"Boys, she holds, I do believe," said Dave.
"All right!" shouted Dick--"all right! The anchor holds!"
It did seem an innocent, all-right situation: just the quiet sea, the musically-rolling surf along the bar, the stately lighthouse at the left, and that schooner quietly halting in the harbour.
"Now, boys," exclaimed Dick, "we can--"
"I thought you were going to swim to the lighthouse?" observed Dab.
"Oh, that won't be necessary now," replied Dick. "We are just masters of the situation. The moment the tide turns we can weigh anchor and drift back again just as easy! Be in our old quarters by morning, and nobody know the difference. Old Sylvester himself might come down the river, and he would find everything all right. Ha! ha!"
Dick's confidence was contagious, and when he proposed "Haul the Bow-line," his companions sang with him, and sang with a will. How the notes echoed over the sea! Such a queer place to be singing in!
"Mr. Toby Tolman," said Dick, facing the lighthouse, "we propose to wake you up! Let him have a rouser. Give him 'Reuben Ranzo!'"
While they were administering a "rouser" to Mr. Toby Tolman, somebody at the stern was dropping into the sea. He had stripped himself for his swim, and now struck out boldly for the bar. Reaching its uncovered sands he ran along to the boat, lying on the channel side of the bar and not that of the lighthouse, leaped into the boat, and, shoving off, rowed round to the bow of the schooner. There was a pause in the singing, and Dick Pray was saying, "This place makes you think of mermen," when Dab Richards, looking over the vessel's side, said, "Ugh! if there isn't one now!"
"Where--where?" asked Johnny.