Then Milly looked over her shoulder, and gave a little cry of astonishment and dismay.
"Why, we're farther off than when we started!" she cried.
"I think we get farther and farther away every minute," said Puck. "I should like to pull round, and put up the sail again, and go round the world like that. We should come to our island again upside down, you know, and it would be much easier."
"It's the wind and the tide against us," said Pickle, with a rather anxious face. "We shall never get home at this rate."
A sob from Bertie was the only response to this remark. Milly was trying to choke back her tears, because she didn't want it cast in her teeth that girls always cried.
"What can we do?" said Puck.
"I think we'd better do as you said," answered Pickle—"get her head round, and put up a bit of sail, and run before the wind. I don't think the old boat is safe going against these big waves. She'll be all right the other way, and we shall fall in with some ship soon, and they'll take us on board; or perhaps we shall get to a coral island after all."
"I'd rather go home," sobbed Bertie; and Milly wondered if it was very silly of her, but she wanted much more now to be at home than to see a coral island.
Pickle put on a brave face, for he felt that he was the captain, and must support the failing courage of his crew; but he began to wish from the bottom of his heart that he had not thrown aside his good resolutions quite so quickly, and that he had never tried to sail a boat before Mr. Earle had given him leave.