Such a scrimmage--such a scamper; boats scattering in all directions; the French boat getting up a sail or two, and all confusion; whips cracking, wheels ploughing through the soft sand, and horses galloping off to get to the other side of the sandbank. We were close aside the long, low _chasse-maree_, in our bit of a skiff thing, when the alarm was given, and pushed off hard for the shore, which was about two hundred yards distant, while on all sides there were other boats setting us the example, or following in our wake; in front of us there was a heavy cart backed as far out into the sea as she would stand, with the horses turned restive and jibbing, for there was a heavy load behind them, and the more the driver lashed them, the more the brutes backed out in the shallow water, while every moment the wheels kept sinking farther into the sand. I saw all this as the revenue cutter's boats separated, one making for the _chasse-maree_, and the other dashing after the flying long-shore squadron; and as I dragged at my oar, I had the pleasure of seeing that we must either be soon overhauled, or else leap out into the shallow water, and run for it, and I said so to my companion. "Oh, hang it, no," he cried; "pull on. They'll stave in the boat, and we shall lose all the brandy." I did pull on, for I was so far from being loyal, that I was ready to run any risk sooner than lose the little cargo we had of a dozen brandy-kegs, and about the same number of packages; but there seemed not the slightest prospect of our getting off, unless we happened to be unobserved in the darkness. However, I pulled on, and keeping off to the right, we had the satisfaction of seeing the revenue boat row straight on, as if not noticing us. "Keep off a little now," I whispered, "or we shall be ashore." "No, no--it's all right," was the reply; "we are just over the swatch;" which is the local term given to the long channels washed out in the sand by the tide, here and there forming deep trenches along the coast, very dangerous for bathers. "They see us," I whispered; when my companion backed water, and the consequence was, that the boat's head turned right in-shore, and we floated between the piles, and were next moment, with shipped oars, out of sight in the outlet of the gowt.