He had been watching a big rock on the opposite shore. A little while ago it was awash; now it was submerged, yet the water was appreciably lower where they were standing.
The seeming contradiction was puzzling. He had yet to learn that the laws governing water in motion are extraordinarily complex—take to witness the varying levels of the whirlpool in the Niagara River and the almost phenomenal height of the central stream in the Niagara rapids.
“Guess we’re satisfied with your control so far,” said Sturgess. “What are you making a kick about? You prophesied just what would occur, and that’s more than the average wizard can do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you tell us we might strike a score of reefs between Providence Beach and Smyth’s Channel, and that we should be lucky if we didn’t have to build ’steen rafts?”
Maseden smiled. The rock he had marked as an index was reappearing, and the water had sunk another inch below his knees. The tide had unquestionably turned; the water banked up on the opposite shore was also yielding to the new force.
“I never anticipated another complete shipwreck,” he said. “We have lost everything, ropes, skins, food—our chief supporter, the broken foremast—even our flag.”
“But we still have the rifle and cartridges, and we’re plus a fortnight’s experience. If we don’t start life again better fixed than when we climbed to the ledge in the dark from the forecastle of the Southern Cross, call me a Dutchman.”
“I agree with C. K.,” Nina chimed in. “Even here there must be some sort of a passage at low water. Which way shall we go—back or forward?”
“We gain nothing by going back,” said Maseden slowly. “For one thing, we are on the wrong side of the channel. For another, I have been taking stock of the peculiar vagaries of the tide during the past fifteen minutes, and I imagine that there is a slight difference in the water level between this point and that which we left this morning. Still water attains a dead level, of course, but strong tides have rules of their own.