On a January day in the year 1838, a weather-beaten man was walking along the desolate road leading to Fort Cumberland on Portsea Island. The sun had just set, a few rosy clouds relieved the dull gray of the winter sky, and a south-easterly wind stirred the waters of the English Channel. But Jonas Marbeck, in his rough pilot's coat, was well protected against the cold, and he didn't mind the sharp breeze that whistled its familiar tune in his ears. He was a man of fifty, able-bodied and powerfully built, with black hair and piercing gray eyes, bright as a hawk's. Those eyes had served their owner well on gloomy nights when ships bound for home traversed the English Channel, and on cold November mornings when white mist hung like a curtain over the shore. Many a captain had trusted in Jonah Marbeck's keen eyesight and long experience, and they had never trusted in vain. To his right, as he walked, was old Fort Cumberland, its old parapets rising above the gently swelling slope. around it, and to the left was Lake Eastney, all mud and little glistening puddles, for the tide had gone out. A lone boy in a small boat navigated the narrow salt stream that still flowed through the cove. In the background, beyond the green plains that are half swamp and half prairie, rose the soft outlines of the Portsdown Hills, almost meeting the dim wooded heights of Sussex.nzaba con paso firme, sin apartar los ojos del suelo.
