And that was all there was to it--sheer luck, Oddie would have told them, had they asked him. And yet it was not luck altogether. True, he knew no channel across--there was no channel across--and yet he knew there were little gullies scooped out here and there on the sand-ridges. And if a man could make one now and one again, jumping over the almost dry beach, as it were, between them--who knows?--it might be done. On a black night like this nobody could see the gullies, or on any kind of a night, for that matter; but then there was that something--he did not know what to call it--inside of him that told him the things he could not hear nor see nor feel. And then again, let a vessel alone, and she will naturally shy for the deep water. Force her with the rudder, and she will go where the rudder sends her. Oddie forced her, but only to make her take the full weight of the wind. It was necessary to drive her over if ever she was to get over at all. That same something inside told him when her nose was nearing the high shoals--it came to him as if her quivering planks carried the message; there it was, put her off now, and now again, now hold her that the wind may have its lifting effect, now let her go and she’ll find the way. That was the way of it--bang, bang, bang, on her side mostly, with her planks smashing against the bare bottom as she drove over the sand-ridges--her stem rushing through at an awful clip when she found a gully a little deeper than usual. The great seas broached over her, and it became dangerous to remain on deck. So Oddie ordered all hands below and the slides drawn tight after them, fore and aft. “I don’t see the difference whether we’re washed off up here or drowned below,” said one. “Go below, just the same,” said Oddie, and below they all went, while Oddie, lashing himself hard and fast, prepared for what further fury wind and sea had in store for himself and the _Delia_. It was a sea to batter a lighthouse down. It takes shoal water for wicked seas, and this certainly was shoal water, with the sand off bottom swirling around deck. A noble vessel was the _Delia_, but when the sea took charge that night everything was swept clean from her decks. Dories first--her own eight and the four of the _Eldorado’s_ that had been picked up, twelve in all--went with one smash. Oddie allowed himself a little pang as he watched them and heard the crash. It was too dark to see them clearly; but he knew how they looked, floating off in the white combers in kindling-wood. The booby-hatches went next, and after them the gurry-kids--match-wood all. Everything that was not bolted went. The very rails went at last, crackling from the stanchions as if they were cigar-box sides when they did go.