; he just waited.

Jimmie wondered where the shore was. A yard or a mile away? In which
direction would it be best to strike out? How could he help Bagg? He
must not leave Bagg to drown. But how could he help him? What was the
use of trying, anyhow? If he could not row ashore, how could he manage
to swim ashore? And if he could not get ashore himself, how could he
help Bagg ashore?

Nothing was said. Neither boy breathed. Both waited. And it seemed to
both that the water was slow in coming aboard. But the water came. It
came slowly, perhaps--but surely. It rose to Bagg's shoulders--to his
chin--it seemed to be about to cover his mouth and nostrils. Bagg
already had a stifled sensation--a frantic fear of smothering; a wish
to breathe deep. But he did not stir; he could not rise.

The boys felt a slight shock. The water rose no more. There was a
moment of deep silence.

"I--I--I 'low we've grounded!" Jimmie Grimm stuttered.

The silence continued.

"We sure is!" Jimmie cried.

"Wh-wh-where 'ave we got to?" Bagg gasped, his teeth chattering with
the fright that was not yet passed.

Silence again.

"Ahoy, there!" came a voice from near at hand in the foggy night.
"What you boys doin' out there?"

"We're in Burnt Cove," said Jimmie, in amazement, to Bagg. "'Tis
Uncle Zeke's voice--an', ay, look!--there's the cottage light on the
hill."

"We're comin' ashore, Uncle Zeke," Bagg shouted.

The boat had grounded in less than three feet of water. Jimmie had
brought her through the tickle without knowing it. The boys emptied
her and dragged her ashore just as the rain and wind came rushing from
the open sea.

That's why Jimmie used to say with a laugh:

"Sixty seconds sometimes makes more than a minute."

"Bet yer life!" Bagg would add.

CHAPTER XVI

_In Which Archie Armstrong Joins a Piratical Expedition
and Sails Crested Seas to Cut Out the Schooner "Heavenly
Home"_

It was quite true that Archie Armstrong could speak French; it was
just as true, as Bill o' Burnt Bay observed, that he could jabber it
like a native. There was no detecting a false accent. There was no
hint of an awkward Anglo-Saxon tongue in his speech. There was no
telling that he was not French born and Paris bred. Archie's French
nurse and cosmopolitan-English tutor had taken care of that. The boy
had pattered French with the former since he had first begun to
prattle at all.

And this was why Bill o' Burnt Bay pro