"First thing you know somebody'll come along if we keep on standing here," said Archer.
"Here, you take one of these rubber gloves," said Tom. "Shut the glass and see if it'll go inside. I'll put the flashlight and the compass in the other one. It's going to rain, too. Here, let me do it," he added rather tactlessly, as he closed the little telescope and forced its smaller end down into the longest of the big glove fingers. "Twist the top of it and turn the edges over, see?" he added, doing it himself, "and it's watertight. I can make a watertight stopple for a bottle with a long strip of paper, but you got to know how to wind it," he added, with clumsy disregard of his companion's mood. Tom was a hopeless bungler in some ways.
"Oh, surre, you can do anything," said Archer.
"Maybe it would be best if you held it in your teeth," said Tom thoughtfully; "unless you can swim with it in your hand."
The compass and the flashlight, which indeed were more susceptible of damage from the water than the precious glass, were encased in the other rubber glove, and the two fugitives waded out into the black, silent river.
Scarcely had their feet left the bottom when the first drop of rain fell upon Tom's head, and a chill gust of wind caught him and bore him a yard or two out of his course. He spluttered and looked about for Archer, but could see nothing in the darkness. He did not want to call for he knew how far voices carry across the water, and though the spot was isolated he would take no chances.
It rained hard and the wind, rising to a gale, lashed the black water into whitecaps. Tom strove vainly to make headway against the storm, but felt himself carried, willy-nilly, he knew not where. He tried to distinguish the light beyond the Baden shore, which he had selected for a beacon, but he could not find it. At last he called to Archer.
"I'm going to turn back," he said; "come on—are you all right?"
If Archer answered his voice was drowned by the wind and rain. For a few moments Tom struggled against the elements, hoping to regain the Alsatian shore. His one guiding instinct in all the hubbub was the conviction that the wind smelled like an east wind and that it ought to carry him back to the nearer shore. He would have given a good deal for a glimpse of his precious little compass now.
"Where are you?" he called again. "The light's gone. Let the wind carry you back—it's east."