Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/148

 and, as the vessels cannot be launched from that flat beach, excepting about the last quarter of the flood, and the first of the ebb tides, we could not have got afloat, had we arrived even four hours earlier.

Our spirits, however, were not to be damped, and, notwithstanding our original intention was to make for Cadsand, we resolved to wait in the neighbourhood the issue of another night; to this end we returned by the same path, to the village, and, while going leisurely along the strand street, heard a distant sound of the clashing of muskets, and footsteps of a body of men running; this was decidedly the guard, who had probably seen us from the heights. We instantly doubled back, crossed by a bye lane, leaped a ditch, and ran over the fields, until we judged ourselves out of reach of the pursuers. This was another instance of our narrowly escaping danger, which some may attribute to blind chance, but which, by us, was felt to be an interposition of Divine Providence in our favour; for there can be no