick at the dog. All's Well avoided it and keeping out of reach, continued to accompany the procession, giving a muffled bark at intervals.
It was a rough ascent; and every moment one of the three men, leaving the invisible path that skirted the grass in front of the house and led to the open space by the Fairies' Dolmen, tripped in the brambles or in the runners of ivy.
"Halt!" Vorski commanded. "Stop and take breath, my lads. Otto, hand us your flask. My heart's turning upside down."
"Your turn, Otto . . . . What, don't you want to? What's the matter with you?"
"I'm thinking that there are people on the island who are looking for us."
"And suppose they come by boat and climb that path in the cliffs which the woman and the boy were trying to escape by this morning, the path we found?"