re; it trickled into the bathing sheds; it swelled still higher upon
the trim-kept promenade, until it lapped the highest point and then went
gently down again. Eclipses and tides are patent proofs to the people
that physical science can appeal to. The "music of the spheres" hath
also a true rhythm, "There is neither speech nor language but their
voices are heard."

To escape this _barre_ on the Seine, our steamer anchored by the quaint
old town of Quilleboeuf with other vessels; and, though the wind howled
and the rain poured, the hill beside us sheltered all from its blasts,
which were too wild and powerful in the sea outside to allow us to
proceed next day. {156}

However, our Seine pilot pointed to an English steamer "which dared not
go out;" so any remonstrance on the subject was silenced, and then he
boldly asked if I would like a pilot on board the Rob Roy (towed by the
steamer all the time), and I had sufficient command of countenance to
decline with due gravity. Better, perhaps, it would have been for me not
to carry then so much of the John Bull into these strange waters, as will
be seen from what occurred that night.

The tide rushed up with extraordinary strength, until it was quite full.
Then it paused for five minutes, and again it set off in the opposite
direction with the same fury, increased, too, by the stream and the wind
being also down the river.

At each of these changes every vessel, of course, swung round to its
anchor, and so must have loosened its hold, while all the water picture
changed from right to left like a scene shifted on the stage. During
this short interval of quiet you could row ashore, but to get back again
was almost impossible when the full torrent of water ran in straight.

As night came on I noticed that our steamer's anchor was dragging, and
that other steam vessels, more on the alert, were easing the strain on
their cables by working their engines at half power all the time.

"Captain, we are dragging anchor." "No, sir," he said, "you are
mistaken." "I am sure we are dragging: I have watched for ten minutes."
"No, sir, I am certain we do not drag." He said this with such firmness,
that I confidingly believed it, and turned into bed.

But it was not to sleep, except in fitful snatches. The sound of the
water hurrying by my side, like a mill race, and within a few inches of
my ear, had a strange and unwonted effect, not now to soothe, but to
drive sleep away. Bi