“I can do it!” she screamed.  “I can stand on the—­” She paused.  Tommy had toppled over and lay on her side, partly covered with water.  “Land!” breathed Harriet.  “We are on land, but there is water all about us.  I don’t understand.”

Pondering over this for a moment, Harriet stooped and lifted Grace to a sitting posture.  Her blood had begun to circulate and a warm glow was suffusing her entire body.

“Tommy, wake up!  Wake up!  It’s land.  We are on solid ground.  Don’t you understand?”

“Breakfatht for fithh,” muttered Tommy.  Harriet shook her as vigorously as she could.  It required no little effort to get Grace wide enough awake to understand what Harriet was saying, but after a short time Tommy seemed to understand, understanding that finally came to her with a shock almost equal to that that Harriet had felt.

“We—­we are on thhore?” she questioned.

“Yes, yes.  Let’s get out of the water.  Come, dear, I will support you.”  This she did, though Harriet staggered and was barely able to support herself.  She slipped a cold arm about Grace’s waist.  “Make your feet go.”  The two girls stumbled forward, Tommy now having an arm about Harriet’s waist, then with a scream from Tommy they stepped off into deep water and went in all over.

“Thave me, oh, thave me!” moaned Tommy as they came up.

But the plunge had done them good.  It had shaken both girls wide awake and cleared their clouded minds.  They once more had been awakened to a realization of their position.

“It wathn’t land at all!  Let me go, let me die,” insisted Tommy, struggling to free herself from Harriet’s grasp.

“It was a sand bar,” explained Harriet.  “Please behave yourself, Tommy.  You must do something.  It is all I can do to take care of myself.  Now, please, help me by helping yourself and we shall be on dry land in a few moments.”

Grace made several awkward attempts to swim, then gave it up.

“I can’t do it, Harriet.  What ith the uthe of trying to thwim any more?”

“Don’t you understand?  We were on a sand bar.  It was that that saved our lives after we were overcome.  We should have drowned had it not been for the bar.”

“Yeth, but we are in deep water again,” wailed Tommy.

“Think, think!  Don’t be so stupid.  We must be near the shore.  I don’t believe there would be a shallow place like that one far out from land.”

“Do you think tho?” Tommy’s voice was weaker than before.

“I am sure of it.  Swim.  That’s a good girl.”

“I—­I can’t.”

“Then I will swim for you.”