nearest approach to good-fellowship they had yet attained.

Nance disappeared round a corner, and the next he saw of her she was
swimming boldly out towards Brenière point, and in a moment he and
Bernel were after her.

"Don't go past the point," jerked Bernel.

"She's gone."

"She's a fish and knows her way," and just then they ploughed into what
at first looked to Gard like a perfectly smooth spot amid the troubled
waters, and then he was lifted from below and flung awry and out of his
stroke, and tossed and tumbled till he felt as helpless as a dead fish.
Then a fresh coil of the bubbling tide whirled him to one side and he
was out again in the safety of the dancing waves.

"You see?" cried Bernel. "That's what it's like," and shot into it
headlong.

And Gard, treading water quietly at a safe distance, saw how, every
here and there, great crowns of water came surging up from below, with
such lunging force that they rose in some cases almost a foot above the
neighbouring level of the sea, and he wondered how any swimmer could
make way through them. And yet Nance had cleft them like a seal, and he
could hardly make out her brown head bobbing among the distant waves.

"Is it safe for her?" he cried after Bernel, but the boy's only reply
was a scornful wave of the arm as he pressed on to join her.