Suppose they had to pass the night there?
Good Heavens! Suppose they could not get across for days? What were they to live on?--to come at once to the lowest but most pressing necessity of the situation?
They had weather-proof shelter. Firing they could procure from the interior woodwork of the house and outbuildings. And they had a small amount of tea and sugar, and half a tin of condensed milk, and rather more than half of the day's provisions, since they had contemplated high tea before embarking again. He determined that, if the storm showed no signs of abating, the high tea must be a low one, since its constituents might possibly have to serve for to-morrow's breakfast as well.
Both girls, their own perceptions strung tight by the electric state of matters outside, noticed the touch of anxiety in his face as he turned from the window, but both declined to show it.
"How's her head, Captain?" asked Miss Penny jovially.
"Dead on to a lee shore," he answered in her own humour. "But the anchorage is good and we're not likely to drift."
"Come! That's something to be thankful for, under the circumstances. Brecqhou banging broadside on to that big black Gouliot rock would be a most unpleasant experience. How about the sunset cliffs of Sark?"
"They're very much under a cloud. I'm afraid we must pass them for this time and choose a better. The cliffs indeed are there, but the sun is much a-wanting."
"Hamlet without the ghost of a father or even a sun."
"Truly!" And looking at Margaret, he said earnestly, "I can't tell you how sorry I am it has turned out this way."
"But it is no fault of yours, Mr. Graeme. No one could possibly have foreseen such a breakdown in the weather, with such a glorious morning as we had."
"After all, I'm not at all sure it isn't all Mr. Graeme's fault," said Miss Penny musingly.
"Didn't you stop me giving Johnnie Vautrin six demanded pennies to keep it fine all day?"
"I discouraged the imposition, certainly. But I don't suppose Johnnie could have done much--except with your sixpence."
"He's a queer clever boy, is Johnnie. He certainly said it wasn't going to keep fine."
"Yet you gave him fivepence for seeing--or saying he saw--two crows and three crows, because two crows mean good luck and three crows mean----"