Without a word we made for the open, Archie first, and Tam, who had seized and shuttered his lantern, coming last.
We crawled to the edge of the cliff and peered round, and there sure enough, on the hard bit of sand which the tide had left by the burn mouth, was a twinkle of light and a dark figure.
The moon was rising, and besides there was that curious sheen from the sea which you will often notice in spring.

The glow was maybe a hundred yards distant, a little spark of fire I could have put in my cap, and, from its crackling and smoke, composed of dry seaweed and half-green branches from the burnside thickets.

A man's figure stood near it, and as we looked it moved round and round the fire in circles which first of all widened and then contracted.
The sight was so unexpected, so beyond the beat of our experience, that we were all a little scared.

What could this strange being want with a fire at half-past eight of an April Sabbath night on the Dyve Burn sands?
We discussed the thing in whispers behind a boulder, but none of us had any solution.

'Belike he's come ashore in a boat,' said Archie.