They waded on. Gradually the water shoaled as they made their way up
the shelving sand. Tom felt his strength returning, hot Archy could
with difficulty make headway. Now the water reached only to their
middles; now it was scarcely knee-deep, and they were able to get on
faster. Tom breathed more freely, for he expected to see Archy drop
every instant. Scarcely, indeed, had they reached the dry sand than
down he sank. Toot threw himself by his side.

"Cheer up, Archy; we are safe," he exclaimed. "Don't give way now."

"I shall be better soon," said Archy; "but oh! Tom, let us return
thanks to Him who has preserved us. Don't let us fancy it was our own
strength. I never otherwise could have done it, I know."

"I am thankful--indeed I am; but we must not forget our companions."

"Go, and try to get a boat, and put off to them; I will follow you as
soon as I am able to."

It was already getting dusk, and the gloom was increased by thick clouds
gathering in the sky, betokening a blowing night. Tom saw, indeed, that
no time was to be lost, and, finding that Archy could not yet move, he
unwillingly left him, and hurried off to obtain assistance.

We must now return on board the _Plantagenet_. When Mr Cherry found
that the boat did not make her appearance, as it was long past the time
the midshipmen promised to be back, he felt somewhat annoyed, and made
up his mind that the next time they asked for the boat they should not
have her.

He was walking the deck, when the quartermaster announced that a boat
had come off from the shore with a black in her, who had something to
say about a pinnace, but what it was he could not exactly make out.

"Let him come on deck at once," said Mr Cherry, hurrying to the
gangway.

"What is it you have to say, my man?" he asked.

The negro doffed his hat, twisting and wriggling about, apparently
either from nervousness at finding himself on board a man-of-war, or
from his anxiety to deliver his message properly.

Mr Cherry, however, managed to make out that a boat had been capsized,
that two midshipmen had swum on shore, and that they had gone off again
in two boats to search for the wreck.

Just then Jack and Terence, who had been on shore, returned, and, on
cross-questioning the black, they felt satisfied that Tom and Archy
Gordon were the two midshipmen who had reached the shore, and that those
remaining on the wreck were in extreme peril.

The report of what had hap