When I came to the north end of the town, where Beach Street began and ended in those days, I paused, abreast of a tall capstan used for heaving up boats, and looked about me. I had thought, at odd moments as I walked along, of how my uncle had explained the silence that lay upon Deal by speaking of the press-gang; but, first, I had no fear for myself, for I was mate of a ship, and, as mate, I was not to be taken; and next, putting this consideration apart, the press-gang was scarcely likely to be at work at such an hour--at least at Deal, the habits of whose seafaring people would be well known to the officers of His Majesty’s ships stationed in the Downs or cruising in the Channel. But the general alarm might render it difficult for me to find a man to take me off to the ship, and more difficult still to find anyone willing to adventure a lonely walk by moonlight out on to the sand hills to help the woman I had left there. I stood looking about me. A number of vessels were getting their anchors in the Downs. The delicate distant noise of the clinking of revolving pawls came along in the wind, with dim cries and faint chorusings, and under the moon I spied two or three vessels under weigh standing up Channel. This sight filled me with an agony of impatience, and I got upon the shingle and crunched, sweating along, staring eagerly ahead. A great number of boats lay upon the beach, some of them big luggers, and in the dusk they loomed up to twice their real size. Nothing living stirred. This was truly astonishing. About half a mile along the shingle, toward Walmer, lay a boat close to the wash of the water; I could not tell at that distance, and by that light, whether there was a man in her or near her, but I supposed she might be a galley-punt, ready to “go off,” as the local term is and I walked toward her. A minute later I came to a small, black wooden structure, one of several little buildings used by the Deal boatmen for keeping a lookout in. I saw a light shining upon a bit of a glazed window that faced me, and stepping to this window, I peered through and beheld an old man seated on a bench, with an odd sort of three-cornered hat on his head, and dressed in gray worsted stockings and a long frieze coat. An inch of sooty pipe forked out from his mouth, and I guessed that he was awake by seeing smoke issuing from his lips, though his head was hung, his arms folded, his eyes apparently closed. I stepped round to the door, beat upon it, and looked in. “I am mate of the _Royal Brunswicker_,” said I. “She’s getting her anchor in the Downs, and I want to get aboard before she’s off and away. Where shall I find a couple of men to put me aboard?” He lifted up his head after the leisurely manner of old age, took his pipe out of his mouth with a trembling hand, and surveyed me steadfastly, as though he was nearly blind. “Where are ye from?” said he. “From the house of my uncle, Captain Joseph Round.”