dared to
hope, and in about a quarter of an hour I reached the sandbank and
sprang ashore, taking the precaution to secure the raft by a painter
made fast to one of the oars, the loom of which I drove well into the
sand. Then I walked to the highest point of the bank and looked about
me.

With the exception of a few bunches of dry and rotting seaweed, the bank
was as bare as the back of my hand, but a colony of gulls had settled
upon it, and by their cries indicated the resentment which they felt at
my intrusion. I looked round to see if I could discover any eggs, for
fresh gulls' eggs are not at all bad eating, and would perhaps afford a
welcome change of diet to the women folk; but I found none, so concluded
that it was not just then the season for them. The bank measured, by
pacing, a little over eighty yards long by some forty broad; and I
diligently examined the seaward side of it to see whether perchance
there might be a spring of fresh water gushing out of it. I hardly
expected that there would be, and was therefore not greatly disappointed
at failing to find any such thing. But I found the margin liberally
strewed with small shellfish, as well as with numerous empty shells,
some of which were so exquisite, both in form and in colouring, that I
could not resist the temptation to waste a few minutes in securing
specimens of the most beautiful for the delectation of Mrs Vansittart
and her daughter. This done, I returned to the raft, hauled it
broadside on to the beach, and proceeded to fill my two wash-deck tubs
with sand, with which I designed to fill my square box-like arrangement
on the poop as a protection for the deck from the flames of my projected
flare. Needless to say, two tubs of sand did not go very far toward
filling the box, and it was not until the following evening that I had
everything ready. Then, with a goodly pile of combustibles, consisting
of dry seaweed, chips, kindling wood, and coal, heaped up in the middle
of my sandbox, I had everything ready for lighting a flare at a moment's
notice.

Our most pressing necessities having been attended to, I found time to
attend to the matter which seemed to come next in importance. Hitherto
we had been favoured with the finest of fine weather--nothing but the
bluest of skies, often without the smallest shred of cloud, no rain, and
only the most gentle of zephyrs. But I knew that such a condition of
things could not last for ever. A change mu