The detective had an eye on the schooner, and well knew, when as a sea-tramp he shipped on the vessel, he had struck a smuggler.

It was a clear starry night when the vessel sighted the Long Island shore after having slipped inward past Fire Island.

The detective lay low and watched for some hours.

He had known that something unusual was in progress on board the schooner.  The captain was below, and one of the mates had charge of the deck; a light shone in the distance, like a red star dancing over the waves, and the men on the schooner moved about in a stealthy manner to and fro across the deck.

It was a strange thing to do; why should they tread thus lightly the deck of a ship ten miles off shore, as though their footsteps might be heard?  Alas! it was a case of involuntary stealth, a sign of the nervous, trepidation which attends conscious guilt.

It did not seem that there could be any danger near; the heavens were clear, the bosom of the deep unruffled even by an evening breeze.  Nature called not for the coward tread, and the gleaming eye, the pale face, and the anxious glance hither and thither.  No, no; but the smugglers feared another peril.  Revenue cutters were known to be cruising along the coast; more than ordinary vigilance was being exercised by a robbed Government.

The men upon the schooner knew that the revenue officers were up to many of their tricks and were posted as to many of their signals; false lights might gleam across the waters like an ignis fatuus luring on a famished traveler in the desert, and within the hour after their calling had been betrayed, every man might be in irons, and the cargo and the vessel would be confiscated.

A fortune was at stake, and the shadow of a prison loomed out over across the waters and threatened to close in behind them.

Spencer Vance, the disguised detective, the supposed sea-tramp, moved about with the smugglers, acting as they acted, stepping on tiptoe, and looking pale and anxious, and it did not require that he should assume the pale excited look, for it was a momentous crisis.  He had hit the vessel the first clip, and he had struck the trail which had baffled men who claimed a larger experience in that particular branch of the detective service.  He had “piped” down to a critical moment, but he carried his life in his hands.  He was not watched, but one false move might draw attention toward him, and but a mere suspicion at that particular moment would cost him his life; these men would not have stopped to bandy, words or make inquiries.

As stated, there came the gleam of a light flashing across the calm waters, and the men who were not on ship duty strained their eyes.  Soon there followed a succession of lights, signal lights telling their story, and then the schooner men let out answering lights, and the sails were lowered and the schooner merely drifted upon the bosom of the deep.