watched that boat with interest and wonder.

Presently, just as the sun was setting, and shadows crossed the water,

the sail (which had been gleaming like a candle-flame against the haze

and upon the glaze) flickered and fell, and the bows swung round, and

her figure was drawn upon the tideway. She was now within half a mile

of M. Jalais' house, and Scudamore, though longing for a spy-glass, was

able to make out a good deal without one. He saw that she was an

English pilot-boat, undecked, but fitted with a cuddy forward, rigged

luggerwise, and built for speed, yet fit to encounter almost any Channel

surges. She was light in the water, and bore little except ballast. He

could not be sure at that distance, but he thought that the sailors must

be Englishmen, especially the man at the helm, who was beyond reasonable

doubt the captain.

Then two long sweeps were manned amidship, with two sturdy fellows to

tug at each; and the quiet evening air led through the soft rehearsal of

the water to its banks the creak of tough ash thole-pins, and the groan

of gunwale, and the splash of oars, and even a sound of human staple,

such as is accepted by the civilized world as our national diapason.

The captive Scuddy, who observed all this, was thoroughly puzzled at

that last turn. Though the craft was visibly English, the crew might

still have been doubtful, if they had held their tongues, or kept them

in submission. But that word stamped them, or at any rate the one who

had been struck in the breast by the heavy timber, as of genuine British

birth. Yet there was no sign that these men were prisoners, or acting by

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