“Do you suppose it could all be over?” asked Lottie.
“All over? What do you mean?” asked Cora.
“I mean could the men have been here, and been captured by the boys and taken to jail?”
“Oh, it’s possible, but not very probable,” returned Cora. “They surely would have managed to get some word to us if anything like that had happened.”
“But what are we going to do?” asked Bess. “We ought not to stay here.”
“No, I suppose not,” admitted Cora, slowly. “It might be a good thing, though, just to stop and speak to Denny. Then we’d know, soon enough, what had happened. Suppose we do that?”
The others agreed. They had stepped away from the window for a moment, but now Cora walked toward it again. Denny was still holding the oar, but he must have gotten up, for the window was now partly open, and it had not been so at first.
Denny was talking to himself. He was indulging in a soliloquy, apparently addressing himself to the oar.
“If you could only talk,” he said, “if you could only talk, what a tale you could tell. Yes, indeed!” and he sighed. “A tale of the sea and the land—of calm and storms.”
“He’s very poetical; isn’t he?” whispered Bess.