Less than fifteen yards off, was a barrel-buoy, painted red and white, and surmounted by a battered top-mark.
Mr. Armitage felt like shouting with sheer delight. He could scarcely believe his eyes. Surely there was a special working of Providence. Unknown to anyone on board either the yacht or her tow, the Rosalie had groped her way over the bar without so much as catching a glimpse of the bar buoy, and the alteration of helm had brought her close to the second of the line of buoys marking the port-hand side of the Swash Channel leading to Poole Harbour.
Nowhere else on the South Coast is the port-hand side of a channel marked in this fashion. The red-and-white barrel-buoy Mr. Armitage recognized instantly. He felt like a lost man who has been suddenly placed upon his own doorstep.
"Hard-a-port!" he ordered, somewhat to Stratton's amazement at the quick change of course. "Nor' by west. Keep her at that."
It was now a case of making her way up from one buoy to another. For intervals of a couple of minutes or so there would be a blank expanse of sea and fog, then slightly on the port bow would appear another of those blessed red-and-white barrels, each one as it was passed representing a certain distance made good in the direction of a sheltered anchorage.
On either hand the surf was roaring, but the Rosalie and the tramp were in comparatively deep and smooth water, with a young flood tide to aid them.
"Land on the port bow!"
There was a long, low stretch of sand dunes covered with coarse grass.
"Land on the starboard bow!"
Again there was no mistake. Through the now lifting fog could be discerned a large white building, with a small pier a little beyond.