“I suppose not,” interrupted Larry as the Stono entrance was made, “but I’ve a plan in mind that we’ll carry out just as I’ve made it, and that not very long hence, either.”
“What is it, Larry?”
“Why to pick out a fit place for landing, go ashore, build a fire, and have supper. Does it occur to you that we had breakfast at daylight and that we’ve not had a bite to eat since, though it is nearly sunset?”
As he spoke, a bend of the shore line cut off what little breeze there was, the sail flapped and the dory moved only with the tide.
“Lower away the sail,” he called to Cal and Dick, at the same time hauling the boom inboard. “We must use the oars in making a landing, and I see the place. We’ll camp for the night on the bluff just ahead.”
“Bluff?” asked Tom, scanning the shore. “I don’t see any bluff.”
“Why there—straight ahead, and not five hundred yards away.”
“Do you call that a bluff? Why, it isn’t three feet higher than the low-lying land all around it.”
“After you’ve been a month on this coast,” said Cal, pulling at an oar, “you’ll learn that after all, terms are purely relative as expressions of human thought. We call that a bluff because it fronts the water and is three feet higher than the general lay of the land. There aren’t many places down here that can boast so great a superiority to their surroundings. An elevation of ten feet we’d call high. It is all comparative.”
“Well, my appetite isn’t comparative, at any rate,” said Tom. “It’s both positive and superlative.”