Tillie did not reply. She was making her way forward.
CHAPTER XXII
KIDNAPPED
“They are carrying us away!” Florence cried. Her tone was that of despair.
“We must cut the tiller,” was Tillie’s answer.
“Then they’ll run us down, as they did Jeanne and me.”
“No matter! We must cut the tiller!”
“But how? We have no knife.”
Tillie thought a moment. Then once more she crept forward toward the bobbing prow. Once there, she gripped the boat’s gunwale, reached far forward, then set her teeth in the strong rope.
The tiller was an extra thick one, and quite new. Nature had provided Tillie with a most excellent set of teeth. She used them now with a skill born of despair. Both she and Florence were strong swimmers. Though their boat were wrecked, they might still reach land.
“If only we do not get out of the channel,” she thought as she renewed her attack on the stubborn strands of rope.