"Oh, nothing," he snapped out, evidently very grumpy at things not being done in the way he thought best. "I was only uttering my thoughts aloud, ma'am. If you must know, I think it very risky of our friend the skipper trying to drive the boat ahead when she's down by the bows. Poor chap, I'm afraid he has lost his head, the same as the vessel has hers! Never mind, though, she cannot go very far in this shoal water, or I'm a Dutchman!" Nor did she. In less than a minute there was another heavy bump that shook the deck fore and aft, making all the passengers tumble about like ninepins. Bob nearly took a dive through the hatchway of the engine-room, into which he was still peering, and Nellie fell on poor Rover, causing him to utter a plaintive howl; while, as for Mrs Gilmour, she lurched against the Captain as if she were going to embrace him with open arms, treading at the same time on his worst foot, whereon flourished a pet corn that gave the old sailor infinite trouble, which he ever guarded as the apple of his eye. "O-o-o-o-oh!" he groaned, hopping about the deck on one leg and holding up the injured foot with both his hands, "I knew some further mischief would come from what that idiot of a skipper was doing!" Meanwhile, the steamboat people on the pier, off which they had grounded only some three or four hundred yards away, seeing the predicament of the vessel, set to work sending off boats to land the passengers. The first of these reached the little vessel just as she struck the sandbank she had run foul of for the second time; then coming to a dead stop as if she meant now to remain there for good and all. "Are we to go ashore in one of those?" asked Bob, pointing out the fleet of small boats making for the steamer, besides the two that had already come up to her; some being launched by the watermen on the beach in addition to those sent off from the pier. "What fun to have a boat all to ourselves, as I suppose we shall!" "Yes, I suppose so, if we are to get to land at all," replied the Captain, who had become a little more amiable, his natural good-humour asserting itself as the pain in his foot somewhat subsided; "I don't see how we can otherwise, unless we swim for it; the vessel is now stuck quite fast with no chance of her moving until she is lightened of her cargo of passengers." "That will be jolly!" cried Bob. "Why it's just like a regular shipwreck!" "Ah, my boy," said the old sailor, shaking his head, "if you ever experienced the realities of one, you would not speak so lightly. A shipwreck, let me tell you, is no laughing matter." "I didn't mean that," explained Bob, "I was only thinking how jolly it would be for us all to have a row, instead of landing at the pier quietly, as we would have done if nothing had happened."