I could not check a sharp cry of suffering as my left hand fell back upon the stones on which I was lying.

My fall had cost me something more than a few minutes' insensibility and an aching head.

I had no more power to move than one who is bound hand and foot.
After a few vain efforts I lay quite still again, trying to deliberate as well as I could for the pain which racked me.

I reckoned up, after many attempts in which first my memory failed me, and then my faculty of calculation, what the time of the high tide would be, and how soon Tardif would come home.

As nearly as I could make out, it would be high water in about two hours.