aunt's; and I wondered now if any sat before their inland hearths this night, and hearing that far-distant roar, would throw another log on the fire, and thank God they were not fighting for their lives in Moonfleet Bay. I could picture all that was going on this night on the beach—how Ratsey and the landers would have sighted the Aurungzebe, perhaps at noon, perhaps before, and knew she was embayed, and nothing could save her but the wind drawing to east. But the wind would hold pinned in the south, and they would see sail after sail blown off her, and watch her wear and wear, and every time come nearer in; and the talk would run through the street that there was a ship could not weather the Snout, and must come ashore by sundown. Then, half the village would be gathered on the beach, with the men ready to risk their lives for ours, and in nowise wishing for the ship to be wrecked, yet anxious not to lose their chance of booty if Providence should rule that wrecked she must be. And I knew Ratsey would be there, and Damen, Tewkesbury, and Laver, and like enough Parson Glennie, and perhaps—and at that perhaps my thoughts came back to where we were, for I heard Elzevir speaking to me.
"Look," he said, "there's a light!"
'Twas but the faintest twinkle, or not even that, only something that told there was a light behind drift and darkness. It grew clearer as we looked at it, and again was lost in the mirk, and then Elzevir said, "Maskew's match!"
It was a long-forgotten name that came to me from so far off, down such long alleys of the memory, that I had, as it were, to grope and grapple with it to know
