His father called suddenly below them, “For God’s sake, boys, if you see something, tell us! And do something about it, can’t you? Wave something! Shout!” Mrs. Kinney shrieked suddenly, strained and off key, “Oh, make them hurry! Make them hurry! We can’t stand this any longer!” And the other three all cried things, words and shouts mingled indistinguishably, a babel of sound at the water’s edge, incapable of carrying, in that wind, more than a boat’s length. Bill and Ronny waved their arms, waved Bill’s coat, waved torn strips of canvas, and shouted as if a tension had given way. Presently the breaking white from the boat’s bow and the occasional glimpse of bow itself were gone. There were only the jagged lift of the wave tops and the foaming white of crests. When Ronny really believed that the boat had gone, that he could not see it any more, that it had really failed to see them, or had ignored them, he stopped waving and let himself drop down to the fuselage. Bill dropped beside him and they stood looking down at the faces below them, the wet faces with the incredulous eyes raised to theirs. Ronny cleared his throat before he shook his head and said, “It went.” “You mean it went?” His father’s voice was suddenly harsh and there were reddish veins under the salt water on his forehead. “You didn’t wave hard enough! You didn’t try to shout! The hounds--to leave us--the dirty dogs! I’ll have them arrested for it. I’ll make them suffer for it, the dirty skunks, the lou----” Gloria stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Mrs. Kinney had gasped once or twice and her eyes had rolled in her plump white face, but Colonel Kinney had both arms around her. “Hush, Momma, hush,” he said. “Never mind. That means we’ll see others. The next one will come nearer.” There was then nothing to do but keep on waiting and keep on hanging on. There was no way of knowing what time it was, except that the blazing sun had moved slightly westward down from the zenith. The waves rolled as high, but it almost seemed as if the six had adjusted to their rolling, so that they did it automatically, knowing how high the highest would come. But the ferocity of the sun was an increasing agony. Ronny felt the sting of it under his wet shirt, along his tanned shoulders, and knew how much the others must feel it on the tenderer skin of their faces and shoulders. Colonel Kinney’s bald spot glowed an angry crimson. He had lost his helmet long since. And Ronny tore a big piece from his wet shirt and made Colonel Kinney tie it over his head like a hood. All Gloria’s make-up had washed off and her cheeks were red with sunburn and her nose already blistered. Mrs. Kinney’s pale face was bright rose colour, and both women’s lips were swollen and blistered from the salt water and the sun. Ronny tore other pieces from his shirt to tie over their faces, and the sun was instantly angry on the bared places on his neck and back.