The slow-thoughted, simple-minded peasants looked after her, wondering.  She had nearly reached the top, when, silhouetted against the sky on the crest of the hill, appeared the figure of a man on horse-back, his Breton tunic and long hat-ribbons flying loose in the wind, as he reined in his chafing steed.  He rose a moment in his stirrups, pointed out to sea with his whip, and shouted something inaudible:  at the same instant his horse shied violently, as it seemed, at some object by the roadside, and threw his rider to the ground.

The man, the bringer of tidings, lay motionless in the road, the horse galloped wildly on:  the dumb girl stood, half way up the hill:  the dumb girl, who alone had heard the message.  The next moment she threw her arms convulsively above her head, turned towards the group below, and cried in a loud, clear voice, “Le Geant brule!”

The words fell on the ears of the listening crowd as if with an electric shock.  As they repeated them to each other with fear and amazement, and scattered hither and thither to saddle a horse, or to catch the runaway steed, that they might carry the news in time over the two miles that lay between them and the harbour, the fact that the dumb had spoken, seemed for the moment hardly noticed by them.  For might not the fishing-fleet even now be rounding the point, with darkness coming on, and the misleading light burning on the giant rock to lure them to destruction?  A light which, as they knew too well, was not visible from the harbour, and which might be shewing its fatal signal unguessed the whole night through, unless as now, by favour of the saints, and doubtless by the quick eyes of some fisherman of the neighbouring village, who had chanced to be far enough out to sea at the time, it were perceived before darkness should fall.

The girl turned back again, and went up to the top of the hill to tend the fallen rider.  The sun was sinking, and threw the shadow of the menhir, enlarged to a monstrous size, across her path.  A few yards further on lay the senseless form of the Breton horseman, and it was clear to Annette that Jean of Kerdual had purposely stayed the rider by throwing the shadow across the road to startle his horse.

But a new exhilaration had taken possession of Annette’s whole body and mind.  She feared the menhir no longer:  its power over her was gone.  She kept repeating the words that had come to her at the crisis, the first she had spoken articulately all her life, “Le Geant brule—­Le Geant brule,” with a confidence in herself and the future, which was like new wine to her.  The fleet would come safe home now, and by her means:  for the Saints had helped her:  the Saints were on her side.

PART II.