The beach lay shining in the sun, bare and white, and my heart gave a jerk of dismay.
"There it is!" panted Carette, pointing the opposite way along the shore.
And there, among a tumbled heap of rocks, whose heads just showed above the water, I saw my boat mopping and mowing at me in the grip of the tide.
I ran along to the nearest point on the beach, calling over my shoulder to Carette, "If they come after you, take to the water; I will pick you up,"-- and dashed in, as we used to do in the olden days, till the water tripped me up, and then swam my fastest for the boat, and thanked God that swimming came so natural to me.
I had the boat back to the beach and Carette aboard within a few minutes, and we each took an oar and pulled for Brecqhou with exultant hearts.

We thought our perils were past--and they were but just beginning.
For as we cleared the eastern point which juts out into the sea, and opened Jethou and the dark channel between the two islands, our eyes lighted together on a boat which was just about to turn the corner into the Herm roadstead.

Another minute and it would have been gone, and we should have been free.
I stopped rowing and made to back in again out of sight, but it was not to be.

They sighted us at the same moment, and in an instant were tugging at their oars to get their boat round, while we bent and pulled for our lives.
Fortunately for us, the tide was running swiftly between the islands, and the time it took them to get round gave us a start.

Moreover, their course, till they got clear of the land, was set thick with perils, and they had to go cautiously, while nothing but clear sea lay between us and Brecqhou..