"We'll take no chances," Whitney answered; and ran to the scuttle. "Pull up the board and come on deck!" he shouted to Andrew.
In a few moments Andrew's head appeared; and after a glance round, he swung himself up and jumping aft took the helm from Dick.
"Ready with the head-sheets!" he ordered. "We'll come round."
She began to turn and then suddenly stopped, with a rush of sandy water boiling about her stern. Andrew seized an oar, but could not push her off, and she sank on one side until the water flowed along the lower deck-planks.
"She's fast," Whitney said. "Where are we?"
"On the Barnhourie tongue of the Mersehead bank," replied Andrew, throwing down the oar. "I meant to run through the gut between them." He turned to Dick. "You're a hundred yards off your course."
"That's the tide's fault. Shall we take the sail off her?"
Andrew thought for a moment.
"Yes. I don't know about laying out an anchor. The flood runs pretty fast here; but we'll see when the sands are dry."
They lowered the canvas and then went below to cook a meal. This took them some time, for the floor and lockers slanted awkwardly, as the boat listed over, and when they went on deck again the light had begun to fade. Whitney was astonished at the transformation. What had looked like open water when he went below, was now a waste of sloppy sand that ran back as far as he could see. It was, however, pierced by a broad channel, from which a depression, filled with shallow pools, cut through the bank and ended in a lagoon not far off. This was evidently the gut Andrew had meant to navigate. The cliffs round the bay, to the westward, were losing their sharpness of outline; but two or three blocks of houses and a tower on the rocky point showed black above the level strip behind them.