me, instead of the fine, smooth, young looks that had been mine on the
night of my last feast. But there were many at the Moot, which was even
now dispersing, who had seen only this new face of mine, and I could not
trust to remaining long unrecognized. None might harm me, that was true;
but to be driven on, like a stray dog, from place to place, man to man,
for fear of what should be done to him who aided me in word or deed, was
worse, to my thought, than open enmity.

Now as night fell the clouds thickened up overhead, but it was still and
clear below, if dark; and by the time the night fairly closed in, I
stood on the heights above Watchet, and, looking down over the broad
channel and to my left, saw the glimmering lights of the little town.

There I waited a little, pondering the safest way and time for reaching
the franklin's house, for I would not bring trouble on him by being
seen. All the while I looked out over the sea, and then I saw something
else that I could not at first make out.

Somewhere on the sea, right off the mouth of the Watchet haven, and
seemingly close under me, there flashed brightly a light for a moment
and instantly, far out in the open water another such flash answered it
--seen and gone in an instant. Then came four more such flashes, each a
little nearer than the second, and from different places. Then I found
that the first and one other near it were not quite vanished, but that I
could see a spark of them still glowing.

Now while I wondered what this might mean, those two nearer lights began
to creep in towards the haven, closer and closer, and as they did so,
flashed up again, and answering flashes came from the other places.