shore, by which the defeated pirates lay
carousing in the swamp. The other, a mere blur of light upon the
darkness, indicated the position of the anchored ship. She had swung
round to the ebb--her bow was now toward me--the only lights on board
were in the cabin; and what I saw was merely a reflection on the fog of
the strong rays that flowed from the stern window.

The ebb had already run some time, and I had to wade through a long belt
of swampy sand, where I sank several times above the ankle, before I
came to the edge of the retreating water, and wading a little way in,
with some strength and dexterity, set my coracle, keel downward, on the
surface.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE EBB-TIDE RUNS

The coracle--as I had ample reason to know before I was done with
her--was a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight, both
buoyant and clever in a sea-way; but she was the most cross-grained,
lopsided craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made more leeway
than anything else, and turning round and round was the maneuver she was
best at. Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was "queer to
handle till you knew her way."

Certainly I did not know her way. She turned in every direction but the
one I was bound to go; the most part of the time we were broadside on,
and I am very sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the
tide. By good fortune, paddle as I pleased, the tide was still sweeping
me down; and there lay the _Hispaniola_ right in the fairway, hardly to
be missed.

First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than
darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next
moment, as it seemed (for the further I went the brisker grew the
current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser, and had laid hold.

The hawser was as taut as a bowstring and the current so strong she
pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the
rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream.
One cut with my sea gully, and the _Hispaniola_ would go humming down
the tide.

So far so good; but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut
hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to
one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the _Hispaniola_ from her anchor,
I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water.

This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had not again
particularly favored me, I shoul