emed to Frank to disturb
hopelessly the whole rhythm of the rowing. Nothing but the encouragement
which came to him from Miss Rutherford's esoteric slang kept him from
losing his temper. He could not have been greatly blamed if he had lost
it. It was after three o'clock. He had breakfasted, meagrely, on bread
and honey, at half past seven. He had spent the intervening seven and a
half hours on the sea, eating nothing but the one peppermit cream which
Miss Rutherford pressed on him while he held the _Tortoise_ at Craggeen.
Priscilla had eaten a great many peppermint cream and was besides more
inured to starvation on the water of the bay than Frank was. But even
Priscilla, when the excitement of getting away from Craggeen had passed,
seemed slightly depressed. She scarcely spoke at all, and when
she replied to Miss Rutherford's accusation of "bucketing" did so
incisively.

The boats turned into the bay from which Miss Rutherford had first
hailed the _Tortoise_. They were safely beached. Priscilla ran up to the
nook under the hill where the Primus stove was left Miss Rutherford and
Jimmy stayed to help Frank.

"It's all right," shouted Priscilla. "A good deal has boiled away, but
the Primus stove evidently went out in time to prevent the bottom being
boiled out of the pot. Want of paraffin, I expect."

"Never mind," said Miss Rutherford, "I have some more in a bottle. We
can boil it up again."

"It's hardly worth while," said Priscilla. "I expect it would be quite
good cold, what's left of it. Thickish of course, but nourishing."

"We'll make a second brew," said Miss Rutherford. "I have another
package. Jimmy, do you know if there's any water in this neighbourhood?"

"There's a well beyond," said Jimmy, "at the end of the field across the
hill, but I don't would the likes of yez drink the water that does be in
it."

"Saltish?" said Priscilla.

"It is not then. But the cattle does be drinking out of it and I
wouldn't say it was too clean."

"If we boil it," said Frank, "that won't matter."

He had read, as most of us did at the time, accounts of the precautions
taken by the Japanese doctors during the war with Russia to save the
soldiers under their care from enteric fever. He believed that boiling
removed dirt from water.

"There's worms in it," said Jimmy. "It's hardly ever you take a cupful
out of it without you'd feel the worms on your tongue and you drinking
it."

Miss Rutherford looked at Priscilla, w