andle, rattled away as if nothing had
happened--pointing proudly to a rust-eaten triangle with a bell
suspended inside of it and his little flag floating on top.

"But, oh dear, what are we to do now?" I whimpered.

"Don't you worrit about that," he said. "We'll just signal back to the
next base--we call them bases when we're out asploring."

I understood from this that he was going to ring the bell which, being
heard on the land, would bring somebody to our relief. But the bell was
big, only meant to be put in motion on stormy nights by the shock and
surging of an angry sea, and when Martin had tied a string to its tongue
it was a feeble sound he struck from it.

Half an hour passed, an hour, two hours, and still I saw nothing on the
water but our own empty boat rocking its way back to the shore.

"Will they ever come?" I faltered.

"Ra--ther! Just you wait and you'll see them coming. And when they take
us ashore there'll be crowds and crowds with bugles and bands and things
to take us home. My goodness, yes," he said, with the same wild look,
"hundreds and tons of them!"

But the sun set over the sea behind us, the land in front grew dim, the
moaning tide rose around the quaking rock and even the screaming
sea-fowl deserted us, and still there was no sign of relief. My heart
was quivering through my clothes by this time, but Martin, who had
whistled and sung, began to talk about being hungry.

"My goodness yes, I'm that hungry I could eat. . . . I could eat a
dog--we allus eats our dogs when we're out asploring."

This reminded me of the biscuit, but putting my hand to the pocket of my
frock I found to my dismay that it was gone, having fallen out, perhaps,
when I slipped in my climbing. My lip fell and I looked up at him with
eyes of fear, but he only said:

"No matter! We never minds a bit of hungry when we're out asploring."

I did not know then, what now I know, that my little boy who could not
learn his lessons and had always been in disgrace, was a born gentleman,
but my throat was thick and my eyes were swimming and to hide my emotion
I pretended to be ill.

"I know," said Martin. "Dizzingtory! [dysentery]. We allus has
dizzingtory when we're out asploring."

There was one infallible cure for that, though--milk!

"I allus drinks a drink of milk, and away goes the dizzingtory in a
jiffy."

This recalled the bottle, but when I twisted it round on my belt, hoping
to make amends for the lost biscu