They took the rugs and provisions and, with brisk steps, went towards the descent leading to the Postern, at the extreme end of the island. Beyond this point the rocks were heaped up in formidable confusion: and the sea, though calm, lapped against them noisily.
"I hope your boat's there still!" said Véronique.
"Lean over a little, mother. You can see her down there, hanging in that crevice. We have only to work the pulley to get her afloat. Oh, it's all very well thought out, mother darling! We have nothing to fear . . . . Only . . . only . . ."
He had interrupted himself and was thinking.
"Really, for the leader of an expedition, it's rather humiliating, I admit. Just fancy, I've forgotten one thing: the oars. They are at the Priory."
"Why? I'll run to the Priory and I shall be back in ten minutes."
"And suppose they make their way out of the tunnel meanwhile?"
"Come, come, mother," he laughed, "you promised to have confidence. To get out of the tunnel would take them an hour's hard work; and we should hear them. Besides, what's the use of talking, mother? I'll be back at once."
"Oh," she thought, once more assailed by forebodings. "I had sworn not to leave him for a second!"
She followed him at a distance and stopped on a hillock between the Fairies' Dolmen and the Calvary of the Flowers. From here she could see the entrance to the tunnel and also saw her son jogging along the grass.
He first went into the basement of the Priory. But the oars seemed not to be there, for he came out almost at once and went to the main door, which he opened and disappeared from sight.
"One minute ought to be plenty for him," said Véronique to herself. "The oars must be in the hall . . . or at any rate on the ground-floor . . . . Say two minutes, at the outside."
She counted the seconds while watching the entrance to the tunnel.
But three minutes, four minutes, five minutes passed: and the front-door did not open again.
All Véronique's confidence vanished. She thought that it was mad of her not to have gone with her son and that she ought never to have submitted to a child's will. Without troubling about the tunnel or the dangers from that side, she began to walk towards the Priory. But she had the horrible feeling which people sometimes experience in dreams, when their legs seem paralysed and when they are unable to move, while the enemy advances to attack them.