"Yes; but you were just as willing as I, old fellow. We were both idiots. We might have known the tide would cut us off."
"Won't the teachers laugh at us! 'Serve them right,' they'll say, plague on them!" grumbled Ned.
"Well, it does serve us right; but I wish the boys would keep quiet about it though, and not give the teachers a chance to laugh at us."
"But they won't; they'll say it's too good to keep."
The lunch lowered by the mate restored their good-nature, and they waited, watch in hand, as the waters abated around their perch. Ned even recovered enough to joke about their misfortune, and Walter sang,--
"On a lone, barren isle,
Where the wild, angry billows
Assail the stern rock," etc.
At length the tide was so low they ventured out to the high rock that shut them away from the rest of the party; and too impatient to wait longer, they doffed boots and stockings, rolled their trousers above their knees, and, waiting till the waves rolled back, they dashed into the water, and were quickly around the other side of the cliff, and in sight of their companions.
"There they are!" shouted Don Parker, interrupting Joe's story in its most exciting part.
"Where?"--"Who?"
"Walt and Ned."