closet; where they begged of me to keep close, not to speak a syllable,
let what would happen, and, as I valued my life and theirs, not to
mention thereafter whatever I might see or hear. It was now plain that I
was in the house of smugglers; and as those were notoriously people not
to be trifled with, I made my promises of non-intervention with perfect
sincerity.

I was scarcely in my nook when the party arrived. They were evidently
six or seven--their conversation was the common bluster and
boisterousness of their trade--and between their demands for supper,
their coarse jokes, and their curses at the lubberliness or loitering of
their associates from the other side of the Channel, (for, with all
their accompliceship, they had the true John Bull contempt for the
seamanship of Monsieur,) they kept the house in an uproar. They expected
a cargo from Calais that right, and the idea of losing so favourable an
opportunity as the tempest offered, rendered them especially indignant.
Scouts were sent out from tine to time to look for signals, but nothing
appeared. At length the brandy was beginning to take effect on their
brains, and their rough jokes arose into quarrel. A charge of treachery
produced the drawing of cutlasses, and I heard them slashing at each
other; but the right Nantz which had inflamed the quarrel rendered it
harmless, until one lost his balance, rolled headlong against my door,
and burst it in. There stood I, visible to all, and the sight produced a
yell, in which the epithets of "spy, exciseman, custom-house shark," and
a whole vocabulary of others, all equally remote from panegyric, were
showered upon me. I should have been cut down by some of the blades
which flashed before me, but that I had taken the precaution of carrying
my gun to my closet, and was evidently determined to fight it out. This
produced a parley; when I told my tale, and as it was corroborated by
the women, who came forward trembling at the sight of their savage
masters, and who spoke with the sincerity of fear; it saved me further
encounter, and I was merely enjoined to pledge myself, that I should not
betray them.

The compromise was scarcely brought to a conclusion when the discharge
of a pistol was heard outside; and as this was the signal, the whole
party-prepared to leave the house. I now expected to be left to such
slumbers as I could find in the midst of rocking roofs, and rattling
doors and windows. But this was not to be. Af