“No, father,” I said; “nothing much.”
“Why, you blind puppy!” cried my father; “nothing? Don’t you know that every pool and rock hole teems with wonders that you go by without noticing. Ah! I shall have to go with you, boys, some day, and show you a few of the grand sights you pass over because they are so small, and which you call nothing. Why, how high the tide has risen!”
“Didn’t we leave the boat just beyond those rocks, sir?” said Bigley.
“Yes,” said my father. “One of you will be obliged to strip and wade out to it. No, it couldn’t have been those rocks.”
“No, sir,” said Bob Chowne; “it was round on the other side of this heap.”
He pointed to a mass of rock lying right in the centre of the embayment, a heap which cut off our view on one side.
“I suppose you must be right, Chowne,” said my father; “come along.”
“I feel sure it was here, father,” I said; “just out here.”
“No it wasn’t,” cried Bob pettishly. “I remember coming round here after we left the boat.”
Bigley and I looked at each other, but we said nothing, only followed my father and Bob Chowne as they went round to the other side of the pile of rock, and there lay the sea before us with the tide racing in, and sweeping over the rocks, but no boat.