"We might swim it!" she suggested. "But what about our clothes?" Mavis shook her head. "We can't cross there till the tide goes down." "Are we going to be drowned?" asked Romola, in a tremulous little voice. "Certainly not!"--Mavis sounded quite calm and sensible--"we're safe enough here, but we're in a jolly nasty fix. We can sit above high-water mark, but it means staying till the tide goes down and that won't be for hours, and then it will be dark and how can we see to scramble up the cliffs?" "I suppose we've got to wait till morning!" groaned Fay. "This is _some_ adventure at any rate!" "Rather more than most of us bargained for!" agreed Beata. "I wouldn't care a nickel, only Mother'll be in such a state of mind when I don't turn up!" "And Uncle David will be waiting to go home in the car. I wonder what he'll do?" "They'll have the fright of their lives!" "And we shall have the colds of ours!" shivered poor Romola. "October isn't exactly the month you'd choose for camping out. I wish we'd brought some more biscuits with us. I'm hungry!" "Don't talk of biscuits or eating! I'm just ravenous." Five very disconsolate girls found a sheltered corner under the cliff and squatted down to watch the sunset. There was a glorious effect of gold and orange and great purple clouds tipped with crimson, but they were none of them quite in the mood to appreciate the beauties of nature, and would much have preferred the sight of a tea-table. It was beginning to grow very cold. They buttoned their sports coats about their throats, and huddled close together for warmth. The sun sank into the sea like a great fiery ball, and the darkness crept on. Presently the moon rose, shining over the sea in a broad spreading pathway of silver, that looked like a gleaming fairy track across the water to the far horizon, where a distant lighthouse glinted at intervals like a fiery eye. The waiting seemed interminable. Romola, who felt the cold most, had a little private weep. "I've always been crazy on stories of shipwrecks and desert islands," said Fay, "but when you go through it yourself somehow it seems to take the edge off the romance. I don't want any more to be a Robinson Crusoe girl! I'd rather stay warm with pussie by the fire." "If we'd had a box of matches with us we might have lighted a fire!" sighed Beata. "Why _didn't_ we bring some?" "Why didn't we look at the tide and get home in decent time? It's no good crying over spilt milk!" grunted Merle rather crossly. After that they all subsided into silence for a while. There was no sound except the monotonous lap of the waves. The sea-gulls and cormorants had flown past at sunset and gone to roost. The absolute quiet, and the dark shadows, and the silver light of the moon gave such an eerie atmosphere to the scene that presently Fay could stand it no longer.