With a confused mingling of shame, anger, and sudden fear he ran out on
the gallery. The tide was well up, half the Marsh had already
vanished, and the little creek where he had moored his skiff was now an
empty shining river. The water was everywhere--fringing the tussocks
of salt grass with concentric curves of spume and drift, or
tumultuously tossing its white-capped waves over the spreading expanse
of the lower bay. The low thunder of breakers in the farther estuary
broke monotonously on the ear. But his eye was fascinated by a dull
shifting streak on the horizon, that, even as he gazed, shuddered,
whitened along its whole line, and then grew ghastly gray again. It
was the ocean bar.