From the number of twinkling sparks that flitted here and there, it would seem that many folk were waking, even if some movement were not on hand.
Presently we turned into the channel that bends to the southwest from the more open water, and the town was before us.

The fisher took to his oars now, lowering the scrap of sail that had been enough to drive us very swiftly before the gale so far.
Wareham stands on the tongue of land between two rivers' mouths, and the tide was setting us into the northward of these.

That was the river one would have to cross in coming to or from Poole, and maybe we should learn as much there as anywhere.
There were three ships on the mud, but even in the moonlight it was plain that they were not seaworthy.

There were wide gaps in their bulwarks, which none had tried to mend, and the stem head of one was gone.
"These ships were hurt in the storm of lest week," the fisher said, as we drifted past them; "there was hardly one that came in unhurt.
But the Danes were eager to go, and mended them as they could." Perhaps that was partly the reason why we gained so easy a victory, I thought at the time, and afterwards knew that I was right.

They had suffered very much, while we lay across channel in safety.
There loomed before us the timbers of a strong bridge that had been over the north river, when we were fairly in it and under the nearer houses of the town.