"I am not ungrateful, as you think." "Why should I think so?
You will have more yet to thank me for, I hope." The boat at this moment swung to the left, around a sandy promontory that hid the jets of firearms behind them; but waves of light still flickered across the black sky and the shouting still went on, though growing fainter as they hurried forward.

By one of the flashes, more vivid than the rest and accompanied by the crackle of a whole volley, Tristram saw that the boat was now being propelled down a narrow channel, both shores of which he could just perceive across the gloom.
Captain Salt suddenly raised both hands to his mouth, and hollowing the palms, uttered three mournful cries, long and loud, like the wailing of a gull.
Within half a minute the sound was echoed back from the darkness on the right shore, for which the boat immediately headed.

After thirty strokes Tristram felt the sand rub beneath the keel, and they came to a stand.
"Show the light!" his father called, jumping out into the water that hardly covered the insteps of his riding-boots.
The red glow of a lantern appeared as if by magic, and revealed a man standing but twenty yards ahead on a gentle slope of sand.

He held the lantern in one hand, and his right arm was slipped through the bridles of two horses that waited, side by side, and ready saddled, their breath smoking out on the night wind.
"Dear me," Captain Salt observed, reaching a hand to Tristram, and helping him to land; "I forgot to ask if you could ride." "A very little, my father." "You will find it difficult, then, to trot.

Therefore we will gallop." "You intend me to climb upon one of these beasts ?" "That is easy enough." "I do not deny it; but I suppose you also wish me to stay on." "Come; we must lose no time." "Luckily the soil of Holland, as far as I am acquainted with it, is soft and sandy.