CHAPTER XIXPAUL'S MOTOR BOAT
The days flew by on wings and the girls were surprised to wake one morning to find that they had been at Lighthouse Island over a week.
They had been bathing and boating and swimming till they were tanned a beautiful brown, the color not being confined to their faces, but covering their arms and hands as well.
What with the exercise and Mrs. Danvers’ wonderful cooking, they had gained flesh so fast that they had begun to wonder a little anxiously if they were “bound for the freak show.”
“Why, it’s positively dreadful!” Laura declared one morning, feeling ruefully of her waistline which she was quite certain had expanded at least two inches. “I’ve simply got to stop eating, or something.”
“Stop eating!” echoed Billie, taking up a handful of sand and letting it sift slowly through her fingers. “Well, maybe you can do it, Laura dear, but I certainly can’t—not with Connie’s mother doing the cooking.”
“I don’t intend to try, no matter how fat I get,” declared Vi.
It was right after breakfast, and the girls had jumped into their bathing suits, as they did at almost the same time every morning, and were waiting impatiently for the hour to pass that Mrs. Danvers had insisted must pass before they went in swimming after breakfast.
“Mother said she might come down this morning and go in with us,” said Connie, her eyes fixed dreamily on the horizon. Then suddenly she sat up straight and stared.
“What’s the matter?” asked Billie. “Seeing ghosts or something?”
“No. But look!” Connie clutched at her arm. “Isn’t that a motor boat?”
“That” was a tiny spot that grew bigger as they looked and seemed to be headed in their direction.
“It’s a boat of some sort, I think,” said Vi. “But you can’t tell whether it’s a motor boat or some other kind of a craft.”
“Of course you can,” Laura broke in excitedly. “It’s got to be a motor boat because there aren’t any sails or anything. It is! It is! Oh, girls! could it be——”
“The boys?” finished Billie, shading her eyes with her hand and gazing eagerly out toward the speck that was growing larger every minute. “Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful?”
“But we’re not a bit sure it’s the boys,” Connie reminded her. “Lots of motor boats come here in the summer.”
“Oh, stop being a kill-joy,” Laura commanded, giving her a little shake. “I just feel it in my bones that the boys are in that boat. Where will they land, Connie?”
“At the dock, of course,” Connie answered, in a tone which said very plainly: “You ought to have known that without asking.”
“Well, let’s run around there then,” cried Billie, her cheeks red with excitement. “They won’t know what to do if nobody’s there to meet them.”
As always with Billie, to think a thing was to do it, and before the girls had a chance to say anything she was off, fleet-footed, down the sand in the direction of the dock.
The girls stared for a minute, then Laura started in pursuit.
“Come on,” she cried. “She’s crazy, of course, but we’ve got to follow her, I suppose.”
Billie had almost reached the dock before they caught up with her. Then Laura reached out a hand and jerked her to stop.
“Billie,” she gasped, “be sensible for just a minute, please. Suppose it isn’t the boys? Then we won’t want to be waiting around as though we wanted somebody to speak to us!”
“Well, but I’m sure it is the boys. You saidso yourself,” retorted Billie impatiently, her eyes fixed on the mysterious spot dancing and bobbing on the glistening water. “And they certainly won’t know what to do if there isn’t a soul here to meet them.”
“But we don’t want to meet them in our bathing suits,” said Vi, who, with Connie, had just come pantingly up. “It wouldn’t be just proper, would it?”
Billie looked at her doubtfully a moment, then reluctantly shook her head.
“No, I don’t suppose it would,” she admitted, adding with a stamp of her foot. “But I did want to be here to meet them.”
“Well, we can be, if we rush,” broke in Connie. “The boat won’t reach the dock for fifteen or twenty minutes anyway, because it’s still a long way off. We may be able to throw some clothes on and be back by that time.”
“‘Throw’ is right,” Laura said skeptically, but Billie was already racing off again in the direction of the cottage. With a helpless little laugh, the girls followed.
The boys would have declared it could not be done. But the girls proved that it could. They were panting when they reached the house, stopped just long enough to explain to the surprised Mrs. Danvers and then scurried upstairs, and with eagerfingers tore off their bathing suits and substituted their ordinary clothes.
