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

The Man Who Laughs