The mist had lifted completely now. They must have piled their muck at the margins of their high platform, because clouds of gulls rose there, and the slightest breeze brought a terrible stench down the cliff.

I began to study their faces, their leers and scowls. Once, twice, severally I saw that the faces were scarred and misshapen, erupting in sores. Some were swollen around the eyes, or growths from within had devoured the nose. Missing ears, toothless mouths, lopsided clumps of missing hair. Some contagion had taken hold of them.

The horror of it now swept through us all. The master had brought a carbine up from below decks: he worked with practised fingers to tear open the cartridge and pour powder in the pan. The doctor stood close to the bulwark and braced his leg against it. His left hand held his notebook, his right hand a pencil, and he was sketching, or perhaps writing descriptions of what we beheld. The master was working the ramrod into the muzzle.

The Moonbird was only a chain’s length from the shore these men stood upon. They wouldn’t swim to us, I felt fairly sure, and if they did they would struggle to climb the sides. The greater danger was that we would drift further in and beach ourselves, having so little control in the lifeless air. The swells lifted the stern just faintly, then broke on the stones only yards in front of us.

The master laid the carbine on the boards of the forward cabin roof, and moved swiftly to the helm. He whispered to the Connolly brothers, issuing sail orders he didn’t want heard from shore. Even poor Angus sensed the tension and was silent. Two, three full rotations of the helm as the master looked over his shoulder at the angle of the stern.

The doctor was obscured from view behind the cabin: he faced the main group of men where he stood. I could hear Argyle’s orders to swing her clear, and the Connolly brothers working the lines. The movement on board had my attention for just a moment: long enough to miss what had happened in the crowd.

A man had darted forward from among them, a lad, I thought. The shape of him was lean enough to suggest there were not many years on him; or he was a grown man starving. Without warning, he leapt into the water with a great splash and set out towards us, making clumsy strokes with his arms, his intentions, hostile or otherwise, lost in his thrashing.

The men on the rocks followed his progress with the barrels of their weapons.