Great Expectations

I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a

few hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house

(the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled

me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the

window. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and,

as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw

two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at

nothing else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I

could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction

of the Nore.

My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going

away. But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back

of the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder day

than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window, I could

see the two men moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon

lost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of the matter, and

fell asleep again.

We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before

breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our

charge was the least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the

men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, and that they had no

thought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so,--as, indeed,

it might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away

together to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take

us aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about

noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he

and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern.

He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on

the shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger,

not he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we

approached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while

I went on to reconnoitre; for it was towards it that the men had passed

in the night. He complied, and I went on alone. There was no boat off

the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor were there any

signs of the men having embarked there. But, to be sure, the tide was

high, and there might have been some footpints under water.