There was a little haze out to sea; for it had been very misty in the
early morning, though the sun had thinned it. As we looked seawards we
suddenly saw the sail of a small boat break out through the fog, and
come bobbing along towards the land. A single man was seated in the
sheets, and she yawed about as she ran, as though he were of two minds
whether to beach her or no. At last, determined it may be by our
presence, he made straight for us, and her keel grated upon the shingle
at our very feet. He dropped his sail, sprang out, and pulled her bows
up on the beach.

"Great Britain, I believe?" said he, turning briskly round and facing
us.

He was a man somewhat above middle height, but exceedingly thin.
His eyes were piercing and set close together, a long sharp nose jutted
out from between them, and beneath them was a bristle of brown moustache
as wiry and stiff as a cat's whiskers. He was well dressed in a suit of
brown with brass buttons, and he wore high boots which were all
roughened and dulled by the sea water. His face and hands were so dark
that he might have been a Spaniard, but as he raised his hat to us we
saw that the upper part of his brow was quite white and that it was from
without that he had his swarthiness. He looked from one to the other of
us, and his grey eyes had something in them which I had never seen
before. You could read the question; but there seemed to be a menace at
the back of it, as if the answer were a right and not a favour.

"Great Britain?" he asked again, with a quick tap of his foot on the
shingle.

"Yes," said I, while Jim burst out laughing.

"England? Scotland?"

"Scotland. But it's England past yonder trees."

"_Bon!_ I know where I am now. I've been in a fog without a compass for
nearly three days, and I didn't thought I was ever to see land again."

He spoke English glibly enough, but with some strange turn of speech
from time to time.

"Where did you come from then?" asked Jim.

"I was in a ship that was wrecked," said he shortly. "What is the town
down yonder?"

"It is Berwick."

"Ah! well, I must get stronger before I can go further."

He turned towards the boat, and as he did so he gave a lurch, and would
have fallen had he not caught the prow. On this he seated himself and
looked round with a face that was flushed, and two eyes that blazed like
a wild beast's.

"_Voltigeurs de la Garde_," he roared in a voice like a trumpet call,
and t