d to notice that she now put the whole blame of
the sudden violence of the last jibe on him. Thinking over the matter
afterwards, he remembered that she had apologised at the time for her
own bad steering. Now she wanted to hold his awkwardness responsible for
what might have been a disaster.

"All right," he said, "All right I'll do whatever you tell me."

"I won't risk it," said Priscilla. "You'd mean to do all right, but you
wouldn't when the time came. That ankle of yours, you know. After all,
it's just as easy to run her up into the wind and stay her."

"There's a man at the door of one of the tents looking at us through a
pair of glasses," said Frank.

"Let him," said Priscilla.

She was hauling in the main sheet as the boat swept up into the wind.

"Now, Cousin Frank, ready about. You must slack off the jib sheet and
haul down the other. That thin rope at your hand. Yes, that's it."

The meaning of this new manoeuvre was dim and uncertain to Frank. He
grasped the rope indicated to him and then heard a noise as if some one
at the bottom of the sea, an angry mermaid perhaps, was striking the
keel of the boat hard with a hammer.

"She's touching," said Priscilla. "Up centreboard, quick."

Frank gazed at her in pained bewilderment. He had not the least idea of
what she wanted him to do. The knocking at the boat's bottom became more
frequent and violent. Priscilla gave the main sheet a turn round a
cleat and stretched forward, holding the tiller with her left hand. She
grasped a rope, one out of a tangled web of wet ropes, and tugged. The
knocking ceased. The boat swept up into the wind. There was a sudden
arrest of movement, a violent list over, a dart forward, a soft
crunching sound, and then a dead stop.

"Bother," said Priscilla, "we're aground."

She sprang overboard at once, stood knee deep in the water, and tugged
at the stern of the boat The centreboard, when she dropped its rope,
fell to the bottom of its case, caught in the mud under the boat, and
anchored her immovably. Priscilla tugged in vain.

"It's no good," she said at last, "and the tide's ebbing. We're here for
hours and hours. I hope you didn't hurt your ankle, Cousin Frank, during
that fray."

CHAPTER VII

"That fellow is still looking at us through his glasses," said Frank.

"Can't help it," said Priscilla, "If it amuses him he can go on looking
at us for the next four hours."

She gathered her dripping skirt round her a