The tide had been steadily rising as he crouched under the banks, and was now lapping his boots.

Worse than this, it had floated off the boat, which he had carelessly forgotten to secure, and drifted it up the river, at first under cover of the trees, afterwards more ostentatiously into mid-channel.
Mr.Fogo rushed up the patch of shingle until brought to a standstill by its sudden declension into deep water.

There was no help for it.
Not a soul was in sight.

He divested himself rapidly of his clothes, piled them in a neat little heap beyond reach of the tide, and then with considerable spirit plunged into the flood and struck out in pursuit of the truant..