aughed--they were so happy, so light-hearted and gay.

"Now, you girls, make the most of the next half-hour or so, and then
'twill be, 'Britons, strike home!'"

So Dick admonished them; and then he and Oscar went strolling away for
their last bout, as they called it.

Who does not know how swiftly the last half-hour of a very enjoyable
time whirls away? The four girls sat down in the glory of it all to sort
their shells, arrange their seaweed, and just rest and, as it were,
digest the day's pleasure.

"And there has been no coming to grief, and no anything," remarked
Sybil: a speech which doubtless would have shocked Madame Giche, had she
heard it.

No, so they thought--still, they must have been blind not to see that
foe of foes, which will not be repulsed nor stayed, stealing up and up,
and hemming them in. They must have been blind, as Dick said, shouting
out to them from above their heads.

What had happened? The tide--a high one to-night--had shut them in; the
waters were already beat-beating against a jutting rock, which made a
bend in the shore on their one side; on their other the sea lay a wide
waste of water; there was no retreating or fleeing, for the tide had
shut them in.

Up the rocks they must go, or----the boys held their breath at this
point, talking together above, where the sunlight still glinted about
them, though the grey evening shadows were upon the little band of
terrified maidens, wringing their hands, pale-faced and with startled
eyes, looking this way and that, and seeing no way of escape.

"Oh, Dick! what can we do? You surely know some way to get us away?"
cried Jenny.

But Dick shook his head.

"There is but one way: and that is, you must come up the rocks, and in
pretty quick time too--see that!" A defiant wave broke not far from
them, and dashed its spray over them. "As for old Rameses, he's safe
round the corner, where you ought to be; but if we were to go down and
try to wade in to you on his back, he'd never do it. He's game for
anything a donkey can do, but not for that." So that forlorn hope had to
be given up.

"They must come up here: that's their only chance," said Oscar.

"But how?" was Dick's answer.

"I must try to go down and fetch them up," was the other's reply, with
paling cheeks but resolute eyes.

"Yes," said Dick, peering down; "and if we could land them on that ledge
of rock down there, 'twould be something; the tide may not reach
that--at least, not