Then after laughingly saying that if the French came, they would have to bring very long ladders and use them at low tide if they wanted to get into England, we sauntered back towards where we had left my father, but chose our path as nearly as we could close down by the edge of the water.
The tide was coming up fast, but this was all the better, as it was likely to bring in objects worthy of notice; but we found nothing, and at last the time had so rapidly glided away that evening was coming in as it were on the tide.
We looked about us, and found that we were well inside the little bay where we had first landed, its two arms stretching well out as jagged points on either side, among whose rocks the sea was foaming and plashing, although it was quite calm a little way out.
“No getting back, boys, now,” said Bigley, “if it wasn’t for the boat.”
“Yah! Nonsense!” cried Bob. “If the tide was to catch me in a bay like this, I should make a run and a jump at the cliff, catch hold of the first piece of ivy I could see, and then go up like a squirrel.”
“Without a tail,” I added laughing.
“Hark at clever old Sep Duncan,” sneered Bob. “He’d walk up the cliff without touching. It’s a strange thing that we can’t come out without your saying something disagreeable, Sep.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said with mock humility, for I had just caught sight of Bigley’s face, and he was grinning.
“Well, don’t do it again, then,” said Bob pompously, and then we listened, for a voice hailed us from somewhere among the wilderness of piled-up rocks.
“Ahoy, there! Ahoy!”