They were now well aware that they had two enemies to contend with, time and direction. The loss of either one or the other might end in their destruction. A wrong direction would lead them into deep water; a waste of time would bring deep water around them. The old adage about time and tide, which none of them could help having heard, might have been ringing in their ears at that moment. It was appropriate to the occasion.
They thought of it; and the thought filled them with apprehension. From the observations they had made before sunset, they knew that the shore could not be near, not nearer than three miles, perhaps four.
Even with free footing, the true direction, and a clear view of the path, it might have been a question about time. They all knew enough of the sea to be aware how rapidly the tide sets in, especially on some foreign shores, and there was nothing to assure them that the seaboard of the Saara was not beset by the most treacherous of tides. On the contrary, it was just this, a tidal current, that had forced their vessel among the breakers, causing them to become what they now were, castaways!
They had reason to dread the tides of the Saara’s shore; and dread them they did, their fears at each moment becoming stronger as they felt the dark waters rising higher and higher around them!
Chapter Six.
Wade or swim?
Foe a time they floundered on, the old sailor in the lead, the three boys strung out in a line after him. Sometimes they departed from this formation, one or another trying towards the flank for shallower water.
Already it clasped them by the thighs; and just in proportion as it rose upon their bodies, did their spirits become depressed. They knew that they were following the crest of the sandspit. They knew it by the deepening of the sea on each side of them: but they had by this time discovered another index to their direction. Old Bill had kept his “weather-eye” upon the waves; until he had discovered the angle at which they broke over the “bar”, and could follow the “combing” of the spit, as he called it, without much danger of departure from the true path.