"Plenty of time yet."

Adrian laughed, flecks of many colours dancing in his hazel eyes.

"How true!  And the world before us!  I say, Crow, isn’t this absolutely top-hole?"

"Hum--hum--please remember, my dear child, that we’ve got to come back."

"Plenty of time," said Adrian, echoing her words.

"I’ll agree with you, when the rain stops, and I can see where we are;" Christobel shook herself as she spoke, and then looked in an interested manner at the wet drippings.

Adrian reverted suddenly to his unpleasant idea about the dinghy.  There was no doubt that she was a serious pull back--a heavy and dangerous drag on the yacht.  Crow saw it was inevitable, so she made her conditions.  Adrian should bail out if she might bring _Messenger_ up into the wind and lie-to, while he chose to poise himself in critical attitudes.

"Otherwise, I simply won’t," declared the skipper with decision.

Adrian saw no necessity, of course.  There was more zest in a really dangerous operation!  However, he made no objection and Crow put the helm hard down.  The yawl answered like a horse with a tender mouth.  Round she came on a sweeping curve, the wet sails first shivering, and then giving out a succession of loud reports.  A moment after and they were on a level keel in comparative quiet, leaping at the waves with some sort of regularity.

"Phew!  What a comfort!" exclaimed Christobel, stretching both arms. Then she lashed the jerking tiller, while her brother hauled over the foresail sheets, and braced in the mainsail close.

The wind rushed by them with the same force, but they did not feel it, of course, and there was time to take stock, and put their "house in order", so to speak.  Moreover, the skipper had pleasure in the conscious knowledge that if Addie did fall overboard it would be easy enough for him to regain the yawl.

She laughed with sudden joyousness.

"What’s the joke?" asked her brother.

"I feel like the frog-footman in _Alice Through the Looking-glass_, ’I shall stay here--on and off--for days, and days’. It’s very appropriate to one’s wishes."

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