“It’s good we didn’t go in bathing and get our hair all wet,” Vi panted, but Laura put a hand over her mouth.
“Stop talking,” she commanded. “You need your breath!”
As a matter of fact, they were pretty much out of the last-named article when they reached the dock again. But the great thing was that they had succeeded in getting there before whoever was in that motor boat made a landing.
“Suppose after all this it isn’t the boys?” panted Laura, and Connie gave her a funny glance.
“Kill-joy,” she jeered, paying her back.
Laura was about to retort, but Billie interrupted with a chuckle.
“Stop fighting, girls,” she commanded, “and tell me something. Is my hair on straight?”
“No, it’s too much over one eye,” replied Connie in the same tone.
Then Vi claimed their attention.
“Look!” she cried. “They are coming around the other side of the dock. Oh, isn’t that a perfectly beautiful boat?”
It was, but the girls were just then too much interested in finding out who was in the boat to pay very much attention to its beauty. The graceful craft swung around toward them, the motorwas shut off, and the boat glided easily in to the dock.
The girls were standing a little way back, so as not to appear too curious, and that was the reason why the boys saw them before they saw the newcomers.
There was a whoop from the deck of the motor boat, a shout of, “Say, fellows, look who’s here!” and the next moment three sportily clad young figures leaped out on the dock and made a dash for the girls, leaving the fourth member of their party protesting vigorously.
The fourth member was none other than Paul Martinson, and, being the owner and captain of the handsome motor boat, he had no intention of following the other boys and leaving his craft to wander out to sea.
So he told the boys what he thought of them, which did not do a particle of good since they did not hear a word he said, and remained in the boat while he held on to the dock with one hand.
Meanwhile Chet had hugged his sister and Teddy had hugged his sister and Ferd had declared longingly that he wished he had a sister to hug, it made him feel lonesome, and there was laughter and noise and confusion generally.
It was Connie who reminded them of poor Paul grumbling away all by himself in his boat, and theboys ran penitently over to him while the girls danced after them joyfully.
“Oh, what a splendid boat!”
“Isn’t she a beauty!”
“What good times you must have in her.”
It was really an unusually handsome craft, and it was little wonder that Paul regarded it with pride. He invited the girls on board, and they went into raptures enough over it to satisfy even him.
It was a good fifty feet in length and had a cabin in which one could stand up if one were not very tall. There were bunks running along both sides of the cabin that looked like leather-cushioned divans in the daytime and could be turned into the most comfortable of beds at night.
There was a galley “for’ard,” too, where the boys cooked their rather sketchy meals, and into this the girls poked eagerly curious heads.
“Oh, it’s all just the completest thing I’ve ever seen!” cried Billie, clapping her hands in delight while Paul looked at her happily. “Those cunning curtains at the window and—everything!”
“My mother did that,” Paul admitted sheepishly, as he followed the girls out on the deck. “And I didn’t like to take them down.”
“Well, I should say you wouldn’t take them down!” said Connie indignantly. “The idea!Don’t you dream of it! Why, they are just what make the cabin!”
“But isn’t this some deck! Did your mother do this too, Paul?” asked Laura, her eyes traveling admiringly from the pretty wicker lounging chairs to the gayly striped awning and brilliant deck rail that shown like gold in the dazzling sun. “Why, Paul, I never knew a motor boat could be so pretty and comfy.”
“Say, but you ought to see her go!” put in Chet eagerly. “She’s as fast a little boat as she is pretty. Oh, she’s great!”
“Yes, it almost makes me wish I had done some studying at school,” said Ferd Stowing, rubbing his head ruefully. “Maybe if I had my dad would have given me an aeroplane or something.”
After they had fastened the boat securely to the dock so that there was no danger of its floating off they turned reluctantly away from the dock and started off toward the Danvers’ cottage.
Then the girls tried to tell the boys all that had happened since they had last met and the boys tried to do the same, the result being hopeless confusion and perfect happiness.
“Say, make believe that beach doesn’t look good!” exclaimed Teddy to Billie, for they had fallen a little behind the rest. “And the good old ocean—say, what a day for a swim!”
