ere gone. I wonder whether Jimmy
finished the soup? I wonder what he's done with the Primus stove. It
wasn't mine, and I know Professor Wilder sets a value on it. Perhaps
they'll pick it up on their way and return it. If they do I shan't so
much mind what happens to us."

"I don't think they'll really leave us here," said Frank. "Even
Priscilla wouldn't do that. I wish I could walk down to the corner of
the island and see where they've gone."

Jimmy Kinsella appeared, strolling quietly along the shore.

"The young lady says, Miss," he said "that if you wouldn't mind walking
down to the far side of the gravel spit, which is where she has the
boats, she'd be glad, for she wouldn't like to be eating what's in the
boat without you'd be there to have some yourself."

"Priscilla is perfectly splendid," said Miss Rutherford, "and we're not
going to be marooned after all, Come along, Frank."

"The young lady says, Miss," said Jimmy, "that if you'd go to her the
best way you can by yourself that I'd give my arm to the gentleman and
get him along over the stones so as not to hurt his leg and that same
won't be easy for the shore's mortal rough."

Miss Rutherford refused to desert Frank. She recognised that the shore
was all that Jimmy said it was. Large slippery boulders were strewed
about it for fifty yards or so between the place where she stood and the
gravel spit. She insisted on helping Jimmy to transport Frank. In the
end they descended upon Priscilla, all three abreast. Frank, with one
arm round Jimmy's neck and one round Miss Rutherford's, hobbled bravely.

"I don't know," said Priscilla, "that this is exactly an ideal place
for luncheon, but we can have it here if you like, and in some ways I'm
rather inclined to. You never know what may happen if you put things
off. Last time the but was snatched out of our mouths by a callous
destiny just as it was beginning to smell really good. By the way,
Jimmy, what did you do with the soup?"

"It's there beyond, Miss, where you left it."

"I expect it's all boiled away by this time," said Priscilla, "but of
course the Primus stove may have gone out You never know beforehand how
those patent machines will act. If it has gone out the soup will be all
right, though coldish. Perhaps we'd better go back there."

"Which would you like to do yourself, Priscilla," said Miss Rutherford.

"Now that those spies have escaped us again," said Priscilla, "it
doesn't matter to me in t