"I am so tired I can't walk any further," he cried, and burst into a storm of sobs and tears.
For a minute or two Eliza was too much overwhelmed to do anything but look up at the tiny rift in the darkness. Then she stooped down and took the little boy in her arms.
"Master Eustace, God can take care of us in this dark place," she whispered. "He knows where we are and all about us."
The little fellow raised his head and tried to stop his tears.
"I'm so tired," he said, with a gasp. "If I wasn't so tired and my legs so stiff, I'd climb up this bank and help you to get out, but I can't, Eliza."
"No, dear, we must just stop here and let God take care of us. The water won't stop in the cave for all the time. When the tide goes down, the water will all run out again," she said.
As this thought occurred to her, half the trouble seemed to drop away and leave her able to think how she should comfort the little boy and make him warm and comfortable, so that he might go to sleep and forget all his weariness and discomfort.
"We'll go back a little way till we get to the wall down there," she said, pointing down to the bend in the stairway. "There I can make a tent of my frock, and we will have our supper and go to bed in our cave, and be real Robinson Crusoes."
The word "bed" had a charm for the tired little fellow, and he readily agreed to let Eliza take the direction of affairs. So they went back to the corner formed by the bend, and Eliza said—
"There, that will be my armchair. You can lie down against me, and I can cover you all up with my warm frock. Isn't it a good job Nurse made me put it on to-day?"