I may have lain there for ten minutes, or twenty. The moon went behind a cloud, the air grew chilly. I was nerving myself to get up and resume my journey--though to what purpose I could not conceive for I would be little better off on a Norman beach than inland--when a timid hand was put upon my shoulder and someone said questioningly, "Angleterre?" I sprang up. "England. Oh, yes, England. Can you help me get there?" The moon stayed covered and I could not see his face in the dark. "England," he said. "Yes, I'll take you." I followed him to a little backwater, where was beached a rowboat. Even by feel, in the blackness, it seemed to me a very small and frail craft to chance the voyage across the choppy sea, but I had no choice. I seated myself in the stern while he took the oars, cast off and rowed us down the river toward the estuary. I decided he must be one of that company of smugglers who were ferrying refugees into Britain despite the strictest watch. No doubt he thinks to make a pretty penny for tonight's work, I thought, but no coastguard would turn back Albert Weener. I would pay him well for his help, but he could not blackmail me for fabulous ransom. Still the moon did not come out. My eyes, accustoming themselves to the dark, vaguely discerned the shape opposite me and I saw he was a short man, but beyond this I could not distinguish his features. The river broadened, the air became salty, the wind rose and soon the little boat was bobbing up and down in a manner to give discomfort to my stomach. The water, building terraces and battlements, reflected enough light to impress me with the diminutiveness of the boat, set in the vastness on which it floated. Behind us the French coast was a looming mass, then a thick blob, finally a thin blur hardly perceptible to strained eyes. I was thoroughly seasick, retching and vomiting over the narrow freeboard. Steadily and rhythmically the man rowed with tireless arms, apparently unaffected by the boat's leaping and dropping in response to the impulse of the waves and in my intervals of relief from nausea I reflected that he must have gained plenty of practice, that he was an old hand in making this trip. It was a peculiar way to gain wealth, I thought, caught in another spasm of sickness, enriching oneself on the misery of others. I vomited and dozed, dozed and vomited. The night was endless, the wind was bitter. What riches, I wondered, could compensate a man for such hardships? By the time the wanderers got to the Channel they could not very well have much left and unless my smuggler were gifted with secondsight he could not know, judging by the way he had accosted me, whether he was carrying a man who could pay L10, L100 or L500 for the accommodation. Well, I philosophized, it takes all kinds to make a world, and who am I to say this illicit trafficker isnt doing as much good in his way as I in mine?