"Bully!" exclaimed the audience.
"I'd like to meet that soldier," muttered Sleepy.
"Please sing some more," begged Rags.
And so she sang again. Now she stood up, took a few steps, and faced us as we paddled around.
"Look what a big hole Annie made in the sand, almost as big as Aunt Milly's," whispered Dee to me.
"Yes, the sand must be awfully soft. I'm glad it's not quicksand, though. That's so dangerous." But what I knew about the dangers of quicksand I kept to myself, as Annie had begun:
"To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er;
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore;
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cow's snort,
And unseen mermaids' pearly song
Comes bubbling up the weeds among——"
And just then a strange thing happened: Annie began to sink. The little sand island she had chosen as a place of refuge where she might dry her hair was evidently only an island in the making, and the sand had not packed down. It was quicksand, but not so quick as it might have been, as she had been on it some minutes before it began to give way under her weight. She looked frightened and tried to pull her one foot up, but it stuck. The last lines of her song were in a fair way to be enacted before our very eyes if haste was not made.
Annie gave a scream and made desperate struggles to extricate herself. The swimmers all started to her rescue, George Massie leading the way, shooting through the water like a shark.
I clutched Zebedee as he went by me. "Get the little brown boat and I'll help! The sand may be dangerous all around there."