I carried her down to the cabin and left her there.
Then I had to get under way, with the dinghy astern, and beat out of the little harbour against the tide.
The wind was with me, but it came in puffs, and I was in the lee there, under cover of the headland.
I remember I got the mainsail jammed half-way up the mast.
I had not done it, you see, for a long time.
I never went out with Rebecca.
'And I thought of the tide, how swift it ran and strong into the little cove.
The wind blew down from the headland like a funnel.
I got the boat out into the bay.
I got her out there, beyond the beacon, and I tried to go about, to clear the ridge of rocks.
The little jib fluttered. I could not sheet it in.
A puff of wind came and the sheet tore out of my hands, went twisting round the mast.
The sail thundered and shook. It cracked like a whip above my head.
I could not remember what one had to do.
I could not remember.
I tried to reach that sheet and it blew above me in the air.
Another blast of wind came straight ahead.
We began to drift sideways, closer to the ridge.
It was dark, so damned dark I couldn't see anything on the black, slippery deck.
Somehow I blundered down into the cabin.
I had a spike with me.
If I didn't do it now it would be too late.
We were getting so near to the ridge, and in six or seven minutes, drifting like this, we should be out of deep water.
I opened the seacocks.
The water began to come in.
I drove the spike into the bottom boards. One of the planks split right across.
I took the spike out and began to drive in another plank.
The water came up over my feet.
I left Rebecca lying on the floor.
I fastened both the scuttles.
I bolted the door.
When I came up on deck I saw we were within twenty yards of the ridge.
I threw some of the loose stuff on the deck into the water. There was a lifebuoy, a pair of sweeps, a coil of rope.
I climbed into the dinghy.
I pulled away, and lay back on the paddles, and watched.
The boat was drifting still. She was sinking too.
Sinking by the head.
The jib was still shaking and cracking like a whip.
I thought someone must hear it, someone walking the cliffs late at night, some fisherman from Kerrith away beyond me in the bay, whose boat I could not see.
The boat was smaller, like a black shadow on the water.
The mast began to shiver, began to crack.
Suddenly she heeled right over and as she went the mast broke in two, split right down the centre.
The lifebuoy and the sweeps floated away from me on the water.
The boat was not there any more.
I remember staring at the place where she had been.
Then I pulled back to the cove.
It started raining.'
Maxim waited.
He stared in front of him still.
Then he looked at me, sitting beside him on the floor.