Once more he reaches the security of his own ship, and looking back for the
last time to the entrance of the creek, he sees the full moon white and shining in all
its summer glory rise above the tall trees, bathing the creek in loveliness and light.
A night-jar churrs from the bracken on the hills, a fish breaks the surface of
the water with a little plopping sound, and slowly his ship turns to meet the
incoming tide, and the creek is hidden from him.
The yachtsman goes below to the snug security of his cabin, and browsing
amongst his books he finds at last the thing for which he has been searching. It is a
map of Cornwall, ill-drawn and inaccurate, picked up in an idle moment in a Truro
bookshop. The parchment is faded and yellow, the markings indistinct. The
spelling belongs to another century. Helford river is traced fairly enough, and so are
the hamlets of Constantine and Gweek. But the yachtsman looks away from them
to the marking of a narrow inlet, branching from the parent river, its short, twisting
course running westward into a valley. Someone has scratched the name in thin
faded characters-Frenchman's Creek.
The yachtsman puzzles awhile over the name, then shrugs his shoulders and
rolls away the map. Presently he sleeps. The anchorage is still. No wind blows
upon the water, and the night-jars are silent. The yachtsman dreams -and as the tide
surges gently about his ship and the moon shines on the quiet river, soft murmurs
come to him, and the past becomes the present.