The fisherman told him the opinion he had formed.
"Then you girls must come and help me. Jackson scalded his hands and arms in the kitchen, and Bates was hurrying to the store-room for oil and whitening when he slipped on the stairs and broke his leg. We must get them both ashore. Ben, you can take them?"
"Ay, ay, sir."
"Now, Constance, you first. Hold tight and stand in the skip. Your boat cannot come near the rock."
He swung the derrick into place and began to work the windlass. Constance, cool as her father, whispered to the excited Enid:
"Let us divide the parcels and take half each."
"Oh, I should have forgotten all about them," said Enid, stooping to empty the lockers.
Constance, without flickering an eyelid, stepped into the strong basket with its iron hoops, and, having arranged some of the plethoric paper bags at her feet, told her father to "hoist away."
She arrived safely. Enid followed her, with equal sang froid, though a lift of forty odd feet whilst standing in a skip and clinging to a rope is not an every-day experience.
"Dang me," said Ben, as Enid, too, was swung into the lighthouse, "but they're two plucked 'uns."