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148 where the smuggling craft were manufactured, and whence they were drawn down to the sea on the farm wagons in the darkest hours of the night; but no suspicion of the gray barn in connection with such doings had ever entered his head; and it was clear that even the country folk had been kept out of the secret.

Clash! clash! upon his ears, in his place of vantange, came the sound of the driving in of the iron bolts. He saw the brawny bare arms of the men go up above their heads, hammer in hand, to come down with a thud upon the ship's groaning sides. He saw the great skeleton monster shiver under the blows; heard the hoarse laugh, the muttered oaths, which the men, cautious even at their toil, exchanged as they worked. And presently, as he got used to the din, to the waving, smoking lights, to the excitement of his strange position, he began to distinguish the words they uttered, and presently to discover that he himself was one of the subjects of their conversation.

"Curse me if I think the boat'll ever swim, with all these eyes afore and behind us what we've got now!" cried one voice, which Tregenna knew that he had heard before.