They went down the beach, all laden in their way, for even Anne, half asleep though he was, clutched in one hand the foreign shell which the master of the _Trois Frères_ had given him. In spite of the strong wind there were no breakers of sufficient force to make launching difficult. The fisherman's wife deposited her burden and helped to run the boat down. Then she went back, picked up the child, and gave him into the arms of La Vireville, where he stood knee-deep in the swirling water, with François holding on to the boat on the other side. "Madame, I thank you for lending me your husband," said the Chouan, as he took the boy from her. "It is only because of _this_," she answered, indicating the child. "I know that, but I do not thank you any the less." He put Anne-Hilarion over the side and scrambled on board himself. François followed his example, and began to push off. "Take the tiller, Monsieur," he said, "and I will hoist the sail. Au revoir, la femme!" The wind carried away his wife's farewell. Rocking violently at first on the swell, the boat gradually steadied and gathered way as the lug-sail shot up, and at last, close-hauled, she was making her way out of the bay, and La Vireville and his charge were really leaving their native shores. "Enfin!" exclaimed the former, and as François was now at liberty to steer, he relinquished the tiller and took Anne-Hilarion in his arms. Once out of the lee of the land the full force of the wind was apparent. The _Marie-François_--in such manner did the fishing-boat combine the names of her owner and his wife--lay over to it; in the gloom the water rushed white past the gunwale (there was no coaming), and La Vireville had some ado to keep himself and the child in place on the weather side. "You see!" shouted François, and he eased her a point or two. He was laying the usual course for Jersey, to the northward of Granville, by the Passage de la Déroute. But the wind was strongly against them, and on their lee, to the left, as they both knew, lay the miles and miles of shoals and broken, half-submerged rocks and islets of the Iles Chausey and the Minquiers, so treacherous a network of reefs that for thirty miles out from the French coast in their direction there was no water more than ten fathoms deep, and few channels that were safe. It was true that this was not the direction which the voyagers wished to take, but it was, unfortunately, the direction of the steadily-increasing wind.