First she slipped over the rock, and found that it reached her waist, and that every wave made it more difficult to stand.  With Dick on her back it would be impossible; and the long links of the chain of rocks stretched such a weary way with those shining pools between.  The wind roared against the island, and the spray dashed up it; but Susie remembered the grass and the goats, and a gleam of hope sprang up within her.

“O Dick, we are close to the island,” she said.  “I had quite forgotten.  We must clamber over the rocks and get there; and, Dickie darling, even if your foot hurts, you will be brave.”

“I will be brave, Susie,” said Dick.

The rocks were slippery, and the seaweed popped under their feet like little guns; but jumping, slipping, clinging together, they reached the foot of the island, and then began the difficult scramble upwards.  Dick hung heavily on to Susie’s skirt, and his little feet were torn and bruised.  But Susie’s courage was the courage of hope, not of despair.  She lifted him over difficult places, and clung to edges of the cliff where it seemed as if even the seagulls had not room to stand.  Once she found a narrow track, but she lost it again in the darkness, and still she felt the splash of the waves and heard the startled birds crying overhead.  Never, never had Susie been so tired; but those pursuing waves chased her up, and by-and-by she felt dry crags under her feet, and then welcome grass—­wet with rain, not sea.

Drawing long, sobbing breaths, Susie sank down and drew Dickie into her arms.  In the far, far distance little lights were twinkling in the town, and Susie’s heart gave a passionate leap; it wanted to annihilate time and space, and carry her home.

“Mother, mother, mother!” she cried under her breath.

Dick was wet and tired, but he was too excited to lie still.  He lay in the hollow of Susie’s lap, with his wet feet curled up into her skirt, and his round eyes shining.

“We can’t be drowned now, Susie,” he said, smiling.

Susie had to make quite an effort before her stiff lips would speak.

“No, Dickie, we are quite safe,” she said; “but the ledge is so narrow you must not fidget about.  I am going to make you a dear little bed like a bird’s nest.”

“I don’t want to stay here all night,” he said.

“But there are goats here.”

“I don’t want there to be goats,” he said again.

“I only mean,” said Susie, “that if God can take care of the goats, He can take care of us too.”

“I would rather,” said Dickie, after a pause, “that He would put us back into our cribs.”

“Perhaps He will,” said Susie; “but you must sit quite still, and let me creep down and try if there is any other way to get to shore.”

“No, Susie, you mustn’t go,” said Dick, whimpering.  “I won’t cry if you are here, but if you go I shall—­I shall weep,” he said.