The clouded eastern sky thinned and lightened somewhat, the sands began to glimmer, and the streaks of water gleamed like bands of steel. "We mun go," said Seth. "Sun's sick yet wi' last neet's storm. Yo' keep close to me." And they set off on the perilous journey. For a moment, as they crossed the ridge of their own sand-bank, which stood higher than its neighbours, they caught distant glimpse of yellow sand-hills very far away. Then they were threading cautiously across a wide lower level, seamed with pools and runlets, and could see nothing but the brown sea-sand. And Seth's eyes were everywhere on the look-out for "stick-sands," of which he went in mortal terror. Where the banks humped up with long rounded limbs as though giants were buried below, he would run at speed; but in the hollows between their progress was slow, because "You nivver knows," said Seth, and tried each foot before he trusted it. In one wide hollow they came on a mast sticking straight up out of the sand--like a gravestone, Jim thought--and gave it wide berth. And twice they came on swiftly flowing channels which rose to Jim's waist, and it was in the neighbourhood of these that Seth exercised the greatest caution. "They works under t' sand, here and there, you nivver knows where, an' it's that makes the stick-sands," he said, and breathed freely only when they got on to solid brown ridges again. So, step by step, they drew nearer to the yellow sand-hills, which looked so like those he was accustomed to that Jim's spirits rose. "Is that home, Seth?" he asked. "Ech, lad, no. We're many a mile from home, but we'll git there sometime." It was when that toilsome journey was over, and the sun had come out, and they were lying spent in a hollow of the yellow sand-hills, that Seth turned to Jim and said weightily: "Yo' mun promise me, Mester Jim, to forget aw that happened last neet. I dun my best for yo'; an' yo' mun promise that." "I'm afraid I can't ever forget it, Seth," said Jim solemnly, "and some of it I don't ever want to forget. But I'll promise you I'll never tell about the little barrels and things, or about you, never, as long as I live." "Well," said Seth, after ruminating on this. "That'll do if yo'll stick to it." "I'll bite my tongue out before I'll say a word." "Aw reet. Yo' see, I wur on the boat when they brought yo' aboard, but I couldn' ha' done owt with aw that lot about. 'Twere foolish to fall into their honds." About midday they came on a fisherman's hut, back among the sand-hills, and got some bread and fish, freely given when Seth explained matters--so far as he deemed necessary; and they lay on a pile of strong-smelling nets and slept longer than Seth had intended. Then, with vague directions towards a distant high-road, they set out again. "'Twere Morecambe Bay we ran aground in," said Seth, "an' they wouldn' hardly believe as we'd come across th' flats. Reg'lar suckers, they say, an' swallowed a moight o' men in their time."