"I dunnot know. We ran like the divvle last neet. Mebbe when th' sun comes out we'll see."
"Land's over yonder, anyway," he said presently. "But it's a divvle of a way and mos'ly stick-sands, I reck'n."
The clouded eastern sky thinned and lightened somewhat, the sands began to glimmer, and the streaks of water gleamed like bands of steel.
"We mun go," said Seth. "Sun's sick yet wi' last neet's storm. Yo' keep close to me." And they set off on the perilous journey.
For a moment, as they crossed the ridge of their own sand-bank, which stood higher than its neighbours, they caught distant glimpse of yellow sand-hills very far away. Then they were threading cautiously across a wide lower level, seamed with pools and runlets, and could see nothing but the brown sea-sand. And Seth's eyes were everywhere on the look-out for "stick-sands," of which he went in mortal terror.
Where the banks humped up with long rounded limbs as though giants were buried below, he would run at speed; but in the hollows between their progress was slow, because "You nivver knows," said Seth, and tried each foot before he trusted it.
In one wide hollow they came on a mast sticking straight up out of the sand--like a gravestone, Jim thought--and gave it wide berth. And twice they came on swiftly flowing channels which rose to Jim's waist, and it was in the neighbourhood of these that Seth exercised the greatest caution.
"They works under t' sand, here and there, you nivver knows where, an' it's that makes the stick-sands," he said, and breathed freely only when they got on to solid brown ridges again.
So, step by step, they drew nearer to the yellow sand-hills, which looked so like those he was accustomed to that Jim's spirits rose.
"Is that home, Seth?" he asked.