But ere a quarter of an hour more had passed, he saw the probability of still more disastrous effects, resulting from the lighting of the beacon on Tolsford Hill; for another flame shot up, casting a red glare through the haze from the side of Burmarsh, and then another and another, till the dim air seemed all tinged with flame. "An unlucky error," he said to himself. "Serjeant Jackson should have known that we have no party in that quarter; and the beacons were only to be lighted, from the first towards Hythe. It is very strange how the clearest orders are sometimes misunderstood." He rode on, however, at a quick pace, till he reached Aldington Knowle, and had found the highest ground in the neighbourhood, whence, after pausing for a minute or two to examine the country, as marked out by the various fires, he dispatched three of the dragoons in different directions, with orders to the parties in the villages round to disregard the lights they saw, and not to act upon the orders previously given, till they received intimation that the smugglers were on the march. It was now about midnight, and during nearly two hours the young officer remained stationed upon the hill without any one approaching, or any sound breaking the stillness of the night but the stamping of the horses of his little force and the occasional clang of the soldiers' arms. At the end of that period, the tramp of horse coming along the road at a quick pace from the side of Hythe, was heard by the party on the more elevated ground at a little distance from the highway. There was a tightening of the bridle and a movement of the heel amongst the men, to bring their chargers into more regular line; but not a word was said, and the colonel remained in front, with his arms crossed upon his chest and his rein thrown down, while what appeared from the sound to be a considerable body of cavalry, passed before him. He could not see them, it is true, from the darkness of the night; but his ear recognised in a moment the jingling of the dragoons' arms, and he concluded rightly, that the party consisted of the company which he had ordered from Folkestone down to Bilsington. As soon as they had gone on, he detached a man to the next cross road on the same side, with orders, if he perceived any body of men coming across from the side of the Marsh, to ride forward at once to the officer in command at Bilsington, and direct him to move to the north, keeping the Priory wood on the right, till he reached the cross-roads at the corner, and wait there for further orders. The beacons had by this time burnt out; and all remained dark and still for about half an hour more, when the quick galloping of a horse was heard coming from the side of the Marsh. A pause took place as soon as the animal reached the high road, as if the rider had halted to look for some one he had expected; and--dashing down instantly through the gate of the