Treenail was coolness itself, and I aped him as
well as I could. The loud murmur, increasing to a roar, of the sea,
was trying enough as we approached, buoyed on the last long undulation.
"Now sit still, massa, bote."
We sank down into the trough, and presently were hove forwards with a
smooth sliding motion up on the beach--until grit, grit, we stranded on
the cream-coloured sand, high and dry.
"Now, jomp, massa, jomp."
We leapt with all our strength, and thereby toppled down on our noses;
the sea receded, and before the next billow approached we had run the
canoe twenty yards beyond high-water mark.
It was the work of a very few minutes to haul the canoe across the
sand-bank, and to launch it once more in the placid waters of the
harbour of Kingston. We pulled across towards the town, until we
landed at the bottom of Hanover Street; the lights from the cabin
windows of the merchantmen glimmering as we passed, and the town only
discernible from a solitary sparkle here and there. But the contrast
when we landed was very striking. We had come through the darkness of
the night in comparative quietness; and in two hours from the time we
had left the old _Torch_, we were transferred from her orderly deck to
the bustle of a crowded town.
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