For my part, I felt that my sudden chilly fit was a warning that there was trouble coming. I can't say why I felt that, but I felt it; and I believe that Marah in some way felt it, too. Almost the last thing I saw that night, as I made up my bed under the half-deck among a few sacks and bolts of canvas, was Marah scowling and muttering, as though uneasy, at the foot of the foremast, from which he watched the other luggers as they worked out of the river ahead of us.
"He, too, feels uneasy," I said to myself.
Then I fell into a troubled doze, full of dreams of sea-monsters, which flapped and screamed at me from the foam of the breaking seas.
I was not called for a watch that night. In the early morning, between one and two o'clock, I was awakened by a feeling that something was about to happen. I sat up, and then crept out on to the deck, and there, sure enough, something was about to happen. Our sails were down, we were hardly moving through the water, the water gurgled and plowtered under our keel, there was a light mist fast fading before the wind. It was not very dark, in fact it was almost twilight. One or two stars were shining; there were clouds slowly moving over them; but the sky astern of us was grey and faint yellow, and the land, the Kentish coast, lay clear before us, with the nose of Dungeness away on our port bow. It was all very still and beautiful. The seamen moved to and fro about the lugger. Dew dripped from our rigging; the decks were wet with dew, the drops pattered down whenever the lugger rolled. The other boats lay near us, both of them to starboard. Their sails were doused in masses under the mast. I could see men moving about; I could hear the creaking of the blocks, as the light roll drew a rope over a sheave.
The boats were not very close to the shore; but it was so still, so very peaceful, that we could hear the waves breaking on the beach with a noise of hushing and of slipping shingle, as each wave passed with a hiss to slither back in a rush of foam broken by tiny stones. A man in the bows of the middle lugger showed a red lantern, and then doused it below the half-deck. He showed it three times; and at the third showing, we all turned to the shore, to see what signal the red light would bring. The shore was open before us. In the rapidly growing light, we could make out a good deal of the lie of the land. From the northern end of the beach an answering red light flashed; and then, nearer to us, a dark body was seen for a moment, kindling two green fires at a little distance from each other. Our men were not given to nervousness, they were rough, tough sailors; but they were all relieved when our signals were answered.
"It's them," they said. "It's all right. Up with the foresail. We must get the stuff ashore. It'll be dawn in a few minutes, and then we shall have the country on us."
"Heave ahead, boys!" cried one of the men in the next lugger as she drove past us to the shore.
"Ay! Heave ahead," said Marah, eyeing the coast.
He took the tiller as the lugger gathered way under her hoisted foresail. While we slipped nearer to the white line of the breakers along the sand, he muttered under his breath (I was standing just beside him) in a way which frightened me.
"I dunno," he said aloud. "But I've a feeling that there's going to be trouble. I never liked this job. Here it is, almost daylight, and not an ounce of stuff ashore. I'd never have come this trip if the freights hadn't been so good. Here, you," he cried suddenly to one of the men. "Don't you pass the gaskets. You'll furl no sails till you're home, my son. Pass the halliards along so that you can hoist in a jiffy." Then he hailed the other luggers. "Ahoy there!" he called. "You mind your eyes for trouble."