Edgar shook his head and he became silent, whilst they both listened to the soft lap-lap of the waves as they slowly drew nearer and nearer. Polly crouched on the ground close to the cliff, her face pale and frightened, and Edgar stood by her side, eagerly watching the point around which the expected boat must appear. Slowly the time dragged on until Roger had been gone more than an hour, and only about a dozen yards of sand divided the children from the water now.
"What shall we do if the tide comes right up to us?" asked Polly, in a voice which betrayed the intensest anxiety. "Shall you climb up the cliff?"
"And leave you? No, no, I won't do that. But I think we shall see a boat soon now. I wonder which of us will see it first."
He tried to speak cheerily for the sake of his companion, but a sense of terrible fear and hopelessness was creeping over him. He glanced at Polly; but instead of watching for the boat, she had covered her face with her hands, and he guessed she was praying. Then from the depths of his heart he prayed, too; and, mingled with his earnest petition for deliverance from the incoming tide was the prayer that, whatever happened, he might not, on this occasion, prove himself a coward.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
RESCUED
NEARER and nearer the sea approached the cliffs; on—on it came, until at length a little rippling wave out-did its fellows and flowed in almost to the children's feet. Polly uttered a shriek of terror, and clutched her cousin by the arm.
"Oh, Edgar, we shall be drowned!" she wailed. "What can we do? Oh, what can we do?"
"We must try to climb a short way up the cliff, Polly," he replied, endeavouring to speak reassuringly and hide his own alarm. "Come, I'll help you. I'm sure you can do it if you will only try."
"I can't, I can't! Oh, Edgar, you had better leave me; you'll be drowned, too, if you stay here. Oh, I'm so frightened, but—but you mustn't stay with me any longer. Go! Go!"