CHAPTER XXII
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN
"Well," said Mollie, with a sigh, "I fancy there isn't very much use of our sitting around here in our bathing suits. I, for one, don't feel like swimming any more to-day."
"Nor I," agreed Grace.
"And I," said Amy, turning away with a shudder from the water where she had so closely come to death, "feel as if I never wanted to see the water again."
"Oh, but you will get over that," Betty assured her quickly. "I don't blame you a bit for feeling that way now—I do myself—but after a while you will be just as crazy about it as ever."
"I don't know," said Amy slowly. "When you have once come face to face with death like that, you are not anxious to do it again in a hurry."
"But you have never had a cramp before," reasoned Mollie, "and you probably never will have one again."
"But I am not sure of that," insisted Amy.
"There's no reason why you can't be sure of it after a while," Betty pointed out. "You see, we girls are pretty well out of practice. It's a long time since we did any swimming to amount to anything, and our muscles are weak and flabby. Why, we all got tired out to-day twice as quickly as we ordinarily would."