venture too far out, Charles," said Mrs. Pixley,
with visions of his limp body being carried home.

"Miss Penny and I are sensible people when we're bathing," said
Charles. "We don't lose our heads--"

"Nor any of the rest of you,--nor touch of the stones," laughed
Graeme.

"That's so," said Charles. "We like to know what's below us and that
it's not too far away."

"It's very wise," said Mrs. Pixley plaintively. "One hears of such
dreadful accidents. I'm very glad you're so sensible, my dear," to
Miss Penny.

"Oh, I'm dreadfully sensible at times, especially when I'm bathing.
But that's because I can only swim with one foot at the bottom."

"Any beach about there?" enquired Charles forethoughtfully.

"Nice little bit just round the corner, with a cave and all,--capital
place for children. Paddle by the hour without going in above your
ankles."

And so they wandered slowly up the scented lanes past the Seigneurie,
laden with the usual paraphernalia of a bathing-lunch, and came out on
the Eperquerie.

They established the old ladies in a gorsy nook, built a fireplace of
loose stones, and collected fuel, and laid the fire ready for the
match, which Lady Elspeth was to apply whenever they waved to her.

"If She isn't fast asleep," said Graeme.

Then they pointed out all the things that lay about, so that they
might take an intelligent interest in their surroundings,--Guernsey,
and Herm, and Jethou, and Alderney, and the Casquets, and the coast of
France, and the Seigneur in his boat, and then they trooped off like a
party of school-children.

And presently the old ladies saw them scrambling down the black,
scarped sides of the headland opposite, and then they disappeared
behind rocks and into crannies. Then a pink meteor flashed from the
black ledge, followed in an instant by a dark-blue one, and both went
breasting out to sea. And in front of the cave two less venturesome
figures beguiled the onlookers and themselves into the belief that
they were swimming, though they never went out of their depth and
sounded anxiously for it at every second stroke.

And up above, the larks trilled joyously, and the air was soft and
sweet as the air of heaven; and down below, the water was bluer than
the sky and clear as crystal, so that they could see the great white
rocks which lay away down in the depths, and they looked like
sea-monsters crawling after their prey. And the shouts of the swimmers
came mellowly up to