to me
like a rock, seemed at least three miles from land.

"I continued:

"'But, captain, there must be a hundred fathoms of water in that place.'

"He began to laugh.

"'A hundred fathoms, my child! Well, I should say about two!'

"He was from Bordeaux. He continued:

"'It's now nine-forty, just high tide. Go down along the beach with your
hands in your pockets after you've had lunch at the Hotel du Dauphin, and
I'll wager that at ten minutes to three, or three o'clock, you'll reach
the wreck without wetting your feet, and have from an hour and
three-quarters to two hours aboard of her; but not more, or you'll be
caught. The faster the sea goes out the faster it comes back. This coast
is as flat as a turtle! But start away at ten minutes to five, as I tell
you, and at half-past seven you will be again aboard of the Jean Guiton,
which will put you down this same evening on the quay at La Rochelle.'

"I thanked the captain and I went and sat down in the bow of the steamer
to get a good look at the little city of Saint-Martin, which we were now
rapidly approaching.

"It was just like all small seaports which serve as capitals of the
barren islands scattered along the coast--a large fishing village,
one foot on sea and one on shore, subsisting on fish and wild fowl,
vegetables and shell-fish, radishes and mussels. The island is very low
and little cultivated, yet it seems to be thickly populated. However, I
did not penetrate into the interior.

"After breakfast I climbed across a little promontory, and then, as the
tide was rapidly falling, I started out across the sands toward a kind of
black rock which I could just perceive above the surface of the water,
out a considerable distance.

"I walked quickly over the yellow plain. It was elastic, like flesh and
seemed to sweat beneath my tread. The sea had been there very lately. Now
I perceived it at a distance, escaping out of sight, and I no longer
could distinguish the line which separated the sands from ocean. I felt
as though I were looking at a gigantic supernatural work of enchantment.
The Atlantic had just now been before me, then it had disappeared into
the sands, just as scenery disappears through a trap; and I was now
walking in the midst of a desert. Only the feeling, the breath of the
salt-water, remained in me. I perceived the smell of the wrack, the smell
of the sea, the good strong smell of sea coasts. I walked fast; I was no
longer cold. I looked