inations."

Frank had no objection. He felt tolerably certain that he would not
have to shout. Priscilla, frowning heavily, fixed her eyes on the stone
perch, A few minutes later she spoke again.

"Once," she said, "I was riding my bicycle in father's mackintosh, which
naturally was a little long for me. In process of time the tail of it
got wound round and round the back wheel and I was regularly stuck,
couldn't move hand or foot and had to lie on my side with the bicycle
on top of me. That seems to me very much the way we are now with that
anchor rope and the centreboard."

"How did you get out?" said Frank hopefully.

That Priscilla had got out was evident. If her position on the bicycle
was really analogous to that of the _Tortoise_ the same plan of escape
might perhaps be tried.

"I lay there," said Priscilla, "until Peter Walsh happened to come along
the road. He kind of unwound me."

A boat, heavily laden, was rowing slowly towards them, making very
little way against the gathering strength of the ebb tide and the
easterly wind.

"Perhaps," said Frank, "the people in that boat, if it ever gets here,
will unwind us."

The boat drew nearer and Priscilla declared that it was Kinsella's.

"It's Joseph Antony himself rowing her," she said. "He'd be getting on
faster if he had Jimmy along with him, but I suppose he's off with the
sponge lady again."

Kinsella reached the _Tortoise_ and stopped rowing.

"You're out for a sail again today, Miss?" he said. "Well, it's fine
weather for the likes of you."

"At the present moment," said Priscilla, "we're stuck and can't get
out."

"Do you tell me that now? And what's the matter with you?"

"The anchor rope is foul of the centreboard and we can't get either the
one or the other of them to move."

"Begor!" said Joseph Antony.

"Do you know any way of getting it clear?"

"I do, of course."

"Well, trot it out."

"If you was to take the oars," said Joseph Antony, "and was to row the
boat round the way she wasn't going when she twisted the rope on you it
would come untwisted again."

"It would, of course. Thank you very much. Rather stupid of us not to
have thought of that. It seems quite simple. But that's always the way.
The simplest things are far the hardest to think of. Columbus and the
egg, for instance."

She got out the oars as she spoke and began turning the _Tortoise_
round.

"Begging your pardon, Miss," said Joseph Antony, "but which way