“Now, Cousin Frank, ready about. You must slack off the jib sheet and haul down the other. That thin rope at your hand. Yes, that’s it.”
The meaning of this new manoeuvre was dim and uncertain to Frank. He grasped the rope indicated to him and then heard a noise as if some one at the bottom of the sea, an angry mermaid perhaps, was striking the keel of the boat hard with a hammer.
“She’s touching,” said Priscilla. “Up centreboard, quick.”
Frank gazed at her in pained bewilderment. He had not the least idea of what she wanted him to do. The knocking at the boat’s bottom became more frequent and violent. Priscilla gave the main sheet a turn round a cleat and stretched forward, holding the tiller with her left hand. She grasped a rope, one out of a tangled web of wet ropes, and tugged. The knocking ceased. The boat swept up into the wind. There was a sudden arrest of movement, a violent list over, a dart forward, a soft crunching sound, and then a dead stop.
“Bother,” said Priscilla, “we’re aground.”
She sprang overboard at once, stood knee deep in the water, and tugged at the stern of the boat The centreboard, when she dropped its rope, fell to the bottom of its case, caught in the mud under the boat, and anchored her immovably. Priscilla tugged in vain.
“It’s no good,” she said at last, “and the tide’s ebbing. We’re here for hours and hours. I hope you didn’t hurt your ankle, Cousin Frank, during that fray.”
CHAPTER VII
“That fellow is still looking at us through his glasses,” said Frank.