Frank had no objection. He felt tolerably certain that he would not have to shout. Priscilla, frowning heavily, fixed her eyes on the stone perch, A few minutes later she spoke again. “Once,” she said, “I was riding my bicycle in father’s mackintosh, which naturally was a little long for me. In process of time the tail of it got wound round and round the back wheel and I was regularly stuck, couldn’t move hand or foot and had to lie on my side with the bicycle on top of me. That seems to me very much the way we are now with that anchor rope and the centreboard.” “How did you get out?” said Frank hopefully. That Priscilla had got out was evident. If her position on the bicycle was really analogous to that of the Tortoise the same plan of escape might perhaps be tried. “I lay there,” said Priscilla, “until Peter Walsh happened to come along the road. He kind of unwound me.” A boat, heavily laden, was rowing slowly towards them, making very little way against the gathering strength of the ebb tide and the easterly wind. “Perhaps,” said Frank, “the people in that boat, if it ever gets here, will unwind us.” The boat drew nearer and Priscilla declared that it was Kinsella’s. “It’s Joseph Antony himself rowing her,” she said. “He’d be getting on faster if he had Jimmy along with him, but I suppose he’s off with the sponge lady again.” Kinsella reached the Tortoise and stopped rowing. “You’re out for a sail again today, Miss?” he said. “Well, it’s fine weather for the likes of you.” “At the present moment,” said Priscilla, “we’re stuck and can’t get out.” “Do you tell me that now? And what’s the matter with you?” “The anchor rope is foul of the centreboard and we can’t get either the one or the other of them to move.” “Begor!” said Joseph Antony. “Do you know any way of getting it clear?” “I do, of course.” “Well, trot it out.” “If you was to take the oars,” said Joseph Antony, “and was to row the boat round the way she wasn’t going when she twisted the rope on you it would come untwisted again.” “It would, of course. Thank you very much. Rather stupid of us not to have thought of that. It seems quite simple. But that’s always the way. The simplest things are far the hardest to think of. Columbus and the egg, for instance.” She got out the oars as she spoke and began turning the Tortoise round. “Begging your pardon, Miss,” said Joseph Antony, “but which way is the rope twisted round the plate? If you row her round the wrong way you’ll twist it worse than ever.” But luck favored Priscilla. When the Tortoise had made one circle the rope shook itself clear. Joseph Antony, dipping his oars gently in the water, drew close alongside. “I’d be sorry now,” he said, “if it was to Inishbawn you were thinking of going. Herself and the children is away off. I’d have been afraid to leave them there with myself up at the quay with a load of gravel.” Priscilla looked at him with a smile of complete scepticism.