And away we scurried in
the direction we had come that morning, splashing through pools and
jumping the infant runnels that were stealing out through rifts from
the mother-channel as the tide rose. Our observations completed, back
we travelled, making a wide circuit over higher ground to avoid the
encroaching flood, and wading shin-deep in the final approach to the
yacht.

As I scrambled thankfully aboard, I seemed to hear a far-off voice
saying, in languid depreciation of yachting, that it did not give one
enough exercise. It was mine, centuries ago, in another life. From
east and west two sheets of water had overspread the desert, each
pushing out tongues of surf that met and fused.

I waited on deck and watched the death-throes of the suffocating
sands under the relentless onset of the sea. The last strongholds
were battered, stormed, and overwhelmed; the tumult of sounds sank
and steadied, and the sea swept victoriously over the whole expanse.
The 'Dulcibella', hitherto contemptuously inert, began to wake and
tremble under the buffetings she received. Then, with an effort, she
jerked herself on to an even keel and bumped and strained fretfully,
impatient to vanquish this insolent invader and make him a slave for
her own ends. Soon her warp tightened and her nose swung slowly
round; only her stern bumped now, and that with decreasing force.
Suddenly she was free and drifting broadside to the wind till the
anchor checked her and she brought up to leeward of it, rocking
easily and triumphantly. Good-humoured little person! At heart she
was friends alike with sand and sea. It was only when the old love
and the new love were in mortal combat for her favours, and she was
mauled in the _fracas_, that her temper rose in revolt.

We swallowed a hasty cup of tea, ran up the sails, and started off
west again. Once across the 'watershed' we met a strong current, but
the trend of the passage was now more to the north-west, so that we
could hold our course without tacking, and consequently could stem
the tide. 'Give her just a foot of the centre-plate,' said Davies.
'We know the way here, and she'll make less leeway; but we shall
generally have to do without it always on a falling tide. If you run
aground with the plate down you deserve to be drowned.' I now saw how
valuable our walk had been. The booms were on our right; but they
were broken reeds, giving no hint as to the breadth of the channel. A
few had lost their tops,