But it was fraught with meaning.
"Why—they've gone!" gasped Ruth. "What—what——"
"They'll be back!" Paul interrupted. "Probably Mr. Pertell just thought of some scene he could get, and he took them off down the beach to put them all in it. They'll be back in a little while, and then we can signal to them."
"If—if it isn't too—too late!" faltered Alice.
"Too late? What do you mean?" demanded her sister.
"I mean these rocks will soon be covered, and covered deep, too," Alice said. "The high water mark is away above them."
"Is it, Paul?" demanded the older girl. She wanted the statement of Alice disproved.
"I'm afraid it is," the young actor made answer. "And the tide, I am sorry to say, is likely to be unusually high today. The moon has something to do with it. But we will be taken off before then."
"Suppose we aren't?" asked Alice. "The wind and the sea are rising, and if we are swept off the rocks——"
"Don't be so tragic about it!" broke in Ruth. "If we are to go to sea, and be in a shipwreck, even if it is only pictured, we must learn to face perils. And here we are only a little way from shore."