Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/133

Rh puzzle him, but the state of the Captain made him actually afraid. He felt that whatever was to be done must be accomplished at once.

He ran down to the shore, along the rough, over-grown path. It was only a few yards to the beach, but a little longer around the shore  to the stream and the place where the stepping  stones crossed. He could see by the mist-obscured moonlight that the tide had come in and was going out again and that the water  was still running over the causeway.

“It can’t be so very deep,” he thought, and taking off his coat and hanging his shoes about  his neck, he waded cautiously into the stream. Up to his knees, his waist, his arms, it rose; one step more and it would be up to his neck.

“I will have to swim it,” he said to himself, and even at that moment he was swept off his feet and borne struggling into the  deeper water. He had wondered a little earlier in the day why the bluejackets had not  swum across instead of going around that long,  hot way by the road. It came to him now in a sudden flash that seasoned sailors knew more  about the tide currents than did boys, that he  had done an inexcusably foolish thing. He swam with all his strength, wildly at first; he