Now the
tides are not strong in the Pacific; and, if you cannot lighten the Nautilus, I do not see how it will be reinflated."
"The
tide," she told him, "is almost at its lowest."
Some maundering fancy of going out with the
tide suddenly obsessed me.
The
tide, which had turned an hour before, was running down, and his eyes watched every little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight head-way against it, or drove stern foremost before it, according as he directed his daughter by a movement of his head.
Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the
tide; the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and we went ahead among many skiffs and wherries, briskly.
I can tell you that it was with palpitating hearts that we sat upon the river-bank and watched that
tide come slowly in.
These gigantic walls, diminished every
tide by the barges for Belle-Isle were, in the eyes of the musketeer, the consequence and the proof of what he had well divined at Pirial.
And, it being low water, he went out with the
tide.
If the wind doesn't fail us, we'll make the creek before the
tide gets too low, sleep at San Rafael, and arrive in Oakland to-morrow by midday."
A little after noon I found the sea very calm, and the
tide ebbed so far out that I could come within a quarter of a mile of the ship.
"It shall be stopped, your
tide must not turn so soon, nineteen is too young, Beth.
I pulled off my shoes and stockings, and, wailing two or three hundred yards, I found the object to approach nearer by force of the
tide; and then plainly saw it to be a real boat, which I supposed might by some tempest have been driven from a ship.