"Brutes!" gasped the boy. "But what's the meaning of it all?"
Reuben shrugged till his oil-skins crackled.
"No sayin, sir. Summat's up; summat big. Diamond wanted the coast cleared; and he's cleared it—by thunder he has! Swep it up bald as the back o my hand."
The mist blew away faint and thin. Through it the bowed crest-line of a cliff loomed up to larboard.
"There's the last o the Seven Sisters!" said Reuben. "Birling Gap's just here along." He moved among his men. "Stations, boys. It's here or hereabouts…."
"Hush!" whispered Kit.
CHAPTER VI
THE LUGGER KITE
I
"D'you hear anything, sir?"