“Oh, don’t” cried Billie, pressing her hands to her ears. “I—I can’t stand it. Girls, I’ve got to walk!” And Billie started off almost at a run along the beach, fighting her way against the wind.
The other girls followed her, and for a while they ran along, not knowing whither they were going, or caring. All they wanted was to forget the horror of the thing they had seen.
“What’s that?”
Billie stepped back so quickly that she almost lost her footing in the slippery sand.
“What do you mean, Billie?”
“That!”
“Why, it—it looks like——”
“Come on. Let’s find out.” And Billie ran to the thing that looked like a large piece of driftwood washed up on the sand by the heavy sea.
And as she reached it she drew in her breath sharply and brushed a hand across her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming. On the thing that was not a piece of driftwood at all, but looked like a sort of crudely and hastily constructed raft, were lashed three small, unconscious little forms.
“Girls, look!” she almost screamed above the shrill wind. “Do you see them, too?”