departure all the same. They formed a busy and confused group, in rapid
movement on the shore. To distinguish one from another was difficult;
impossible to tell whether they were old or young. The indistinctness of
evening intermixed and blurred them; the mask of shadow was over their
faces. They were sketches in the night. There were eight of them, and
there were seemingly among them one or two women, hard to recognize
under the rags and tatters in which the group was attired--clothes which
were no longer man's or woman's. Rags have no sex.

A smaller shadow, flitting to and fro among the larger ones, indicated
either a dwarf or a child.

It was a child.




CHAPTER II.

LEFT ALONE.


This is what an observer close at hand might have noted.

All wore long cloaks, torn and patched, but covering them, and at need
concealing them up to the eyes; useful alike against the north wind and
curiosity. They moved with ease under these cloaks. The greater number
wore a handkerchief rolled round the head--a sort of rudiment which
marks the commencement of the turban in Spain. This headdress was
nothing unusual in England. At that time the South was in fashion in the