“Let it only wait,” said Harry through his teeth, “till we’ve got this clear, and then it may come as fast as it likes.”
I worked on hard, not asking him why. Perhaps I had a lingering horror that his answer would disillusion me, show this shadow of hope a heart-breaking chimera. And still stealthily the tide crept up, and still we had not done.
But at length the last kink was unravelled, and we rose with a shout. One end of the rope was still fastened tight to a ring-bolt in the spar at its seaward end. The other Harry shouldered, and with it turned to run up the bank.
“Do you understand yet, gaby?” he demanded, grinning triumphant.
“You are going to get a haul on the thing, to one side and further up?”
“Yes, I am.”
My spirits sank a little.
“We shan’t be able to move it that way any more than we did before—anyhow, not to pull it out of its hold.”
“Shan’t we? Wait and see.”
“O, Harry! Don’t be such a fiend.”