Whatever the real danger, Priscilla and Martine saw at once that they were in a very disagreeable predicament. The little niche in which alone they could have a dry footing on three sides had steep walls, whose height at the lowest was surely twenty feet. Martine scanned the sides carefully, but the stone surface was perfectly smooth. Nowhere was there a projection that offered the least foothold. It was in no way possible for either girl to climb to the top. Toward them flowed the advancing tide. It had entirely cut them off from the path by which they had reached the grotto, and though it might not be dangerously deep at every point of the beach and rocks that it now covered, neither girl had courage to venture into the water.
Martine indeed had proposed to wade as far as it seemed safe, and then, if necessary, swim to some point where she might get a footing.
"No, no," Priscilla had remonstrated, "you might in some way miss the others, and if you had to wait around for some time in your wet clothes you would be really worse off than you are now—and besides, I should hate to be left here all alone."
"It might be a waste of energy," replied Martine, "for surely the tide cannot come up to this little hollow; so it is only a question of time when we shall get out of this. But it does seem to me that so unusually clever a person as that Mr. Knight thinks himself might have found us before this."
"You aren't quite fair, Martine, for he certainly was just above us here, calling with all his might. I dare say that he even looked over the edge. You hid yourself so completely, and made me hide too, so that when he looked he could not see us. He must think that we went in exactly the opposite direction, and he and the others are probably a mile away now, searching for us."
"I do not care how much bother Mr. Knight has, but I do regret putting Mrs. Redmond and Amy to such trouble. Why did you come with me, Priscilla? If you had refused we shouldn't have got into this scrape."
"Oh, Martine, when you fairly dragged me here! Surely you are unjust."
Martine knew that she was unjust but like many persons who realize their own foolishness, she experienced a certain relief for the present in blaming some one else.
"It will be hours," she grumbled, "before the tide will be low enough to let us out for it is still coming in, and we shall be kept here for some time after it turns."
"If we get out before dark I shall be thankful. It will be terribly disagreeable to find ourselves alone here in the dark."