'I let you sleep on,' he said; 'we can't do anything till the water
falls. We should never get the anchor up in this sea. Come and have a
look round. It's clearing now,' he went on, when we were crouching
low on deck, gripping cleats for safety. 'Wind's veered to nor'-west.
It's been blowing a full gale, and the sea is at its worst now--near
high water. You'll never see worse than this.'

I was prepared for what I saw--the stormy sea for leagues around, and
a chaos of breakers where our dream-island had stood--and took it
quietly, even with a sort of elation. The Dulcibella faced the storm
as doggedly as ever, plunging her bowsprit into the sea and flinging
green water over her bows. A wave of confidence and affection for her
welled through me. I had been used to resent the weight and bulk of
her unwieldy anchor and cable, but I saw their use now; varnish,
paint, spotless decks, and snowy sails were foppish absurdities of a
hateful past.

'What can we do to-day?' I asked.

'We must keep well inside the banks and be precious careful wherever
there's a swell. It's rampant in here, you see, in spite of the
barrier of sand. But there's plenty we can do farther back.'

We breakfasted in horrible discomfort; then smoked and talked till
the roar of the breakers dwindled. At the first sign of bare sand we
got under way, under mizzen and head-sails only, and I learned how to
sail a reluctant anchor out of the ground. Pivoting round, we scudded
east before the wind, over the ground we had traversed the evening
before, while an archipelago of new banks slowly shouldered up above