And suddenly Miriam swayed sideways against John Turner, who was perhaps watching her, for he gripped her arm and stood firm. No one spoke. The watchers on the beach stared open-mouthed, making unconscious grimaces as the boat rose and fell. All had been ready for some minutes; every preparation made according to the time-honoured use of these coasts: four men with life-lines round them standing knee-deep waiting to dash in deeper, others behind them grouped in two files, some holding the slack of the life-lines, forming a double rank from the shore to the fire, giving the steersman his course. There was no need to wave a torch or shout an order. They were Farlingford men on the shore and Farlingford men in the boat. At last, after breathless moments of suspense, the boat turned, and came spinning in on the top of a breaker, with the useless oars sticking out like the legs of some huge insect. For a few seconds it was impossible to distinguish anything. The moment the boat touched ground, the waves beating on it enveloped all near it in a whirl of spray, and the black forms seemed to be tumbling over each other in confusion. “You see,” said Turner to Miriam, “he has come back to you after all.” She did not answer but stood, her two hands clasped together on her breast, seeking to disentangle the confused group, half in half out of the water. Then they heard Loo Barebone's voice, cheerful and energetic, almost laughing. Before they could understand what was taking place his voice was audible again, giving a sharp, clear order, and all the black forms rushed together down into the surf. A moment later the boat danced out over the crest of a breaker, splashing into the next and throwing up a fan of spray. “She's through, she's through!” cried some one. And the boat rode for a brief minute head to wind before she turned southward. There were only three on the thwarts--Loo Barebone and two others. The group now broke up and straggled up toward the fire. One man was being supported, and could scarcely walk. It was Captain Clubbe, hatless, his grey hair plastered across his head by salt water. He did not heed any one, but sat down heavily on the shingle and felt his leg with one hand, the other arm hung limply. “Leave me here,” he said, gruffly, to two or three who were spreading out a horse-cloth and preparing to carry him. “Here I stay till all are ashore.” Behind him were several new-comers, one of them a little man talking excitedly to his companion. “But it is a folly,” he was saying in French, “to go back in such a sea as that.” It was the Marquis de Gemosac, and no one was taking any notice of him. Dormer Colville, stumbling over the shingle beside him, recognised Miriam in the firelight and turned again to look at her companion as if scarcely believing the evidence of his own eyes.