fast. Of course I had taken for granted, when
he said he would lead me in, that he would slow down and keep close
to me. He could easily have done so by getting his men up to check
his sheets or drop his peak. Instead of that he was busting on for
all he was worth. Once, in a rain-squall, I lost sight of him
altogether; got him faintly again, but had enough to do with my own
tiller not to want to be peering through the scud after a runaway
pilot. I was all right so far, but we were fast approaching the worst
part of the whole passage, where the Hohenhoern bank blocks the road,
and the channel divides. I don't know what it looks like to you on
the chart--perhaps fairly simple, because you can follow the twists
of the channels, as on a ground-plan; but a stranger coming to a
place like that (where there are no buoys, mind you) can tell nothing
certain by the eye--unless perhaps at dead low water, when the banks
are high and dry, and in very clear weather--he must trust to the
lead and the compass, and feel his way step by step. I knew perfectly
well that what I should soon see would be a wall of surf stretching
right across and on both sides. To _feel_ one's way in that sort of
weather is impossible. You must _know_ your way, or else have a
pilot. I had one, but he was playing his own game.

'With a second hand on board to steer while I conned I should have
felt less of an ass. As it was, I knew I ought to be facing the music
in the offing, and cursed myself for having broken my rule and gone
blundering into this confounded short cut. It was giving myself away,
doing just the very thing that you can't do in single-handed sailing.

'By the time I realized the danger it was far too late to turn and
hammer out to the open. I was deep in the bottle-neck bight of the
sands, jammed on a lee shore, and a strong flood tide sweeping me on.
That tide, by the way, gave just the ghost of a chance. I had the
hours in my head, and knew it was about two-thirds flood, with two
hours more of rising water. That meant the banks would be all
covering when I reached them, and harder than ever to locate; but it
also meant that I _might_ float right over the worst of them if I hit
off a lucky place.' Davies thumped the table in disgust. 'Pah! It
makes me sick to think of having to trust to an accident like that,
like a lubberly cockney out for a boozy Bank Holiday sail. Well, just
as I foresaw, the wall of surf appeared clean across the horiz