"Oh! why did we ever come?" shrieked Belle, jumping up in her seat and wringing her hands. "You'll send us to the bottom."
"Sit still, dear," cried Isobel. "You'll upset the boat if you move so quickly.—Charlie, I think you'd better take down that sail and try the sculls again. If you'll let me steer perhaps I could manage better than Hilda, and we could turn out of the current; it's taking us straight to sea. If we can head round towards the quay we might get back."
"All serene," said Charlie, furling his canvas with secret relief. "There ought to be several, really, for this job; it takes more than one to sail a craft properly, and none of you girls know how to help."
He gave Isobel a hand as she moved cautiously into the stern, and settling her with the ropes, he once more took up the oars.
"I shall come too," wailed Belle. "I can't stay alone at this end of the boat. Isobel, it's horrid of you to leave me."
"Sit still," commanded Charlie. "It's you who'll have us over if you jump about like that. We can't all be at one end, I tell you. You must stop where you are."
He made a desperate effort to turn the boat, but his boyish arms were powerless against the strength of the ebbing tide, and they were swept rapidly towards the bar.
"It's no use," said Charlie at last, shipping his sculls; "I can't get her out of this current. We shall just have to drift on till some one sees us and picks us up."
"O Charlie!" cried Hilda, her round chubby face aghast with horror, "shall we float on for days and days without anything to eat, or be shipwrecked on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe, and have to cling to broken masts and spars?"
"We're all right; don't make such a fuss!" said Charlie, glancing uneasily, however, at the long waves ahead. They were crossing the bar, and the water was rough outside the harbour.