Mary was always terror-stricken in a thunderstorm, and she clung half-fainting to Elizabeth, who clasped her close in a motherly embrace. Tommy, on the other hand, was perfectly fearless. She gazed at the boiling sea, and watched the lightning with a sort of fascinated admiration. She was almost sorry when the storm blew itself out after two hours of fury, and the sky cleared as rapidly as it had darkened.
"How lovely!" she said, dripping wet as she was. "Poor old Mary!"
Mary, indeed, was quite overcome, and it was some time before she was able to walk away. The tempest had left ruin in its track.
"The boat!" cried Elizabeth, suddenly remembering the little vessel, which, though it had been drawn up higher than when they slept in it, she feared might have been washed away. "We must leave you for a little, Mary. Walk about if you can, and let the sun dry your things."
Then she raced down to the shore with Tommy, and was horrified to discover that the boat had disappeared. The girls scanned the sea, which was still rough, but there was not a sign of it. They ran along the beach northward, hoping that the boat might have been cast up, and were rejoiced to find it about a quarter of a mile away, bottom upwards on a spit of sand. It was some distance from the sea, which, though it had evidently come much higher than usual, had now receded to within a little of high-water mark. The girls managed to right the boat, only to find, of course, that the oars were missing.
"How silly we were not to bring the oars into the hut along with the boat-hook!" cried Elizabeth. "The boat is perfectly useless without the oars, and we can't make new ones."
"Perhaps the tide will wash them up," said Tommy. "Help me up this rock, Bess; I'll see if they are in sight."
Mounted on the rock she scanned the surface, and after a time saw something bobbing up and down about a hundred yards out, and some way to the south of where she stood.
"There it is, I believe," she cried. "The sea is getting calmer now; shall I swim out for it?"
"You mustn't think of it," said Elizabeth. "I dare say the sea is full of sharks. I saw a fin yesterday when we were fishing."