der-clap? Or was it shelving sand, where there
is stranding, and the pound, pound, pound of the waves for howls, before
she goes to pieces and all is over?

We were in a bay, for there was the long white crescent of surf reaching
far away on either side, till it was lost in the dusk, and the brig
helpless in the midst of it. Elzevir had hold of my arm, and gripped it
hard as he looked to larboard. I followed his eyes, and where one horn of
the white crescent faded into the mist, caught a dark shadow in the air,
and knew it was high land looming behind. And then the murk and driving
rain lifted ever so little, and as it were only for that purpose; and we
saw a misty bluff slope down into the sea, like the long head of a
basking alligator poised upon the water, and stared into each other's
eyes, and cried together, 'The Snout!'

It had vanished almost before it was seen, and yet we knew there was no
mistake; it was the Snout that was there looming behind the moving rack,
and we were in Moonfleet Bay. Oh, what a rush of thought then came,
dazing me with its sweet bitterness, to think that after all these weary
years of prison and exile we had come back to Moonfleet! We were so near
to all we loved, so near--only a mile of broken water--and yet so far,
for death lay between, and we had come back to Moonfleet to die. There
was a change came over Elzevir's features when he saw the Snout; his face
had lost its sadness and wore a look of sober happiness. He put his mouth
close to my ear and said: 'There is some strange leading hand has brought
us home at last, and I had rather drown on Moonfleet Beach than live in
prison any more, and drown we must within an hour. Yet we will play the
man, and make a fight for life.' And then, as if gathering together all
his force: 'We have weathered bad times together, and who knows but we
shall weather this?'

The other prisoners were on deck now, and had found their way aft. They
were wild with fear, being landsmen and never having seen an angry sea,
and indeed that sea might have frighted sailors too. So they stumbled
along drenched with the waves, and clustered round Elzevir, for they
looked on him as a leader, because he knew the ways of the sea and was
the only one left calm in this dreadful strait.

It was plain that when the Dutch crew found they were embayed, and that
the ship must drift into the breakers, they had taken to the boats, for
gig and jolly-boat were gone and only the