he's come ashore in a boat,' said
Archie. 'He's maybe a foreigner.' But I pointed out that, from the
tracks which Archie himself had found, the man must have come overland
down the cliffs. Tam was clear he was a madman, and was for
withdrawing promptly from the whole business.

But some spell kept our feet tied there in that silent world of sand
and moon and sea. I remember looking back and seeing the solemn,
frowning faces of the cliffs, and feeling somehow shut in with this
unknown being in a strange union. What kind of errand had brought this
interloper into our territory? For a wonder I was less afraid than
curious. I wanted to get to the heart of the matter, and to discover
what the man was up to with his fire and his circles.

The same thought must have been in Archie's head, for he dropped on his
belly and began to crawl softly seawards. I followed, and Tam, with
sundry complaints, crept after my heels. Between the cliffs and the
fire lay some sixty yards of debris and boulders above the level of all
but the high spring tides. Beyond lay a string of seaweedy pools and
then the hard sands of the burnfoot. There was excellent cover among
the big stones, and apart from the distance and the dim light, the man
by the fire was too preoccupied in his task to keep much look-out
towards the land. I remember thinking he had chosen his place well,
for save from the sea he could not be seen. The cliffs are so undercut
that unless a watcher on the coast were on their extreme edge he would
not see the burnfoot sands.

Archie, the skilled tracker, was the one who all but betrayed us. His
knee slipped on the seaweed, and he rolled off a boulder, bringing down
with him a clatter of small stones. We lay as still as mice, in terror
lest the man should have heard the noise and have come to look for the
cause. By-and-by when I ventured to raise my head above a flat-topped
stone I saw that he was undisturbed. The fire still burned, and he was
pacing round it. On the edge of the pools was an outcrop of red
sandstone much fissured by the sea. Here was an excellent
vantage-ground, and all three of us curled behind it, with our eyes
just over the edge. The man was not twenty yards off, and I could see
clearly what manner of fellow he was. For one thing he was huge of
size, or so he seemed to me in the half-light. He wore nothing but a
shirt and trousers, and I could hear by the flap of his feet on the
sand that he