per time."

"Let us shake ourselves free of the wretched conventions of ordinary
civilisation," said Miss Rutherford. "Let us eat when we are hungry
without regard to the clock. Let us gorge ourselves with California
peach juice. Let us suck the burning peppermint--"

"We haven't any today," said Priscilla. "Brannigan's wasn't open when we
started."

"The principle is just the same," said Miss Rutherford. "Whatever food
you have is sure to be refreshingly unusual."

CHAPTER XIX

The _Tortoise_ lay absolutely becalmed. The ebbing tide carried her
slowly past Inishbawn towards the deep passage between the end of the
breakwater of boulders and the point on which the lighthouse stands.
The air was extraordinarily close and oppressive. Even Priscilla seemed
affected by it. She lay against the side of the boat with her hands
trailing idly in the water. Frank sat with the useless tiller in his
hand and watched the boom swing slowly across as the boat swayed this
way or that with the current. Miss Rutherford, her face glistening with
heat, had gone to sleep in a most uncomfortable attitude soon after
luncheon. Her head nodded backwards from time to time and whenever it
did so she opened her eyes, smiled at Frank, rearranged herself a little
and then went to sleep again.

The cattle on Inishbawn had forsaken their scanty pasture and stood
knee-deep in the sea. Not even the wild new heifer, which had gored
Jimmy Kinsella, if such a creature existed at all, would have had energy
to do much. A dog, which ought perhaps to have been barking at the
cattle, lay prostrate under the shadow afforded by a grassy bank. A
flock of white terns floated motionless a few yards from the _Tortoise_,
looking like a miniature fleet of graceful, white-sailed pleasure boats.
They had no heart to go circling and swooping for fish.

Perhaps it would have been useless if they had. The fish themselves may
well have been lying, in search of coolness among the weedy stones at
the bottom of the sea. Of all living creatures the jelly fish alone
seemed to retain any spirit. Immense crowds of them drifted past
the _Tortoise_, swelling out and closing again their concave bodies,
revolving slowly round, dragging long purple tendrils deliriously
through the warm water. They swept past Priscilla's drooping hands,
touching them with their yielding bodies and brushing them softly with
their tendrils. Now and then she lifted one from the water, watched