“That’s just what we were going to do when wesaw you coming,” Billie confided, thinking how exceedingly handsome he looked in his white trousers and dark coat. Then she told him of the wild scramble they had had to get dressed, and she looked so pretty in the telling of it that he did not hear much of what she was saying to him for looking at her.
“But what made you so sure it was us?” asked Teddy ungrammatically.
Billie chuckled and gave a little skip of pure happiness.
“Laura said she felt it in her bones,” she said.
CHAPTER XXOUT OF THE FOG
That afternoon the boys and girls went in swimming and that evening Connie’s mother treated them all to a substantial dinner such as only she knew how to cook.
And the way it disappeared before those ravenous girls and boys made even Mr. Danvers hold up his hands in consternation. But Connie’s mother laughed happily, pressed them to eat everything up, “for it would only spoil,” and looked more than ever like Connie’s older sister.
That night the boys were put up in a spare room which contained one bed and two cots which Connie’s mother always kept stowed away for emergencies. For the cottage on Lighthouse Island was a popular place with Mrs. Danvers’ relatives and friends, and she often had unexpected company.
They went out on the porch a little while after supper, and the boys were at their funniest and kept the girls in a continual gale of merriment.
The time passed so quickly that before they knewit eleven o’clock chimed out from the hall inside and in consternation Connie’s mother hurried them all off to bed.
“To-morrow is another day,” she added with a little smile.
As they started up the stairs Teddy looked down at Billie and said boyishly:
“Say, Billie, you’ve gotsomesunburn, haven’t you? You’re—you’re mighty pretty.”
Then Teddy blushed and Billie blushed, and Billie hoped with all her heart that Laura had not heard it.
Laura had not, for she was talking and laughing with Paul Martinson and Connie. And so Billie, running ahead and reaching her room first, turned on the light and stepped over to the mirror.
Was that Billie, she wondered, who gazed back at her from the mirror? For this girl was surely prettier than Billie ever had been. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed under their tan, and her hair, a little tumbled by the breeze from the sea, made an unexpectedly pretty frame for a very lovely face.
The next day the girls insisted that the boys take them out in their motor boat. The boys protested a little, for the sun was acting rather queerly—going under a cloud and staying there sometimes for half an hour on a stretch.
“I don’t know,” said Paul, a doubtful eye on thesky. “It isn’t what you could call a real clear day, girls, and I don’t want to take any chances with you.”
“Oh, we’re not afraid, if you’re not,” sang out Laura teasingly, and he turned round upon her with a scowl.
“I’m not afraid for myself, and I think probably you know that. Just the same——”
“Oh, but here’s the sun!” called Vi suddenly, as the sun burst forth from the cloud and showered a golden glory over everything. “It’s going to be a beautiful day—just beautiful.”
So it was settled, and amid great fun and laughter they picked up the lunch that Connie’s mother prepared for them and started happily off, humming as they went.
As they clambered aboardThe Shelling—Paul had named his craft after Captain Shelling, the master of Boxton Military Academy,—the sun went under a cloud again, and this cloud was bigger and blacker than any that had swallowed it before. But Laura’s taunt still rang in Paul’s ears, and he said nothing.
In a little while there was no need for words. The girls began to see for themselves that Paul had been right and that it would have been far better if they had waited till a really clear day.
They had put some distance between them andthe mainland when the sun went under a cloud for good, and a cool little breeze began to rise.
This had been going on for some time before they even realized it, they were having such fun. Then it was Connie who spoke.
“Doesn’t it look a little—a little—threatening, Paul?” she asked timidly. “Do you suppose it is going to rain?”
“No, I don’t think it’s going to rain,” Paul answered, his hands on the wheel, his eyes rather anxiously fixed on the water ahead. “But I do think we’re going to have one of those sudden heavy mists that come off the coast here. Dad said to look out for them, because they’re thick enough to cut, and if you get caught in one you can’t see your hand before your face.”
The girls were sober enough now as they looked at each other.
“But what makes you think we’re going to have one, Paul?” asked Laura humbly.
