“This is a very serious matter,” Tish said. “This buoy is here to save our shipping. Undoubtedly it marks a reef. And now when it is most needed its warning voice is stilled.”
“I wish you’d still your own voice, Tish,” Aggie groaned. “Or else get out on it and yell ding-dong.”
It was an unfortunate suggestion. Aggie was taking a dose of her remedy for sea-sickness at the moment, and she did not see Tish’s eyes as they traveled from her to me, but I did.
“You couldn’t do it, Lizzie,” she said. “You’re too stout. But Aggie could.”
“Could what?” said Aggie, giving her a cold glance.
“Your duty,” said Tish gravely. “That bell must ring, Aggie. The fog is intense, and all about are—or may be—men who depend on its warning signal for their lives. Can we fail them?”
“I can,” said Aggie shortly.
Lily May said it was all nonsense, but “Give me a hammer and I’ll do it,” she said. “I suppose I can stick it out for an hour or so, and after that I dare say I’ll not care.”
But Tish said the child was in her care, and she was to stay just where she was. And in the end Aggie crawled onto the bell buoy, and we placed one of the boxes on the platform as a seat for her.
“It will take only a short time,” were Tish’s final words, “to get to the coast-guard station. We shall return at once.”