The next tack showed very plainly that the boat was really coming to
the Sea Monster, and somebody stood up in the stern and shouted. We
shouted back--one last howl--and then stood there panting, because
there was no use in wasting any more breath and our throats were
quite split as it was. When the catboat came a little nearer we saw
that there was only one man in it, and, sure enough, an old blue
jersey was tied to the flag halyard. The man turned the boat around
very neatly--I don't know the right sailing word for it--and
anchored. Then he climbed into the dinghy that was trailing along
behind and began rowing to the Sea Monster.
I sat down on the rock and I had to keep swallowing, because I felt
as if my heart were bumping up against my throat. To save time,
before the man landed, Jerry started to shout what had happened.
There wasn't much left of his voice, but he managed to do it
somehow.
"We've been here all night," he called huskily. "We came out to
explore this thing, and our boat got away, and our little brother
fell off the top and is hurt awfully, and" (this was just as the man
climbed ashore on the sea-weedy rocks) "and we'd always called this
place the 'Sea Monster' because it looked like one, but now we know
it _is_ one."
The man was looking at us very hard, particularly at me, and he
said:
"The 'Sea Monster'!" Then he looked again and said "Oh!"
He was a nice tall man, with a brown, squarish face, quite thin, and
twinkly blue eyes and a lot of dark hair that blew around like
Jerry's.
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