"I don't believe you, Phil Carré," she said with wide eyes. "You're just trying to frighten me."
"All right! Just you wait till one catches hold of your leg when you're out swimming all by yourself. If I'd known you'd be so silly I'd never have taught you."
"You didn't teach me. You only dared me in and showed me how."
"Well then! And if I hadn't you'd never have learnt."
"Maybe I would. Someone else would have taught me."
"Who then?"
And to that she had no answer. For if the good God intends a man to drown it is going against His will to try to thwart him by learning to swim,—such, at all events, was the very prevalent belief in those parts, and is to this day.
As soon as the boy was free of his clothes, he spread them neatly to the sun on a big boulder, and with a whoop went skipping over the stones into the water, till he fell full length with a splash and began swimming vigorously seawards. The small girl sat watching him for a minute and then skipped in after him, and the cormorants ceased their diving and the seagulls their wheelings and mewings, and all gathered agitatedly on a rock at the farther side of the bay, and wondered what such shouts and laughter might portend.
But suddenly the boy broke off short in his sporting, and paddled noiselessly, with his face straining seawards.
"What is it then, Phil? Has the big pieuvre got hold of your leg?" cried the girl, as she splashed up towards him.