Excepting the movement of embarkation which was being made in the creek, a movement visibly scared and uneasy, all around was solitude; no step, no noise, no breath was heard.  At the other side of the roads, at the entrance of Ringstead Bay, you could just perceive a flotilla of shark-fishing boats, which were evidently out of their reckoning.  These polar boats had been driven from Danish into English waters by the whims of the sea.  Northerly winds play these tricks on fishermen.  They had just taken refuge in the anchorage of Portland—­a sign of bad weather expected and danger out at sea.  They were engaged in casting anchor:  the chief boat, placed in front after the old manner of Norwegian flotillas, all her rigging standing out in black, above the white level of the sea; and in front might be perceived the hook-iron, loaded with all kinds of hooks and harpoons, destined for the Greenland shark, the dogfish, and the spinous shark, as well as the nets to pick up the sunfish.

Except a few other craft, all swept into the same corner, the eye met nothing living on the vast horizon of Portland—­not a house, not a ship.  The coast in those days was not inhabited, and the roads, at that season, were not safe.

Whatever may have been the appearance of the weather, the beings who were going to sail away in the Biscayan urca pressed on the hour of 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 North; perhaps this was connected with the fact that the North was beating the South.  It conquered and admired.  After the defeat of the Armada, Castilian was considered in the halls of Elizabeth to be elegant court talk.  To speak English in the palace of the Queen of England was held almost an impropriety.  Partially to adopt the manners of those upon whom we impose our laws is the habit of the conquering barbarian towards conquered civilization.  The Tartar contemplates and imitates the Chinese.  It was thus Castilian fashions penetrated into England; in return, English interests crept into Spain.