“What I say is, it’s simply hypnotic suggestion.  There’s no rope there at all, really.”

An anxious silence followed.

“No,” said Simpson suddenly, “I’m doing it wrong.”

“From to-night,” said Archie, after tea, “you will be put on rations.  One cobnut and a thimbleful of sherry wine per diem.  I hope somebody’s brought a thimble.”

“There really isn’t so very much left,” said Dahlia.

“Then we shall have to draw lots who is to be eaten.”

“Don’t we eat our boots and things first?” asked Myra.

“The doctor says I mustn’t have anything more solid than a lightly-boiled shoe-lace the last thing at night.”

“After all, there’s always the dinghy,” said Archie.  “If we put in a tin of corned beef and a compass and a keg of gunpowder, somebody might easily row in and post the letters.  Personally, as captain, I must stick to my ship.”

“There’s another way I’ve just thought of,” I said.  “Let’s sail in.”

I pointed out to sea, and there, unmistakably, was the least little breeze coming over the waters.  A minute later and our pennant napped once Simpson moistened a finger and held it up.

The sprint for home had begun.

III.—­A DAY ASHORE

“Well, which is it to be?” asked Archie.

“Just whichever you like,” said Dahlia, “only make up your minds.”

“Well, I can do you a very good line in either.  I’ve got a lot of sea in the front of the house, and there’s the Armadillo straining at the leash; and I’ve had some land put down at the back of the house, and there’s the Silent-Knight eating her carburettor off in the kennels.”

“Oh, what can ail thee, Silent-Knight, alone and palely loitering?” asked Simpson.  “Keats,” he added kindly.

“Ass (Shakespeare),” I said.

“Of course, if we sailed,” Simpson went on eagerly, “and we got becalmed again, I could teach you chaps signalling.”

Archie looked from one to the other of us.

“I think that settles it,” he said, and went off to see about the motor.

“Little Chagford,” said Archie, as he slowed down.  “Where are we going to, by the way?”

“I thought we’d just go on until we found a nice place for lunch.”

“And then on again till we found a nice place for tea,” added Myra.

“And so home to dinner,” I concluded.

“Speaking for myself—­” began Simpson.

“Oh, why not?”

“I should like to see a church where Katharine of Aragon or somebody was buried.”

“Samuel’s morbid craving for sensation—­”

“Wait till we get back to London, and I’ll take you to Madame Tussaud’s, Mr Simpson.”

“Well, I think he’s quite right,” said Dahlia.  “There is an old Norman church, I believe, and we ought to go and see it.  The Philistines needn’t come in if they don’t want to.”