way just at this crisis of the
adventure. I shall be longing day and night to hear how it ends."

"I'll write and tell you, if you like," said Priscilla.

"Do," said Miss Rutherford. "Just let me know whether the sanctuary
remains inviolable and I shall be satisfied."

"Right," said Priscilla. "Goodbye We needn't actually kiss each other,
need we? Of course, if you want to frightfully you can; but I think
kissing's rather piffle."

Miss Rutherford contented herself with wringing Priscilla's hand. Then
she and Priscilla helped Frank out of Jimmy Kinsella's boat and into the
_Tortoise_.

The wind was due east and was blowing a good deal harder than it was
when they ran down to Inish-bawn. The _Tortoise_ had a long beat before
her, the kind of beat which means that a small boat will take in a good
deal of water. Priscilla passed an oilskin coat to Frank. Having been
wet through by the thunderstorm and having got dry, Frank had no wish
to get wet again. He struggled into the coat, pushing his arms through
sleeves which stuck together and buttoned it round him. The _Tortoise_
settled down to her work in earnest She listed over until the foaming
dark water rushed along her gunwale. She pounded into the short seas,
lifted her bow clear of them, pounded down again, breasted them, took
them fair on the curve of her bow, deluged herself, Frank's oilskin and
even the greater part of her sails with showers of spray. The breeze
freshened and at the end of each tack the boat swung round so fast
that Frank, with his maimed ankle, had hard work to scramble over the
centreboard case to the weather side. He slipped and slithered on the
wet floor boards. There was a wash of water on the lee side which caught
and soaked whichever leg he left behind him. He discovered that an
oilskin coat is a miserably inefficient protection in a small boat. Not
that the seas came through it. That does not happen. But while he made
a grab at the flying foresail sheet a green blob of a wave would rush up
his sleeve and soak him elbow high. Or, when he had turned his back
to the wind and settled down comfortably, an insidious shower of spray
found means to get between his coat and his neck, and trickled swiftly
down, saturating his innermost garments to his very waist. Also it is
necessary sometimes to squat with knees bent chinward, and then there
are bulging spaces between the buttons of the coat Seas, leaping
joyfully clear of the weather bow, came p