"Good Lord!" he said, breathing deep, as one just awaking to a new and terrible danger.
Kit looked at him, and was shocked at the change that had come over him. He could scarcely recognise in this grey-green spectre the roaring swordsman of the shingle-bank.
"I'm tired," said the Parson suddenly, "very tired."
He flopped forward on his knees.
"My sins have found me out," he moaned. "May mother forgive me!"
His courage had faded with his colour.
Collapsing, he lay like a dead thing in a slop of sand and water at the bottom of the boat.
Kit heard his voice as in a dream.
The boy was sitting quite still, the smell of the sea in his nostrils, the wind in his hair, the hiss and flop of the waters in his ears.
The life of the body was coming back to him. The good salt breeze flushed his veins. The tiller began to pull at his hand. The lugger swung and curtseyed, graceful as a dancing girl. She was alive. She was careering over the swells, snatching for her head. She knew her mission, and revelled in it.