Jean made no objection, though he was still too much exhausted to go with them. But the three friends, undeterred by wet and clinging garments, climbed the shaky ladders to what was left of the top floor of the tower, where they found the electric torch which Jean must have used lying close under a loop-hole window. "Of course a torch-flash isn't easy to read in daylight, but there's no sun, and it's getting darker," Joey suggested. "Then it must be past high tide," Noreen said joyfully. The three stood at the loop-hole, looking out for a minute in silence over the dreary grey waste of water. A wicker hen-coop and a large bath-tub washed aimlessly about near the walls of their refuge, farther off a poor drowned sheep showed, half submerged. Gabrielle put her arm through Joey's. "We might have been drowned too," she said, "and instead we're all right, and your father's alive." Joey couldn't answer that for a second: then she said huskily, "Thanks awfully, and I _am_ glad we're all in it together." "And always will be for ever and ever, Amen," chipped in Noreen the irrepressible. "Gabrielle will be Upper School next term, Miss Craigie thinks, but she'll never desert the alliance, I know. It's going to be for always." "I say, I am jolly glad I came to Redlands," Joey said from her heart. They took turns after that to work the torch, sending S.O.S. signals out into the wet world, while the tide steadily sucked back and back, leaving the tops of the white posts uncovered once more. And then over the grey waste a boat came, and they tore down the ladders at a breakneck pace to welcome John, rowed by a sturdy policeman. "What's happened to him--the Professor?" shrieked Noreen, as soon as the boat came into hailing distance. "Oh, you're all right, you three, thank goodness!" John sent back, as he steered the boat carefully for the tower door. "I felt rather jumpy about you, when the sea burst in. But I might have known Joey would come out top. The Professor?--oh, he is safely in the lock-up, with his violet handkerchief--which it seems is the secret insignia of his crowd--and his precious bugs. The flood was really a convenience, otherwise I meant to run my car into a ditch, and have him that way if poss. As it was, the tide burst in and swamped us, and he can't swim and was in a blue funk of drowning, so I had no bother at all. Just left him hanging on to the car, without his bugs, revolver, or hanky, and swam for help. I could have waded, of course, but swimming was easier for my game leg, and more impressive. And they're all right at Deeping Royal; they're sending boats. So you have nothing to do, but to let us get you back to Redlands." Hanging on to the door, Joey stooped to whisper to John. "John, be nice to this man here, because he's told me Father is alive in Germany." "What, your pater alive after all! Top-hole!" John said. "That _will_ be something to tell Aunt Greta!"