We set our shoulders to the black galley, ran it gaily down the shingle, and took to the oars.

As we got out from under the land we saw the house blazing fiercely on the cliff.

There was a keg in the boat and a mast with a leg-of-mutton sail.

We stepped the mast and set the sail and drew swiftly out to sea.
I do not think either of us ever found a voyage so much to our liking as this.

Our craft was but a Customs' galley, twenty feet long and four feet in beam, it is true, and we were heading straight out into the North Sea.
We had not a scrap of food, but we had fared well the night before, and the keg in the bows suggested hopes.