"Look, mother!" he cried suddenly. "They are putting out a boat."
By the faint starlight they could see in the boat seven men, one of whom steered while the rest rowed. Their garb was that of ordinary French seamen, but Mrs. Breakspear noticed with surprise that each was armed with cutlass and pistol.
"Why are they not coming to the harbour?" asked Idris, a question which found an echo in his mother's mind.
The boat glided smoothly on, and finally vanished behind the cliffs to the east of the town.
"I wonder whether old Baptiste is watching them?" said Idris. "He said that the men in the yacht were smugglers, and that they would come ashore this evening. And sure enough they've come."
"If the men in that boat are smugglers, don't you think, Idie, that they would wait till it is much darker?"
Idris was forced to admit the reasonableness of this remark.
"Why are they all wearing swords? Perhaps they are Vikings, after all?" he went on, loth to believe that such heroes had vanished from the earth.
His mother shook her head in mild protest, not knowing that there was a good deal of latter-day Vikingism in the enterprise that was taking these seven men ashore.