For an instant the girl gazed affrightedly at the sea until the sailor stood at her side again.
"You see," he said, "you have scared every cuttle within miles." And he thought that he would give many years of his life to be able to take her in his arms and kiss away her anxiety.
But the tide had turned; in a few minutes the reef would be partly submerged.

To carry the case of rifles to the mainland was a manifestly impossible feat, so Jenks now did that which, done earlier, would have saved him some labor--he broke open the chest, and found that the weapons were apparently in excellent order.
He snapped the locks and squinted down the barrels of half a dozen to test them.

These he laid on one side.

Then he rapidly constructed a small raft from loose timbers, binding them roughly with rope, and to this argosy he fastened the box of tea, the barrels of flour, the broken saloon-chair, and other small articles which might be of use.

He avoided any difficulty in launching the raft by building it close to the water's edge.