At nine o’clock he dressed himself, in the rough sailor’s suit he wore when he went out with the fishermen, and started along the cliff.  For some distance he kept well inland, as the officer might have placed a man on the lookout, to stop anyone going towards the scene of action.  The spot he thought the most likely was a mile and a half along the shore.  There was a good landing place, and an easy path up the cliff, and he knew that cargoes had been more than once run here.  Accordingly, when he reached this spot, he sat down among some bushes on the edge of the cliff, and waited for some sort of signal.  Half an hour later, he heard the tramp of a number of men, passing along behind him.

“There go the revenue men,” he thought to himself.  “I suppose they are going to meet those coming the other way.”

An hour passed without further sound, and James began to get uneasy.  If this was the spot fixed for the landing, some of the country people ought to be arriving, by this time, to help to carry off the cargo.  They might, for aught he knew, be already near, waiting for the signal before they descended the path.  No doubt the revenue men would be lying in wait, a short distance off, and would allow the friends of the smugglers to go down to the water, without letting them know of their presence.

He kept his eyes fixed on the water to the east, watching anxiously for the appearance of a light.  Presently he started.  Immediately in front of him, about a mile at sea, a bright light was shown.  In a second, it disappeared.  Three times it flashed out, and then all was dark.  The night was a very dark one.  There was no moon, and the stars were obscured, and although he strained his eyes to the utmost, he could not make out the vessel from which the light had been shown.

“How foolish to show such a bright light!” he said to himself.  “It would have been almost sure to attract the attention of anyone on the watch.”

He made his way to the path, and descended to the edge of the water, and waited, expecting momentarily to be joined by people from above.  But no one came.  He strained his ears listening for the fall of approaching oars; but all was silent.

Half an hour passed, and then it flashed across him that the signal must have been made to deceive the revenue men, and to cause them to assemble at that spot, and so leave the point really determined upon free for operations.

With an exclamation of disgust at his own stupidity, in having been deceived, James ran up the path again at the top of his speed, and then took the road along the cliff.  For two miles, he ran without interruption, and then saw a dark mass in front of him.  He turned off, instantly, to the left.  Doubtless he had been heard approaching, for two or three men detached themselves from the rest, and started to cut him off.  James ran straight inland, and in the darkness soon lost sight of his pursuers.  Then he turned, and made for the cliff again.  Two or three hundred yards farther along, there was another path to the shore, and this he had no doubt, now, was the one the smugglers were about to use.  He struck the cliff within a few yards of the spot.  In an instant, two men jumped up and seized him.