, all distorted,
and big buoys magnified by the haze.

"Why continue this anxiety about how to get over? See the clouds drift
over the clear moon with an east wind. Will it ever be easier than now?
I cannot sleep--why not start this moment?"

Once the decision was made, all was alert on the Rob Roy; and in half an
hour I had breakfasted, and then very noiselessly loosed the thin line
that bound us to the quay, and bid "adieu to France."

Every single thing we could think of was perfectly prepared. The sails
were all ready to set, but we had to row the yawl slowly into the main
harbour, and there we met a low round swell coining in from the sea. We
tugged hard to force her against the adverse tide, but progress was
tediously slow. Presently some fishing luggers were getting under way,
and soon the usual clatter and din of the French sailors, at full tide,
rang forth as if by a magic call at two in the morning.

After shouting some time for a boat to tow me to the pier-head, at last
one came.

"What will you charge?"

"Ten francs."

"I'll give you eight;" and after parley the two men in their little boat
agreed to take the Rob Roy in tow.

Almost immediately I noticed that the moon was hid, and the wind had
chopped round to the southwest, the very wind I was told not to start
with, but now--well it was too late to withdraw, and so we laboured on,
while the great clumsy luggers crossed and recrossed our course, and
frequently dashed upon the piles of the pier in the stupidest manner,
with much loud roaring of voices, and creaking of spars, and fluttering
of sails.

Presently the men called out that, as the sea was getting higher, I had
better pay them the money. "Certainly," I said; but, alas! I could find
only five francs of change, the rest being napoleons.

They shouted, "Give us gold--we will send the change to England;" but I
bellowed out a better plan, to give them an order on the yacht agents at
Havre for five francs, and the silver besides.

Finally this was accepted, so I got out paper and envelope, and on the
wet deck, by moonlight, wrote the banker's draft.

When they came near the harbour's mouth, they sung out "Get ready your
mizen."

"Ay, ay!"

"Hoist;" and so up went the trim little sail, glad to flap once more in
salt air. Then they bid me "Get ready your jib--we have cast you off;
hoist!" Yes, and I did hoist.

Perhaps the reader may recollect that the end of my bowsprit had be