The Frenchman, who was now in a state of terror, began to call upon the saints. To Conyngham’s inquiry whether he knew of a safe entrance to the little cove at which they were heading he vouchsafed no reply. But as they drew near the line of breakers his wails increased.
“We shall all be drowned!” he cried over and over. “Better a prison than the bottom of the sea.”
But Conyngham, with one eye ahead and the other on the approaching cutter, held his course. In another moment he had crossed the Englishman’s bows, and as the latter fired a parting shot the yawl was in the midst of the smother of tumbling waters.
How she got through it without being wrecked was more than any one of the crew could ever tell. Time and again they held their breath, expecting to be crushed upon the black points that now and then showed themselves on either hand. But with the skill of an Indian guiding his canoe down the rapids, Conyngham steered the little boat, and in half an hour she had safely passed the barrier reef and the worst part of the sailing, and soon was in the comparatively smooth water near the little beach.
Now there could be noticed a few roughly built huts of stone before which there were some nets drying on the ground, and some frightened fishermen came down to the water’s edge. One of them hailed in half French and half English, to which Conyngham replied.
The man informed them that they had better not land, as they had been seen by the Government lookout on the top of the cliff, and that in all probability the guards would soon be down and they would all be made prisoners.
Evidently, like the cutter, the fellow had taken them for smugglers, but he gave the information that farther down the coast there was a small cove inaccessible and invisible from above, where they might be able to get ashore.
Shortening sail, Conyngham headed the yawl southward. Out to sea the cutter was holding the same course, watching like a cat at a rat-hole. It looked as if escape was impossible, for a long promontory ran out to south not four leagues away, and with a shifted wind it would be only by miracle that they could keep from going ashore.
But the darkness, that Conyngham was waiting for, came at last, ushered in by a blinding fall of rain, and in it he once more managed to make an offing and by good luck and good seamanship weathered the point, and with the cutter somewhere back in the darkness, he made out once more into the open channel. At daybreak he was off Dover and could see the flag flying on the walls of the castle, and a mass of shipping about the entrance. He made boldly in and dropped his little anchor amid a fleet of small craft. The harbor at this time was not one of the best in the world, for the shingle bar would keep shifting, and the breakwaters, except the old basin piers, were not then built. But lying well out Captain Conyngham detected a vessel that, from the description he had received from Mr. Allan, he was sure could be none other than the Roebuck.
His sailing in so boldly had not attracted the least notice, and as he had bidden most of the crew to keep themselves out of sight under the tarpaulins, the number of men he had with him had not attracted attention either.