The end might be nearer than we deemed it.
"Aye, two ships sailing this way." They were those which we had seen and forgotten.

I ran out, and while Fergus went to Bertric, climbed the little hill beyond the village, and looked seaward.

The ships were six miles away, and heading due west, having edged somewhat farther from the shore than when we first sighted them.

They were not coming hither.
"There need be no fear of those ships, father," I said.

"They are making a passage past us--bound elsewhere at all events." "Then," he said at once, "there lies your boat on the shore of the open sea.