ul flash from the light at
the entrance to the tidal way. Once more he strained his ears. This time
there was no doubt about it. He heard the sound of fishermen's voices.
He heard one of them say distinctly:

"Hard aport, Dave lad! That's Fentolin's light. Keep her out a bit.
Steady, lad!"

Through a rift in the mist, he caught a glimpse of the brown sail of a
fishing-boat, dangerously near the land. He watched it alter its course
slightly and pass on. Then again there was silence. He undressed slowly
and went to bed.

Later on he woke with a start and sat up in bed, listening intently,
listening for he knew not what. Except for the backward scream of
the pebbles, dragged down every few seconds by the receding waves, an
unbroken silence seemed to prevail. He struck a match and looked at his
watch. It was exactly three o'clock. He got out of bed. He was a man
in perfect health, ignorant of the meaning of nerves, a man of proved
courage. Yet he was conscious that his pulses were beating with absurd
rapidity. A new feeling seemed to possess him. He could almost have
declared that he was afraid. What sound had awakened him? He had no
idea, yet he seemed to have a distinct and absolute conviction that
it had been a real sound and no dream. He drew aside the curtains and
looked out of the window. The mist now seemed to have become almost a
fog, to have closed in upon sea and land. There was nothing whatever
to be seen. As he stood there for a moment, listening, his face became
moist with the drifting vapour. Suddenly upon the beach he saw what at
first he imagined must be an optical illusion--a long shaft of light,
invisible in itself except that it seemed to slightly change the density
of the mist. He threw on an overcoat over his pyjamas, thrust on his
slippers, and taking up his own electric torch, hastily descended the
stairs. He opened the front door and stepped out on to the beach. He
stood in the very place where the light had seemed to be, and looked
inland. There was no sign of any human person, not a sound except the
falling of the sea upon the pebbly beach. He raised his voice and called
out. Somehow or other, speech seemed to be a relief.

"Hullo!"

There was no response. He tried again.

"Is any one there?"

Still no answer. He watched the veiled light from the harbour appear and
disappear. It threw no shadow of illumination upon the spot to which
he had gazed from his window. One window at St. David's H