d, my good fellows--come along at your
pleasure!"

The rowers, in truth did not appear to be at all apprehensive of danger;
and the next moment the keel of the boat was heard grinding upon the
sand of the beach.

"_Por Dios_!" muttered the sentinel in a low voice; "not a bale of
goods! It is possible after all, they are not smugglers!"

Three men were in the boat, who did not appear to take those precautions
which smugglers would have done. They made no particular noise, but, on
the other hand, they did not observe any exact silence. Moreover their
costume was not that ordinarily worn by the regular _contrabandista_.

"Who the devil can they be?" asked Pepe of himself.

The coast-guard lay concealed behind some tufts of withered grass that
formed a border along the crest of the slope. Through these he could
observe the movements of the three men in the boat.

At an order from the one who sat in the stern sheets, the other two
leaped ashore, as if with the design of reconnoitring the ground. He
who issued the order, and who appeared to be the chief of the party,
remained seated in the boat.

Pepe was for a moment undecided whether he should permit the two to pass
him on the road; but the view of the boat, left in charge of a single
man, soon fixed his resolution.

He kept his place, therefore, motionless as ever, scarce allowing
himself to breathe, until the two men arrived below him, and only a few
feet from the spot where he was lying.

Each was armed with a long Catalonian knife, and Pepe could see that the
costume which both wore was that of the Spanish privateers of the time--
a sort of mixture of the uniform of the royal navy of Spain, and that of
the merchant service; but he could not see their faces, hid as they were
under the slouched Basque bonnet.

All at once the two men halted. A piece of rock, detached by the knees
of the coast-guard, had glided down the slope and fallen near their
feet.

"Did you hear anything?" hastily asked one.

"No; did you?"

"I thought I heard something falling from above there," replied the
first speaker; pointing upward to the spot where Pepe was concealed.

"Bah! it was some mouse running into its hole."

"If this slope wasn't so infernally steep, I'd climb up and see," said
the first.

"I tell you we have nothing to fear," rejoined the second; "the night is
as black as a pot of pitch, and besides--the _other_, hasn't he assured
us that he will answer fo