“Or mud,” said Kate, seating herself to pull. “Anything but to be carried out to sea.”
The two young people struggled desperately. They were straining against wind and tide, heading about to get into shallow water, and out of the tearing current.
After a while Kate gasped, “I’m finished!”
Her hair was blown round her head in the gale; with the rapidity of her pulsation, lights flashed before her eyes and waves roared in her ears.
“Don’t give up. Pull away!”
Mechanically she obeyed. In another minute the strain was less, and then--the boat was aground.
“If this be the Den, all right,” said Pooke. “We can get ashore and walk to Teignmouth.” He felt with the oar, standing up in the boat. It sank in mud. “Here’s a pretty pass,” said he. “I thought it bad enough to be stuck in the tunnel when the Atmospheric broke down, but it is worse to be fast in the mud. From the tunnel we could extricate ourselves at once, but here--in this mud, we are fast till flow of tide. Kitty,--I mean Kate,--make up your mind to accept my company for some hours. I can’t help you out, and I can’t get out myself. What is more, no one on shore, even if we could call to them, would be able to assist us. Till the tide turns, we are held as tight as rats in a gin.”
“I wonder,” said the girl, recovering her breath, “what makes the tides ebb and flow.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” said John Pooke; “it is enough for me that they have lodged us here on a mud bank in a March night with an icy east wind blowing. By George! I’ve a mind to have out a summons against the Atmospheric Company.”
“Why so?”