it, I found to my confusion that it had
suffered from the same misadventure, being cracked in the bottom, and
every drop of the contents gone.

That was the last straw, and the tears leapt to my eyes, but Martin went
on whistling and singing and ringing the big bell as if nothing had
happened.

The darkness deepened, the breath of night came sweeping over the sea,
the boom of the billows on the rock became still more terrible, and I
began to shiver.

"The sack!" cried Martin. "We allus sleeps in sacks when we're out
asploring."

I let him do what he liked with me now, but when he had packed me up in
the sack, and put me to lie at the foot of the triangle, telling me I
was as right as ninepence, I began to think of something I had read in a
storybook, and half choking with sobs I said:

"Martin!"

"What now, shipmate?"

"It's all my fault . . . and I'm just as frightened as Jimmy
Christopher's sister and Nessy MacLeod and Betsy Beauty . . . and I'm
not a stunner . . . and you'll have to give me up . . . and leave me
here and save yourself and . . ."

But Martin stopped me with a shout and a crack of laughter.

"Not _me_! Not much! We never leaves a pal when we're out asploring.
Long as we lives we never does it. Not never!"

That finished me. I blubbered like a baby, and William Rufus, who was
sitting by my side, lifted his nose and joined in my howling.

What happened next I never rightly knew. I was only aware, though my
back was to him, that Martin, impatient of his string, had leapt up to
the bell and was swinging his little body from the tongue to make a
louder clamour. One loud clang I heard, and then came a crash and a
crack, and then silence.

"What is it?" I cried, but at first there was no answer.

"Have you hurt yourself?"

And then through the thunderous boom of the rising sea on the rock,
came the breaking voice of my boy (he had broken his right arm) mingled
with the sobs which his unconquered and unconquerable little soul was
struggling to suppress--

"We never minds a bit of hurt . . . we never minds _nothing_ when we're
out asploring!"

Meantime on shore there was a great commotion. My father was railing at
Aunt Bridget, who was upbraiding my mother, who was crying for Father
Dan, who was flying off for Doctor Conrad, who was putting his horse
into his gig and scouring the parish in search of the two lost children.

But Tommy the Mate, who remembered the conversation in the potting