erful thing I'd ever
seen in my life. The gray spread till the whole sky was the color of
zinc, with the sea a little darker, and then one spikey yellow strip
began to show on the sky-line. I could see Greg at last, with the
jersey under his head, and the white brocade waistcoat all dark and
stained at the shoulder, and his poor dear face ghastly white. And
Jerry asleep, with the ruffle still pinned to his wet shirt and a
big hole torn in the knee of his knickerbockers. And I saw the slimy
pools that the tide had left beside us--it was on the ebb again--and
the pieces of the root-beer bottle that Jerry had broken off, and
the horrible, high, black head of the Sea Monster above us.

There was no boat of any sort to be seen, near or far away, but I
woke Jerry so that we could both keep watch in case one came. Just
as Jerry crawled out of the cave and stretched himself stiffly, Greg
took his hand away from mine and blinked out at the sky, and said in
almost his own voice:

"Have we been here all the time?"

"Yes, all the time, ducky," I said, and then I cried, "Don't try to
move, Gregs!" for I saw him trying to squirm over.

He lay back and said "Why?" but then in an instant he knew why. I
couldn't do anything but cuddle my cheek down against his, and he
sobbed:

"Make me stop crying, Chris."

The light grew stronger and stronger till there were shadows among
the rocks and Wecanicut came out green and brown. Jerry came back
presently, and I wondered if he'd seen anything, but he said:

"Chris, I just wanted to ask you. How long does it take for a person
to starve?"

I said days, I thought, and Jerry sighed a little and went back to
his watching-place. Somehow I didn't feel very hungry, myself,--that
is, not the kind of hungry you are when you've played tennis all
morning and then gone in swimming. There was a sharp, sickish
feeling inside me and my head felt a little queer, but it was not
exactly like being hungry.

I think Greg's arm must have stopped hurting quite so badly, or else
he was being tremendously spunky, because we talked a lot and I told
him that Father would come for us pretty soon. I didn't feel at all
sure of this, because I knew that Father would never have given up
the Sea Monster the night before if he'd had any idea we were there.
But it was so perfectly blessed to have Greg talking sensibly at
all, even with such a wobbly sort of voice, that I didn't much care
what I said.

All at once