“It was worse than that, a good deal worse. It might have been my last cruise. I'm pretty certain that I owe the captain my life.”
She looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“Your life?” she repeated.
“I believe it. That part of the channel I proposed swimming was exactly where two men have been drowned, so people say. I'm not a very strong swimmer, and they were. So, you see.”
Grace cried out in astonishment.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. Then pointing toward the bay, she asked: “Out there, by the end of that leader, was it?”
“Yes, that was it.”
She drew a long breath. Then, after a moment:
“And Nat spoke as if it was all a joke,” she said.
“No doubt he did. From what I hear of your brother, he generally refers to his own plucky, capable actions as jokes. Other people call them something else.”