Harry Higginson, some time before the Captain’s yarn concluded, got up from his seat and went to the side of our cabin schoolroom and stood there, looking through a dead-light which was open to ventilate the room. He had remembered that it was about the time of the moon’s rising, and went to watch it come up. As our salt tute finished, Harry turned from his lookout, and, catching my eye, beckoned me to join him, and so I did. Coming beside him, Harry pointed and whispered—for the spell of the story still lingered over us, and no one seemed willing to break it roughly—
“What do you make of that, Bob?”
The big mellow moon was right before us, and, as one would say, about the height of a house, above the eastern horizon. Its light silvered a path on the sea to us—a path that was bounded on one side by the bold, dark rocks of the southern shore of the cape, and whose limit to our right was as undefined as the undulating waters it was lost in. Across the stretch of moonlight, and a half-mile from the wreck, I saw a lugger heading for a point that made the southern side of a snug little cove which afterwards got the name of “Smuggler’s Cove.” It was the sight of that boat at such a time coming towards the shore of our rough cape that caused Harry’s question to me.
“Singular—very singular,” I answered; “we must watch that craft.”
Mr Clare called to us, “Boys, what are you whispering about over there?”
We wanted to keep watch quietly by ourselves, on the discovery which promised some interest, so we did not answer, and Walter at that moment called on Mr Clare for his story.
“Well,” said Mr Clare, “I promised a story as the only way of getting Captain Mugford’s. I bought a great deal cheaply, and must pay now. In common honesty, therefore, I am bound to commence my story. I am afraid that I cannot make it as interesting as Captain Mugford’s, inasmuch as his was about the sea, while mine relates to the land. However, I will begin.”