"Are you tired, Meg?" he asked.
"I'm all right."
"Turn on your back and float for a minute or two," and he set the example, and Punch saw and came slipping back to them.
"We're in a cross current," he said quietly. "And we're making no way—"
"I know. I was watching a rock on the shore. What's the best thing to do?"
"We'll rest for a few minutes and then go with the tide round Pointe la Joue. We can land in Vermandés. You're not cold, are you?"
"Not a bit."
When he lifted his head the Coupée was shortened to a span, and the southern headland folded over it as he looked. They were drifting as fast as a man could walk at his fastest. They were abreast the black rocks of La Joue.
"Now, dearest, a little spurt and we shall be in the slack. If you get tired, tell me," and they struck out vigorously on a shoreward slant in the direction they were going.
There should have been a backwater round the corner of Vermandés. He had counted on it. And there was one, but so swift was the rush of the tide round the out-jutting rocks of La Joue, that for some minutes, as they battled with the rough edge of it, it was touch and go with them.