" IN PERIL BY WATER." 247 



the lights opened out, and passed behind them, resolving them- 

 selves into a cluster in the distance. Ghostly vessels lifted 

 their tall spars against the sky, the water became more 

 ' lumpy,' and prudence suggested that they should turn back ; 

 but the love of sport urged them on, and triumphed. Further 

 still : yet the geese were nowhere to be seen, and not very far 

 off was the white water on the bar. They were fast drifting 

 out to sea, and thought it time to turn. They did so, but 

 could make no headway against the wind and tide, and the 

 shores were so white with surf that it would have been folly to 

 have attempted to land. 



" I say, Frank, we've done it now," said Jimmy, as they 

 drifted nearer and nearer to the bar. 



" Don't be alarmed : we are all right," said Frank, but 

 privately he thought they were in a very awkward fix. All the 

 outward-bound vessels, which, had it been earlier, might have 

 picked them up, had left at the commencement of the ebb. 

 The punt was now in the midst of the rougher waves which 

 broke over the banks of sand at the mouth of the estuary, and 

 they were expecting every moment to be swamped, when Frank 

 uttered a cry of joy, and seizing the paddle, made for a black 

 spot which was dancing about in the foam. It was a buoy, 

 and Jimmy seized the ' painter,' and stood up. As they neared 

 it, a wave bore them on its summit within reach. Jimmy suc- 

 ceeded in slipping the rope through the ring on the top of the 

 buoy, and in another moment they had swung under its lee. 

 They were now safe from drifting farther out to sea, but in im- 

 minent danger of being swamped, and the time seemed very 

 long while waiting for the tide to turn. The curling waves 

 continually broke over them, and had it not been for the 

 decked portions of the punt they would have been sunk by the 

 first two or three duckings. As it was, they were kept hard at 

 work baling with a tin scoop belonging to the punt, and fending 

 off from the buoy. 



Forwards and backwards, up and down and sideways, they 

 were tossed. A great black wall of water, with a thin crest 

 through which the glimmer of a star could occasionally be seen, 

 would come surging along, making their hearts sink with 

 apprehension, and then would sometimes break and die away 

 close by, sometimes dash them against the buoy, and sometimes 

 with a side chop nearly fill the punt. There was a dash of 



