A row of piles driven into the soft bank in front of it and supporting a few planks made a sort of wharf.

All this was black in the falling dusk, and I could just distinguish the whitish ruts of a cart- track stretching over the marsh towards the higher land, far away.

Not a sound was to be heard.

Against the low streak of light in the sky I could see the mast of Powell's cutter moored to the bank some twenty yards, no more, beyond that black barn or whatever it was.

I hailed him with a loud shout.