"Here, boy!" called Kit. "As you are there, you can carry me over these pebbles."
He leapt on the other's back, and Blob, sturdy as he looked limp, crashed down the shingle and across the stretch of wet sand at a loose-jointed canter.
"That'll do, my boy, thank you," said Kit, slipping down at the edge of the tide. "I'd give you a penny, only I've not got one. No, you can't come any further. It's too dangerous. This is a job for officers."
He began to paddle out, the ripples playing about his ankles.
Blob's presence braced him to his task. It called to his spirit of a gentleman. He would just show this lout what blood meant.
Blob followed him with awed eyes.
"She's aloive," he warned his brother-boy. "She'll swallow ee."
"No, she won't," Kit replied. "She's an old friend of mine."
IV
The boy could swim at an age when to most lads walking is still an accomplishment. Now he waded quietly down a sandy reach between black rocks.