Slowly the seconds ticked by. And it was all of an hour indeed before he saw them come out upon the shore and drag their boat into the water. McKay, throat curiously dry, deafening pulse within his ears, steadied himself; forced himself to stroll leisurely down to the landing.

“Everything all right?” he called as they were near. They did not answer; but as the skiff warped against the landing, they looked up at him and on their faces were stamped horror and a great wonder.

“They are dead, M’sieu,” whispered the innkeeper. “Polleau and his two sons—all dead!”

McKay’s heart gave a great leap, a swift faintness took him.

“Dead!” he cried. “What killed them?”

“What but the trees, M’sieu?” answered the old man, and McKay thought that his gaze dwelt upon him strangely. “The trees killed them. See—we went up the little path through the wood, and close to its end we found it blocked by fallen trees. The flies buzzed round those trees, M’sieu, so we searched there. They were under them, Polleau and his sons. A fir had fallen upon Polleau and had crushed in his chest. Another son we found beneath a fir and upturned birches. They had broken his back, and an eye had been torn out—but that was no new wound, the latter.”

He paused.

“It must have been a sudden wind,” said his man. “Yet I never knew of a wind such as that must have been. There were no trees down except those that lay upon them. And of those it was as though they had leaped out of the ground! Yes, as though they had leaped out of the ground upon them. Or it was as though giants had torn them out for clubs. They were not broken—their roots were bare—”

“But the other son—Polleau had two?” Try as he might, McKay could not keep the tremor out of his voice.

“Pierre,” said the old man, and again McKay felt that strange quality in his gaze. “He lay beneath a fir. His throat was torn out!”

“His throat torn out!” whispered McKay. His knife! The knife that had been slipped into his hand by the shadowy shapes!

“His throat was torn out,” repeated the innkeeper. “And in it still was the broken branch that had done it. A broken branch; M’sieu, pointed like a knife. It must have caught Pierre as the fir fell and ripping through his throat—been broken off as the tree crashed.”

McKay stood, mind whirling in wild conjecture. “You said—a broken branch?” McKay asked through lips gone white.

“A broken branch, M’sieu.” The innkeeper’s eyes searched him. “It was very plain—what it was that happened. Jacques.” He turned to his man, “Go up to the house.”

He watched until the man shuffled out of sight.