'Pick up Sticker's Gat,' was the reply. 'It ought to be near Buoy K.'

A red buoy with a huge K on it soon came into view. Davies peered
over to port.

'Just pull up the centre-board, will you?' he remarked abstractedly,
adding, 'and hand me up the glasses as you re down there.'

'Never mind the glasses. I've got it now; come to the main-sheet,'
was the next remark.

He put down the helm and headed the yacht straight for the troubled
and discoloured expanse which covered the submerged sands. A
'sleeping whale', with a light surf splashing on it, was right in our
path.

'Stand by the lead, will you?' said Davies, politely. 'I'll manage
the sheets, it's a dead beat in. Ready about!'

The wind was in our teeth now, and for a crowded half-hour we wormed
ourselves forward by ever-shortening tacks into the sinuous recesses
of a channel which threaded the shallows westward. I knelt in a
tangle of line, and, under the hazy impression that something very
critical was going on, plied the lead furiously, bumping and
splashing myself, and shouting out the depths, which lessened
steadily, with a great sense of the importance of my function. Davies
never seemed to listen, but tacked on imperturbably, juggling with
the tiller, the sheets, and the chart, in a way that made one giddy
to look at. For all our zeal we seemed to be making very slow