booms well out over the side to take the full of the wind.... The sweat
poured down us, the veins stood out of us like cords.... Once, in the
frenzy of my thoughts, the gleaming white sails on our quarter, and the
crisp green waves alongside, and the dingy brown boat, and Le Marchant's
fiery crimson neck, all shot with red for a moment, and I loosed one hand
and drew it over my brow to see if it was blood or only sweat that trickled
there.

On and on she came, a marvel of beauty, though she meant death for us, and
showed it in every graceful venomous line, from the sharp white curl at her
forefoot to the swelling menace of her sails.

Her long black hull was clear to us now, and still we had a mile to go. The
breath whistled through our nostrils. Le Marchant's face when he glanced
across his shoulder was twisted like a crumpled mask. We swung up from our
seats and slewed half round to get every pound we could out of the
thrashing oars.

We rushed in between the Moie des Burons and the Burons themselves, and
drove straight for the harbour. For a moment the schooner was hid from us.
Then she came racing out again. The tide was running like a fury. We drove
swirling through it.

"Ach!" burst out from both of us, as a puff of white smoke whirled from the
schooner's bows and a crash behind told us that a point of rock had saved
us.... The coils of the current, which runs there like a mill-race, gripped
our rounded bottom and dragged at us like very devils.... It was life and
death and a question of seconds.... We were level with the remnant of the
old breakwater.... As we tore frantically at the oars to round it, the puff
of smoke whirled out again, ... a crash behind us and chips of granite came