“Wonder where we are?” says I.
“There’s the lighthouse ’way over there,” says he. “We must have drifted almost back to the place where Mr. House was digging.”
“No comfort in that,” says I.
“The rain’s slacking up,” says he.
“Let’s run up and down to get warm,” says I, and for five minutes we galloped up and down in the sand until we got up a sweat and felt a lot better. By that time the rain was over and the moon came out and it got some warmer.
“If we could only make a fire,” says I.
“And somebody would come along with some hot coffee and fried cakes,” says he. Then after a minute, “Well, we might as well have some fun out of it. Let’s pretend we’re marooned on a desert island by pirates. We found out the secret of the place where they hid their treasure, so they set us ashore and sailed away and left us.”
“Without a gun or any food,” says I.
“Yes. And we’ve got to live some way. The first thing to do is to explore,” says he, “and see if there are any savages, or any animals we can trap. Come on.”
So we started to walk—the way we thought Nantucket town was. All at once the sand gave way under my feet and I slid down into a hole that was half full of water.