“Yes. All strapped and waiting. I had almost given you up.”
After a hasty meal we walked down by the road to the beach. Snape came with us, smiling vacuously as though he thought we were doing something comic, but couldn’t see the joke.
“The niggers can bring your kit down when they have stowed away the goods,” Edmund said.
It would be long before the moon, nearing its last quarter, rose. The only light was from a pale border of sky in the west under the straight edge of the great cloud mass that had overspread the firmament.
It had rained a little, and the roofs of cottages and loose stones on the beach gleamed feebly in the dark.
The sea broke dully on the shore, each wave drawing away from the shingle with a regretful sound. A dark blotch on the edge with two motionless figures beside it was the dinghy.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the faint light I could make out a dim nucleus of blackness against the dull pewter of the sea. This was all we could see of the Astarte. She looked a long way off in the gloom.
Presently Edmund said, “There comes the boat.”
I could see nothing, but very soon I heard the double-knock of oars in rowlocks. Then a moving blackness became visible with pale flashes from the blades of the oars.
The boat was much nearer than I had judged, for a few strokes brought her to the shore.