"There's the answer, girls. Tide! It must have been on the ebb when we got here. Now she's gone down, and there isn't three inches of water over the bar. We're stuck until about five o'clock, that's all! I'm taking no chances with a thin-skinned whaleboat."
"We can't get out, then?" queried Ellen Maggs.
"Right. We can fish and sew and smoke and talk, and hunt crabs, but we can't leave. By four or five o'clock we may scrape over. Why worry? We're a lot better off than we might have been. Not often you strike a sand beach along these mangrove swamps, I can tell you! We'll stretch the spare sail as an awning for the kids and let 'em sleep."
Using the broken spars, and Nora Sayers aiding him, he stretched the canvas from the side of the boat and the three children were soon asleep in the shade. Retiring to the edge of the trees, the three awaited the return of the quartermasters. Barnes sighed luxuriously.
"Golly! This is the first vacation I've had in a long while. Hope you girls won't lose your jobs if you don't get back to China on schedule?"
"I guess not," said Ellen Maggs. "What brought you on that awful ship, Mr. Barnes?"
Barnes gave her a look of whimsical reproach.
"Now, now, I'm surprised at you! My name isn't Mister—it's Jim! Make believe we're on a desert isle, can't you?"
Ellen Maggs blushed faintly, but her eyes were sparkling when she responded.
"All right—Jim! Now what brought you on that ship?"