were not a mile, and at their feet were such breakers as no ship might
win through, though, if we might wait until they were at rest, the level
sand was good for beaching at the neap tides. For we were well into
Humber mouth, and to the northward of us, across the yellow water, was
the long point of Spurn, and the ancient port of Ravenspur, with its
Roman jetties falling into decay under the careless hand of the Saxon,
under its shelter. There was no port on this southern side of the
Humber, though farther south was Tetney Haven and again Saltfleet, to
which my father had been, but neither in nor out of them might a vessel
get in a northeast gale.

I have said that this clearness came with the turn of the tide, and now
that began to flow strongly, setting in with the wind with more than its
wonted force, for the northwest shift of the gale had kept it from
falling, as it always will on this coast. That, of course, I learned
later, but it makes plain what happened next. Our anchor began to drag
with the weight of both tide and wind, and that was the uttermost of our
dread.

Slowly it tore through its holding, and as it were step by step at
first, and once we thought it stopped when we had paid out all the
cable. But wind and sea were too strong, and presently again we saw the
shore marks shifting, and we knew that there was no hope. The ship must
touch the ground sooner or later, and then the end would come with one
last struggle in the surf, and on shore was no man whose hand might be
stretched to drag a spent man to the land, if he won through. It would
have seemed less lonely had one watched us, but I did not know then that
no pity for the wrecked need be looked for from the marshmen of the
Lindsey shore. There was not so much as a fisher's boat of wicker and
skins in sight on the sandhills, where one might have looked to see some