Perceiving that there was little to be gained by questioning, I joined the merry rout which swarmed towards the sea-front. And there, sure enough, beating to windward in that part of the bay we call the Cod, were three strange foreign-looking vessels--one, by the rig of her, a frigate, though she showed no guns; the other two small merchantmen. And now I understood the cause of all this great excitement; for neither of the three ships flew a colour, and somehow, in that first swift glance, I felt they boded ill for little Lyme. However, there was small room for thought just then. You know the Cobb, that world-famed mole of ours, which curves out seaward like a mighty shepherd’s crook, and serves us for a harbour, quay, and everything? Well, everyone was making for that point of vantage, and so you may be sure I lost no time in following. The far end of the Cobb (that is, the sea end) was already thickly covered with an excited, wondering crowd, and, shouldering my way into the front line, I soon learned much. How that these three mysterious craft had first been seen at daybreak beating in slowly against a northerly wind. How, later on, a ten-oared boat had put off from the largest vessel, with three men seated in her stern, and made for Seatown, a little creek some five miles farther down the coast; and, having landed there her passengers, had presently returned to the ship bearing but one of them. And, moreover, in conclusion, how an hour before (that is, before I reached the Cobb) Master Thomas Tye, surveyor of the port of Lyme, and some of his men, had rowed out to the ships themselves for information, gone aboard the frigate, and had not since been seen. Most of this I learned from our deputy searcher of customs, Master Samuel Dassell, who, armed with his powerful telescope, stood close to me, and kept an eye on everything. Again, some thought the vessels Dutch, some French (I remember Dassell stood quite firm for Dutch); some dubbed them pirates, others privateersmen: but one and all agreed ’twas passing strange they flew no colours, and that the frigate veiled her guns; and therefore that the whole thing had an ugly look. You may be sure I did not hear all this without thinking of the amazing things which I had seen, read, and heard that very morning at The Havering. Indeed, the more I stared at the three black invaders of our bay, the more my thoughts flew inland to that which lay hid behind the secret panel in my father’s study, until at length the ships and box of ebony seemed joined in one black plot. But, as our old sergeant used to put it when he caught us loose--let us have no mooning. Nor was there much chance for it that morning; for just as I was squinting at the ships through Dassell’s spyglass, the crowd behind us swayed about, and a fisherman came elbowing and panting through it. "Well, and what now, Joe Rockett?" asked Dassell, turning on him sharply. "Dost bring us news from Seatown, then?"