By-and-by we could see
far-off hills beyond wide-stretching marshlands that looked green and
rich across yellow sandhills that fringed the shore. And from them we
were not a mile, and at their feet were such breakers as no ship might
win through, though, if we might wait until they were at rest, the level
sand was good for beaching at the neap tides. For we were well into
Humber mouth, and to the northward of us, across the yellow water, was
the long point of Spurn, and the ancient port of Ravenspur, with its
Roman jetties falling into decay under the careless hand of the Saxon,
under its shelter. There was no port on this southern side of the
Humber, though farther south was Tetney Haven and again Saltfleet, to
which my father had been, but neither in nor out of them might a vessel
get in a northeast gale.
I have said that this clearness came with the turn of the tide, and now
that began to flow strongly, setting in with the wind with more than its
wonted force, for the northwest shift of the gale had kept it from
falling, as it always will on this coast. That, of course, I learned
later, but it makes plain what happened next. Our anchor began to drag
with the weight of both tide and wind, and that was the uttermost of our
dread.
Slowly it tore through its holding, and as it were step by step at
first, and once we thought it stopped when we had paid out all the
cable.
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