ck us from the north-west, rapidly veering till it reached
north-east; there it settled and grew harder every moment.

'"Sou'-west to north-east--only the worst sort do that," said Davies.

'The shift to the east changed the whole situation (as shifts often
have before), making the Rute Fiats a lee shore, while to windward
lay the deep lagoons of the Otzumer Ee, bounded indeed by Spiekeroog,
but still offering a big drift for wind and sea. We had to clear out
sharp, to set the mizzen. It was out of the question to beat to
windward, for it was blowing a hurricane in a few minutes. We must go
to leeward, and Davies was for running farther in well behind the
Jans sand, and not risking Bensersiel. A blunder of mine, when I went
to the winch to get up anchor, settled the question. Thirty out of
our forty fathoms of chain were out. Confused by the motion and a
blinding sleet-shower that had come on, and forgetting the tremendous
strain on the cable, I cast the slack off the bitts and left it
loose. There was then only one turn of the chain round the drum,
enough in ordinary weather to prevent it running out. But now my
first heave on the winch-lever started it slipping, and in an instant
it was whizzing out of the hawse-pipe and overboard. I tried to stop
it with my foot, stumbled at a heavy plunge of the yacht, heard
something snap below, and saw the last of it disappear. The yacht
fell off the wind, and drifted astern. I shouted, and had the sense
to hoist the reefed foresail at once. Davies had her in hand in no
time, and was steering south-west. Going aft I found him cool and
characteristic.

'"Doesn't matter," he said; "anchor's buoyed. (Ever since leaving the
Elbe we had had a buoy-line on our anchor against the emergency of
having to slip our cable and run. For the same reason the end of the
chain was not made permanently fast below.) We'll come back to-morrow
and get it. Can't now. Should have had to slip it anyhow; wind and sea
too strong. We'll try for Bensersiel. Can't trust to a warp and kedge
out here."

'An exciting run it was, across country, so to speak, over an
unboomed watershed; but we had bearings from our morning's walk.
Shoal water all the way and a hollow sea breaking everywhere. We soon
made out the Bensersiel booms, but even under mizzen and foresail
only we travelled too fast, and had to heave to outside them, for the
channel looked too shallow still. We lowered half the centre-board
and kept he