The Newhaven boat lay in comparatively smooth water, on the lee side of the pier.
Our adventurers got into her, stepped the mast, set a small sail, and ran out! Sandy Liston held the sheet, passed once round the belaying-pin, and whenever a larger wave than usual came at them, he slacked the sheet, and the boat, losing her way, rose gently, like a cork, upon seas that had seemed about to swallow her.
But seen from the shore it was enough to make the most experienced wince; so completely was this wooden shell lost to sight, as she descended from a wave, that each time her reappearance seemed a return from the dead.
The weather was misty—the boat was soon lost sight of; the story remains ashore.
CHAPTER XIV.
IT was an hour later; the natives of the New Town had left the pier, and were about their own doors, when three Buckhaven fishermen came slowly up from the pier; these men had arrived in one of their large fishing-boats, which defy all weather.
The men came slowly up; their petticoat trousers were drenched, and their neck-handkerchiefs and hair were wet with spray.
At the foot of the New Town they stood still and whispered to each other.
There was something about these men that drew the eye of Newhaven upon them.