CHAPTER XII.
I FALL AMONG SMUGGLERS.
I awoke to a most curious sensation.

The night was still black and only the ridge of the cliff opposite showed, by the light of the many stars, its dull outline above; yet I felt that the whole beach had suddenly become crowded with people--that they were moving stealthily about me, whispering, picking their way among the loose stones, hunting me and yet hushing their voices as though themselves afraid.
At first, you may be sure--wakened as I was from sleep--I had no doubt but that this unseen band of folk was after me.

All that followed my awakening passed so quickly that I cannot separate dreams now from guesses nor apprehensions from realities.

I do remember, however, that, whereas the soldiers from whom I had run had been on foot, my first fears were of a pursuit by cavalrymen, and therefore it seems likely that some sound of horses' trampling must have set them in train: but, though I strained my ears, they detected nothing of the sort--only a subdued murmur, as of human voices, down by the water's edge, and now and again the cautious crunch of a footstep upon shingle.

Even this I had not heard but for the extreme quiet on the sea under the off-shore wind.
Gradually, by the light of the stars, I separated from the surrounding shadows that of a whole mass of people inert and darkly crowded there: and then--almost as I guessed their business--the cliff above me shot up a flame; and their forms and their dismayed upturned faces stood out distinct in the glare of it.
"Loose the horses and clear!" yelled someone; and another voice deep and wrathful began to curse, but was drowned by a stampede of hoofs upon the shingle.