In two minutes Matilda was ready, laughing at the appearance she made with her head swathed in a shawl, and the rest of her person in a cloak, to save the annoyance which her usual out-of-doors dress would have been in a high wind. Clinging to her husband, making many a false step, and invariably laughing as she recovered her footing, she gained the ridge of the cliff, and stood amidst all the sublimity of a gusty night on the wild sea-shore. The blast took away her breath, as fast as she gained it, and her husband's voice was almost lost in the roar and dash from beneath, while the lightest of her shriller tones made itself heard through the commotion. "Now show me how to look for a signal," she said. "They do not surely light fires on the headlands?" "If they wished it, they must ask leave of the wind," replied her husband, "as well as of us; and they know they will have no leave of the one or the other, to-night. No: they make their fires in the clefts and caverns, and----" "I see one! I see one!" cried Matilda, eagerly pointing to a gleam which came and went, like a bright speck on the horizon. "That, my love!" cried her husband, laughing. "They must be bold smugglers who would run in to such a light as that. That is the light on Belltoot, made to look distant by the fog. You should turn eastwards; and seek rather for indications of a light, than for the light itself. If you see a dull red streak, or the least glimmer upon the passing fog, show it me. It will tell that there is a fire in a chalk pit or a cavern." After looking for some time in vain, Matilda inquired whether there was reason to suppose that the smugglers were particularly busy this night. Not knowing who might be near in the darkness, her husband pressed her arm in token that questions of this nature would be better answered at home. They walked on till they fell in with one of the sentinels, who was of opinion that nothing out of the common way would be done to-night, as the storm was rising to such a height as would make it too hazardous for even the most daring smugglers to run in at Birling Gap, or at any other place on the neighbouring coast. "You hear, Matilda," said the Lieutenant. "Now, have you seen all that you wish to see?" "By no means," she replied, laughing: "but it does not seem likely that we should gain anything by staying; so you had better go down and finish your wine, and we can come again to-morrow night."