soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were little shells in
it.

"Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny," said
Jane, "with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids."

"And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could find a
gold doubloon, or something," Cyril said.

"How did the sea get carried away?" Robert asked.

"Not in a pail, silly," said his brother.

"Father says the earth got too hot underneath, as you do in bed
sometimes, so it just hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip
off, like the blankets do us, and the shoulder was left sticking out,
and turned into dry land. Let's go and look for shells; I think that
little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there like a
bit of wrecked ship's anchor, and it's beastly hot in the Australian
hole."

The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to
finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a
disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.

The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the
wrecked ship's anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a pick-axe
handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds that sand
makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside, and someone had
suggested that they all go home for lemonade, when Anthea suddenly