Now they were lifted from their feet.  They were no longer slipping downward.  Instead, they were being carried up and up until they were free from the choking pressure of the water, and once more were breathing the free, though misty, salt air of the sea.

“Oh, thave me!” wailed Tommy.

“I’ll try.  I don’t know.  We have been carried out to sea by a receding wave.  The bank gave way.  Oh, what a foolish girl you are!  Swim!  Swim with all your might!  We shall have to fight hard.  We may not be able to save ourselves as it is.  Swim toward the shore!”

“Whi—­ch way ith the thhore?” wailed Tommy.

“I don’t know.  I can’t see.  I think it must be that way.”  She placed a firm grip on Tommy’s shoulder, turning the smaller girl about, heading her toward what Harriet Burrell believed to be the shore.  She wondered why she could see no light over there, having forgotten that the campfire had been blown away in the squall.

The two girls now began to swim with all their might.  It seemed to them, in their anxiety, as if they had been swimming for hours.  Harriet finally ceased swimming and lay floating with a slight movement of her arms.

“What ith it?” questioned Grace.

“I don’t know.”

“But you thee thomething, don’t you?”

“That is the worst of it.  I do not.  Look sharp.  Can you make out anything that looks like the shore?”

“I thee a light!  I thee a light!” cried Tommy delightedly.

“Yes; I see it now.  That must be on the shore.  We have been going in the wrong direction.  Swim with all your might!”

For a few moments they did swim, strongly and with long overhand strokes, Tommy and Harriet keeping close together, Harriet ever watchful that a swell did not carry her little companion from her.  They had made considerable progress, but still the shore seemed to have disappeared from view.  The light that Tommy had discovered had gone out.  At least, it was no longer to be seen.  Harriet stopped swimming, and, raising herself as high as possible out of the water, again and again took quick surveys of their surroundings.  The seas were heavier and less broken where they now were.  Slowly it dawned upon Harriet Burrell that they were in deep water.  She raised her voice in a long-drawn shout.  Both listened.  No sound save the swish of the water about them was to be heard.  The wind had not come up again, but a fresh, salty breeze was blowing over them, chilling the girls, sending shivers through their slender bodies.

“Oh, what thhall we do?” sobbed Grace.  “What can we do to thave ourthelveth?”

“I don’t know, Tommy.  About all we can do is to keep up our courage and wait for daylight.  We must keep moving as well as we can, or we shall get so cold that we shall perish.”

“Wait until daylight?  Oh, thave me!  I thall die—­I thurely thall.  Thave me, Harriet!”

“Keep up your courage, darling.  We are far from being goners yet, but we have before us a night that will call for all the courage we possess.  Now pull yourself together and be a brave little girl.”