The following day the storm had subsided; the wind remained
unfavourable, but was mild. The captain now tried to find our
bearings by means of his astronomical instruments. He complained
of the sky, which had been overcast so many days, swore that he
would give much for a single glimpse of the sun or the stars, and
did not conceal the uneasiness he felt at not being able to
indicate our whereabouts with certainty. He consoled himself,
however, by following a ship which was sailing some knots ahead
in the same direction, and whose movements he observed closely
through the telescope. Suddenly he sprang up in great alarm, and
gave a vehement order to change our course. He had seen the ship
in front go aground on a sand-bank, from which, he asserted, she
could not extricate herself; for he now realised that we were
near the most dangerous part of the belt of sand-banks bordering
the Dutch coast for a considerable distance. By dint of very
skilful sailing, we were enabled to keep the opposite course
towards the English coast, which we in fact sighted on the
evening of 9th August, in the neighbourhood of Southwold. I felt
new life come into me when I saw in the far distance the English
pilots racing for our ship. As competition is free among pilots
on the English coast, they come out as far as possible to meet
incoming vessels, even when the risks are very great.

The winner in our case was a powerful grey-haired man, who, after
much vain battling with the seething waves, which tossed his
light boat away from our ship at each attempt, at last succeeded
in boarding the Thetis. (Our poor, hardly-used boat still bore
the name, although the wooden figure-head of our patron nymph had
been hurled into the sea during our first storm in the Cattegat--