e places where the sand,
though clear of the water, was unprotected by a barrier of rocks,
formed in the narrower portions actual rivers, flowing from one side
to the other, which Simon had to wade, almost knee-deep in water.
Moreover, he had taken so little food that he began to be racked with
hunger. He had to slow down. And another hour went by.

The great squalls had blown over. The returning sea-fogs seemed to
have deadened the wind and were now closing in on him again. Once more
Simon was walking through moving clouds which concealed his path from
him. Less sure of himself, attacked by a sudden sense of loneliness
and distress, he soon experienced a lassitude to which he was
unwilling to surrender.

This was a mistake. He recognized the fact: nevertheless, he struggled
on as though in fulfillment of the most imperious duty. With an
obstinate ring in his voice, he gave himself his orders:

"Forward: Ten minutes more! . . . You must! . . . And, once more, ten
minutes!"

On either side lay things which, in any other circumstances, would
have held his attention. An iron chest, three old guns, small-arms,
cannon-balls, a submarine. Enormous fish lay stranded on the sand.
Sometimes a white sea-gull circled through space.

And so he came to a great wreck whose state of preservation betrayed
a recent disaster. It was an overturned steamer, with her keel deeply
buried in a sandy hollow, while her black stern stood erect,
displaying a broad pink stripe on which Simon read:

"The _Bonne Vierge_. Calais."

And he remembered. The _Bonne Vierge_ was one of the two boats whose
loss had been announced in the telegrams posted up at Newhaven.
Employed in the coasting-trade between the north and west of France,
she had sunk at a spot which lay in a direct line between Calais and
Le Havre; and Simon saw in this a positive proof that he was still
following the French coast, passing those seamarks whose names he now
recalled: the Ridin de Dieppe, the Bassure de Baas, the Vergoyer and
so on.

It was ten o'clock in the morning. From the average pace which he had
maintained, allowing for deviation and for hilly ground, Simon
calculated that he had covered a distance of nearly forty miles as the
crow flies and that he ought to find himself approximately on a level
with Le Touquet.

"What am I risking if I push on?" he asked himself. "At most I should
have to do another forty miles to pass through the Straits of Dover
and come