'Ten minutes later, and we couldn't have crossed,' said Marjorie. 'What do you think, Allan?' Despite the danger so recently escaped, Allan's thoughts were wandering. He looked round abstractedly, and slid into his pocket some object which he had been turning over unobserved; and Reggie fancied he caught a glimpse of a sailor's knife with some elaborate carving on the handle. Reggie looked at his brother with a gleam of curiosity in his eyes. 'Come along,' said Allan authoritatively; 'don't let's stand dawdling about.' CHAPTER VIII A CRUISE IN THE 'HEROIC' 'I can't understand Allan at all,' declared Marjorie. She and Reggie, armed with large pocket-knives, were engaged in cutting heather on the moor, which stretched, a mass of purple, to the verge of the cliffs. A pile of heather lay beside them, the result of an hour's hard sawing of the wiry stems. Marjorie's remark had interrupted a busy silence. Reggie looked up with a twinkle in his eyes. He had been growing thinner and browner during the summer, and his wrists came further beyond the sleeves of his jacket. 'What's the matter with Allan?' he asked. 'Why,' said Marjorie impatiently, 'he is going on so oddly. First of all, he wasn't to be found when we came here this morning--had been away for hours--and he isn't usually in such a hurry to get up in the holidays. Then when he comes back we all have to go off and get heather to patch up the roof of the Pirates' Den. I can't make out why he has grown so particular all of a sudden.' Reggie looked at her with a provoking smile. 'I thought it was you who wanted the place kept water-tight,' he suggested, 'in case we might be storm-stayed some evening and have to spend the night there----' 'That's all very well,' interrupted Marjorie, 'but that's not what's making you and Allan so busy just now. Why did you go off together yesterday, and stay away for such a time, leaving us to entertain your guests? You're busy with something that you don't want us to know about and I'd just like to find out what it is. It always irritates me when people make mysteries out of nothing.' Reggie was looking grave, and his dark eyes studied Marjorie intently. 'Hullo, you two,' said Allan, coming up; 'how are you getting on?' Marjorie rose up from the ground, and seated herself upon the pile of cut heather. 'I've just been telling Reggie that I know that you and he have a secret between you,' she said, looking boldly at Allan. 'I'd just like to know what it is. Hardly fair, I call it; keeping something from the other members of the Compact----' She broke off upon seeing the grave, concerned expression in Allan's eyes. 'It's all right,' she said, looking fixedly out to sea; 'it's something that you know you ought to keep from me, and I'm not going to find out what it is.' She had become flushed, and her heart was beating fast as a suspicion forced itself upon her. She turned, and stooping down, took up her armful of heather.