"Get ready, boys. This is our turn."
In less than a minute after, for no apparent reason, the crowd around Tristram surged forward to the bulwarks, and he was carried along with the rush. Then he found himself swaying unsteadily down a flight of steps and calling to the men behind not to hustle and precipitate him into one or other of the two longboats that lay below. Into the nearer of these his company swept him, and poured in at his heels until the gunwale was nearly level with the water. The rowers pushed off in the nick of time, and pulled their freight slowly across the sullen tide, while the rain beat down relentlessly.
As they neared the shore, a landing-stage, or low jetty, of sunk piles disengaged itself from the mist. This was the sole object that diversified the melancholy line of sandbanks, and towards it they were steered, Tristram looking eagerly out under the peak of his cap, from which a rivulet of water was by this time coursing down his nose.
Half a dozen grey figures were standing on the jetty, and, as the soldiers scrambled up its dripping steps, one of them advanced and touched Tristram by the elbow. It was his father.
"Safe and sound, my boy? Parbleu! but it's easy to see you're no accomplished sailor; but that's all the better."
Tristram was feeling too faint to contest this, though it appeared to him to be disputable.
"Let us get ahead of this mob," his father went on. "Come, use your best foot—it's no great distance."
He struck off the sodden track and dived into the mist, Tristram following close at his heels. Their way lay over hillocks and hollows of sand in which they sank ankle-deep at every step. In two minutes they lost sight of the regiment, and were walking with their faces set, as it seemed, towards a wall of grey atmosphere, impenetrable by the eye. After five minutes of this Tristram groaned. He had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and his limbs were weak as water.
"Courage, my son! A few paces more."
Almost as he spoke a building loomed out of the mist, and they found themselves before a doorway, over which hung the sign of "The Four Seasons." A sentry, who stood beside the entrance, presented arms and let them pass. Captain Salt led the way indoors and up a rickety staircase to the right, on the first landing of which they found two pages in waiting.