quite close to you and stick to you, so you needn't
be afraid. If you get tired just put one hand on my back and swim with
the other and your legs; and above all things keep your heads as low as
possible in the water so as just to be able to breathe."

The three lads soon waded out as far as they could go and then struck
out. Jackson and Goodall were both poor swimmers and would have fared
very badly alone. The confidence, however, which they entertained in
Frank gave them courage, and they were well abreast of the point when
first Jackson and then Goodall put their hands on his shoulders. Thanks
to the instructions he had given them, and to their confidence in him,
they placed no great weight upon him. But every ounce tells heavily on a
swimmer, and Frank gave a gasp of relief as at last his feet touched the
ground. Bidding his companions at once set off at a run he sat down for
two or three minutes to recover his breath.

"It is lucky," he said to himself, "that I did not try with Ruthven.
It's a very different thing carrying fellows who can swim and fellows
who can't. What fools we've been to let ourselves he caught here! I had
no idea the tide came so high, or that it was so dangerous, and none of
us have ever been round here before. Now I must go back to Ruthven."

Frank found it even harder work to get back than it had been to come out
from the bay, for the tide was against him now. At last he stood beside
Ruthven and Childers.

"We can only find one place, Frank, where there is any projection a
fellow could stand upon, and that is only large enough for one. See!" he
said, pointing to a projecting block of chalk, whose upper surface, some
eight inches wide, was tolerably flat. "There is a cave here, too, which
may go beyond the tide. It is not deep but it slopes up a bit."

"That will never do," Frank said; "as the waves come in they will rush
up and fill it to the top. Don't you see it is all rounded by the water?
Now, Childers, we will put you on that stone. You will be perfectly safe
there, for you see it is two feet above this greenish line, which shows
where the water generally comes to. The tides are not at spring at
present, so though you may get a splashing there is no fear of your
being washed off."

The water was already knee deep at the foot of the rocks, and the waves
took them nearly up to the shoulders. Ruthven did not attempt to dispute
Frank's allotment of the one place of safety to Childers.