"There's another one, sir!" exclaimed Peter as soon as the moisture on the wheel-house windows cleared sufficiently to enable him to see ahead.
Three more times in quick succession the Olivette charged moving walls of roaring surf-crested water; then she found herself in a turmoil of dangerous waves, steep, irregular, and silent as they surged onwards in the wake of the bore. In a few moments the agitation died away; the Olivette ported helm, and, with a six-knot tide to aid her on her way, progressed rapidly up-stream.
"Jolly exciting, eh, what?" exclaimed Peter. "Does that happen twice every day, sir? If so, what do we do when there's a bore at night?"
"We'll certainly have a repetition of it," replied Mr. Armitage, "but I hope we'll be in fairly sheltered water to-night. We've struck it at rather an awkward time, as we're right on the top of the spring tides. At neaps the bore is hardly noticeable."
Before the tide changed again the Olivette had passed Caudebec and followed the wide and sharp curve that the Seine makes round the forest of Jumièges, and brought up off the little town of Duclair.
"We won't feel much of the bore here," said Mr. Armitage, when the Olivette had picked up a set of moorings lent by a courteous Frenchman. "It will be safe to leave the boat; so who's for the shore? A jolly good walk will do us good. Are you coming with us, Tom?"
Old Boldrigg expressed his readiness to go. Hitherto he had spent most of his time on board while the Olivette was in port.
"And what did you think of the bore, Mr. Boldrigg?" asked Peter, while the old seaman was changing into "shore rig".
"Not much, by a long chalk, Master Peter," was the reply. "When I saw that there a-bearing down on us, I wished I was properly afloat—plenty of sea-room, you'll understand. Rivers is all very well, but give me the deep sea—it's safer."