When they got back to the fire Dickie took one look at their burden and brightened considerably.

They piled the fire high again, and while they munched and shared the little drinking cups from the tops of the flasks they watched the men at work trying to fill the great breach. Soon more lorries, two bulldozers and a mechanical excavator arrived, but the greatest thrill was the two motor boats which came chugging across the watery levels from the direction of Winchelsea. Food and drink had refreshed the twins, who were very wide awake, and as their supply of fuel was now getting low, they were all glad to walk about to keep warm. They had no idea of the time, but a suspicion of colour in the eastern sky and the sudden drop in the temperature told David, who seemed to know a lot about weather and the stars, that it was nearly dawn.

"I should think someone would come for us soon," Jon was saying. "I could do with six rashers of bacon and six eggs if we had any bacon and eggs, couldn't you, David?... I say! I think we're going to be rescued... Isn't that Fred Vasson in that motor boat and isn't that your father with him?"

David waved and shouted. "Hello! Is that you, Dad? Here we are all safe and sound."

The motor boat chugged in closer and then they recognized Mr. Morton standing up in the bows.

"Are you all there? Everything all right?"

"Hello, Daddy, darling!" Mary called. "We've had such an adventure. Mackie is here, too."

"I'm sure he is," her father answered, just a trifle grimly the twins thought. "Now pay attention. We can't get the boat any nearer to you because of this track which is higher than we are. I'm coming across for the twins who will come on my back - one at a time, Richard - and then I'll come back for Penny if I can carry her. You boys had better take off your shoes and socks, hang 'em round your necks and wade across... It won't be too deep for you, but you'll have to watch how you step... Hold hard, Vasson. I'm getting out now... keep her close into the bank."

Somehow he managed to scramble on to the track and they saw that the water nearly reached the top of his big rubber boots. There was a deeper pool between the path and the hill and it was some minutes before he found the best way to cross this, but he was over at last and Mary rushed into his arms. When he had disentangled himself he gave the elder boys a curt greeting, a smile to Penny and a pat on the shoulder to Dickie. Then he took Mary on his back, and Dickie handed up a frantic Mackie to his mistress, who tucked him under one arm and clutched her father's collar with the other.