I believe I'm getting quite excited.

It's more exciting than playing the trombone in an orchestra.

I'll run him down, eh ?--and then we can drag the chap in from the water.' Racksole nodded, but at that moment a barge, with her red sails set, stood out of the fog clean across the bows of the Customs boat, which narrowly escaped instant destruction.

When they got clear, and the usual interchange of calm, nonchalant swearing was over, the dinghy was barely to be discerned in the mist, and the fat man was breathing in such a manner that his sighs might almost have been heard on the banks.
Racksole wanted violently to do something, but there was nothing to do; he could only sit supine by Hazell's side in the stern-sheets.

Gradually they began again to overtake the dinghy, whose one-man crew was evidently tiring.