t house, and a small knot on the beach inspected my
fishing-gear and lent a hand to push off. "Ben't goin' alone, be 'e?"
asked Renatus Warne. "Yes," said I. "The conger'll have 'ee then, sure
enough." One or two offered chaffingly to come out and search for me if
I shouldn't return before midnight; and a volley of facetious warnings
followed me out upon the calm sea.

The beach was deserted, however, when I returned. I had hooked three
fine conger; and having hauled up the boat and cleaned her, I made my
way back to the vicarage, well pleased, getting to bed as the clock
struck two in the morning.

This was Thursday; and in the evening, between seven and eight o'clock,
I launched the boat again under the eyes of the population and started
fishing on the inner grounds, well in sight of the Porth. Dusk fell,
and with it the young moon dropped behind the western headland. Far out
beyond Menawhidden the riding-lights of a few drifters sparkled in the
darkness: but I had little to fear from them.

The moon had no sooner disappeared than I shifted my ground, and pulling
slowly down in the shore's shadow (I had greased the leathers of my oars
for silence), ran the boat in by the point under Gunner's Meadow,
beached her cunningly between two rocks, and pulled a tarpaulin over to
hide her white-painted interior. My only danger now lay in blundering
against the coastguard: but by dodging from one big boulder to another
and listening all the while for footsteps, I gained the withy bed at the
foot of the meadow. The night was almost pitch-black, and no one could
possibly detect the boat unless he searched for it.

I followed the little stream up the valley bottom, through an orchard,
and struck away from it across another meadow and over the rounded
shoulder of the hill to my right. This brought me in rear of a
kitchen-garden and a lonely cob-walled cottage, the front of which faced
down a dozen precipitous steps upon the road leading from Lansulyan to
the Porth. The cottage had but one window in the back, in the upper
floor; and just beneath it jutted out a lean-to shed, on the wooden side
of which I rapped thrice with my knuckles.

"Hist!" The Vicar leaned out from the dark window above. "Right: it's
all ready. We must stow it in the outhouse. Trudgeon is down in the
road below, waiting for me to finish."

No more was said. The Vicar withdrew: after a minute I heard the
planking creak: then something white