ams signified nobody
on board could tell. At length, as the gale did not moderate, while
their position increased in discomfort, and was also becoming
precarious (for one of their anchors was gone, and great fears were
entertained for the other), Owen and Francisco decided to weigh, and
stand in for the shore, trusting to the smuggler's seamanship for a
safe run. The Major, in spite of his sickness, stood up and pulled
gallantly at the cable, the wind blowing his pigtail and skirts
perpendicularly out from his person. "Heaf!" screamed Francisco from
the bows; "Heave!" echoed Owen; and as the words flew past him on the
gale, my grandfather's exertions were prodigious. At last, after
tremendous tugging, the anchor came up. The jib was hoisted with a
reef in it, Owen holding the sheet, while the smuggler ran aft and
took the helm. They bent over to the gale, till the Major stood
almost perpendicularly on the lee gunwale, with his back against
the weather-side, and ran in till he thought they were going to bump
ashore; then tacking, they stood up along the coast, close to the
wind, till Francisco gave the word. Owen let go the sheet, and the jib
fluttered loosely out as they ran through a narrow passage into smooth
water behind the sea-wall, and made fast to a flight of steps.

Presently some functionary appertaining to the harbour appeared, and
with him an emissary from the Governor of the place, who, aware of
their plight, had civilly sent to offer assistance. The messenger was
the same man who had made signals to them from the beach in the
morning; and he seemed to think it advisable that they should wait on
the Governor in person, saying that he was always disposed to be civil
to British officers. This advice they resolved to act upon at once,
before it should grow dark, foreseeing that, in case of their
detention from bad weather in Tarifa, the Governor might prove a
potent auxiliary. The Major would have wished to make some little
alterations in his toilette, after his late disasters; but, after
trying in vain to pull off his jack-boots, which clung to him like his
skin, he was obliged to abandon the idea, and contented himself with
standing on his head to let the water run out of them. As they
advanced along the causeway leading to the town (the point where they
landed is connected with the town by a long narrow sandy isthmus),
the gale swept over them volumes of sand, which, sticking on my
grandfather's wet uniform