“But you’ll mind and not get in the current. It would take you away directly.”
“Just as if it was likely I should risk it, with my clothes on!” said Vince scornfully. “Do you suppose I want a soaking? I think, you know, that if I get along there I shall be able to hold on and look up at this part of the cliffs. ’Tis a pity there isn’t a narrow shore, so that you could walk right round.”
“Well, take care,” said Mike. “Mind, I’m not coming in after you, to get wet.”
Vince laughed, and, picking his way, he stepped from stone to stone, till he was only a short distance from the massive wall of the buttress, and not far from where the sun shone upon the water.
“Why, it’s as shallow as shallow!” he cried. “I thought it was, it looked so pale and green. I don’t believe it’s a foot deep, and it’s all sand, just like a garden walk; you can wade right out here, Mike, and round by the corner, and I dare say all round the cove like this.”
“Oh, do mind!” cried Mike.
“Of course I’ll mind. Don’t suppose I want to drown myself, do you? What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Yes, you are. You keep thinking of old Joe’s nonsense about the place being full of water bogies and things, when all the time there’s nothing but some dangerous rocks, and the sharp eddies and currents. Why, I haven’t even seen a fish!”
“Well, I have,” said Mike. “I can see the mullet lying down here in the still black water, so thick that they almost touch one another.”