CHAPTER IX


It _was_ raining,--big cold splashes that came faster and faster. I
felt my blouse stick coldly to my shoulder in the places where it
was wet.

"We _can't_ let Greg lie there and have it rain on him," I said.

Jerry and I thought of the pirate cave at the same moment, but we
didn't see how we could possibly carry Greg to it in the dark. We
thought that as it wasn't his legs that were hurt he might be able
to walk there, if we helped him. He was very brave and quite willing
to try, though a little dazed about why we wanted him to, but when
we stood him carefully on his feet, he said, "Chris--no--" and we
had to lay him down again. By this time it was really raining, and I
put the skirt over Greg, instead of under him, while we tried to
think.

"It might work if we made a chair," Jerry suggested.

So we stooped down and clasped each other's wrists criss-cross, the
way you do to make a human chair, and got Greg on to it, with the
arm that wasn't hurt around my neck. The darkness was perfectly
pitchy, and we had to feel for every step to be sure that it was a
solid place and not the slippery edge that went straight down into
the sea. Greg cried a little and said, "_Please--_stop." I could
feel his hair against my face. It was all wet, and his cheek was
wet, too, and cold.