The platoons on the Isle of Grain were not moving nearly so quickly. When this plan had first been conceived, Daniel had phant’sied that Atalanta, and those mounted platoons, would converge on the Tor at the same instant. But here they were in this longboat at the mouth of the dredged channel, perhaps a musket-shot from the Tor, and the companies on the isle had not stirred yet. Supposedly they were at the foot of the hill, below the steeple of the church. But they were hidden in the dusky shadows, and obscured by grass. That they existed at all was merely a comforting assumption, like that there was a God and that He meant well.