Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/12

 reports of the muskets, concluded that he might chance to pick up a fare. He pulled towards me, I hailed him; and he took me in, before I had got half a quarter of a mile from the ship.

"I doubt whether you would ever have fetched the shore on that tack, my lad," said the old man. "You left your ship two hours too soon: you would have met the ebb-tide running strong out of the harbour; and the first thing you would have made, if you could have kept up your head above water, would have been the Ower's."

While the old man was pulling and talking, I was shivering and dressing, and made no reply; but begged him to put me on shore on the first part of South Sea Beach he could land at, which he did. I gave him a guinea, and ran, without stopping, into the garrison, and down Point-street to the Star and Garter, where I was received by Eugenia, who, with great presence of mind, called me her "dear,