"It was a cramp I guess, and the harder I tried to get rid of it the worse it got till finally I got panic-stricken. I called to you girls, but you didn't seem to hear me. Then--" she paused, and the girls held their breath as she looked around at them. "Then--I went down. I came up again and called, and--and--I saw you, Betty. Oh, it was terrible!" "Then," cried Betty, her voice trembling, "when you went down that last time--" "I didn't go down," Amy contradicted her. "I struggled so hard that I succeeded in getting my head above water and--that was when you reached me--Betty--" "Thank Heaven," said Betty, with a little sob, "that I was there!" CHAPTER XXII DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN "Well," said Mollie, with a sigh, "I fancy there isn't very much use of our sitting around here in our bathing suits. I, for one, don't feel like swimming any more to-day." "Nor I," agreed Grace. "And I," said Amy, turning away with a shudder from the water where she had so closely come to death, "feel as if I never wanted to see the water again." "Oh, but you will get over that," Betty assured her quickly. "I don't blame you a bit for feeling that way now--I do myself--but after a while you will be just as crazy about it as ever." "I don't know," said Amy slowly. "When you have once come face to face with death like that, you are not anxious to do it again in a hurry." "But you have never had a cramp before," reasoned Mollie, "and you probably never will have one again." "But I am not sure of that," insisted Amy. "There's no reason why you can't be sure of it after a while," Betty pointed out. "You see, we girls are pretty well out of practice. It's a long time since we did any swimming to amount to anything, and our muscles are weak and flabby. Why, we all got tired out to-day twice as quickly as we ordinarily would." "And you tried to swim too far," added Mollie. "That's the reason your poor old muscles protested." "It might have happened to any one of us," Grace agreed. "All we need is a little practice to swim as well as ever again." "Oh, do you think so?" asked Amy eagerly, while the color came back into her pale cheeks. "If I could only be sure of that!" Betty was about to reply, but at that minute a voice hailed them from the direction of the house and they jumped up to see what was wanted. "It's mother," said Grace. "And she seems to be waving something at us." "It's an envelope," cried Mollie. "It may be a letter from mother." She started running toward the house, with Grace, thinking of Will, at her heels, while Betty helped Amy to her feet. "Are you feeling stronger now?" she asked. "Or would you rather rest a little longer?" "Oh, I'm all right," Amy assured her, though for a minute she had to cling to Betty for support. They made their way rather slowly after the others. Before they had reached the foot of the bluff Mollie came scrambling down again and ran toward them wildly.