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.
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