Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/97

Rh cession of misty evenings when the marshes were covered with a low-lying cloud of whitish vapor, while a gray haze hung over sea and shore, making it difficult to keep a proper lookout for smuggling craft, and for the experienced and cunning natives in charge of them.

Before Tregenna reached the creek where his boat was waiting, the sun was going down red on his right, over the land, while on every side, but especially on the left, where the marshes lay, the gray mist was getting thicker, the outlines of tree and rock, cottage and passing ship more blurred and faint.

He was but a few hundred yards from the creek when there came to his ears certain sounds, deadened and muffled by the fog, which woke him with a start to the sudden knowledge that there was a conflict of some sort going on a little way oft, in the direction of the marshes.

Shouts, oaths, the sharp report of a pistol, followed by a duller sound like that of blows or the fall of a heavy body; all these struck upon his ears as he ran, at the top of his speed, in the direction whence the noise came.

It was at a point where the cliff dipped