“Because the air is so still and muggy,” Paul answered, then added with a wave of his hand out over the water: “Look—do you see that?”
“That” was a faint, misty cloudlike vapor hanging so low that it seemed almost to touch the water. And suddenly the girls were conscious that their hair was wet and also their hands and their clothes.
“Goodness, we must be in it now!” said Vi lookingwonderingly down at her damp skirt. “Only it’s so light you can’t see it.”
“I’m afraid it won’t be light very long,” said Paul grimly, as he swungThe Shellingaround and headed back the way they had come.
“What are you going to do?” asked Laura, still more humbly, for she now was beginning to think that she was to blame for the fix they were in—if indeed it were a fix.
“I’m going to get back to land as soon as I can,” Paul answered her. “Before this fog closes down on us.”
“What would happen, Paul?” asked Billie softly. “I mean if it should close down on us.”
“We’d be lost,” said Paul shortly, for by this time he was more than anxious. He was worried.
“Lost!” they repeated, and looked at each other wide-eyed.
“Well, you needn’t look as if that was the end of the world,” said Teddy, trying to speak lightly. “All we would have to do would be to keep on drifting around till the fog lifted. It’s simple.”
“Yes, it’s simple all right,” said Chet gloomily. “If we don’t run into anything.”
“Run into anything!” gasped Connie, while the other girls just stared. “Oh, Paul, is there really any danger of that?”
“Of course,” said Paul impatiently, noticing that the fog was growing thicker and blacker everymoment. “There’s always danger of running into something when you get yourself lost in a fog. And it’s the little boat that gets the worst of it,” he added gloomily.
“Say, can’t you try being cheerful for a change?” cried Teddy indignantly, for he had noticed how white Billie was getting and was trying his best to think of something to say that would make her laugh. “There’s no use of singing a funeral song yet, you know.”
“No, and there’s no use in starting a dance, either,” retorted Paul, wondering how much longer he would be able to keep his course. “We’re in a mighty bad fix, and no harm can be done by everybody knowing it. I can’t possibly get back to the island—or the mainland either—before this fog settles down upon us.”
It took a minute or two for this to sink in. There was no doubt about it. He was telling them that in a few minutes they would be lost in this horrible fog. And that might mean—they shivered and turned dismayed faces to each other.
“I—oh, I’m awfully sorry,” wailed Laura. “If I hadn’t said what I did to Paul we might never have come.”
“Nonsense! that had nothing to do with it,” said Billie, putting a loyal arm about her chum. “We would have come just the same.”
Then followed a waking nightmare for the boysand girls. In a few moments the fog settled down upon them in a thick impenetrable veil, so dense that, as Paul had said, you could almost have cut it.
It became impossible for Paul to steer, and all there was to do was to sit still and wait and hope for the best. Fog horns were sounding all about, some seeming so close that the girls fully expected to see some great shape loom up through the mist, bearing down upon them.
For a long time nobody spoke—they were too busy listening to the weird meanings of the fog horns and wondering how they could have escaped a collision so long. For a while Paul had kept the engine running in the hope that he might be able to keep to his course and eventually get to Lighthouse Island. But he had decided that this only made a collision more likely, and so had shut it off. And now they had been floating for what seemed hours to the miserable boys and girls.
It was Connie who finally broke the silence.
“Oh, dear,” she said, apropos of nothing at all, “now I suppose we’ll have to die and never solve our mystery after all.” She sighed plaintively, and the girls had a wild desire to shout with laughter and cry at the same time.
“Goodness,” said Laura hysterically, “if we’ve got to die who cares about mysteries anyway?”
The boys, who had been peering ahead into theheavy unfriendly fog, looked at the girls in surprise.
“What do you mean—mystery?” Ferd asked.
Before the girls could answer a sharp cry from Paul jerked their eyes back to him.
“Look!” he cried, one hand on the wheel and the other pointing excitedly before them to a dark something which loomed suddenly out of the mist. “There! To starboard. We’ll bump it sure!”
CHAPTER XXITHE BOYS ARE INTERESTED
For a moment the girls were too terrified to speak. And the next moment they could not have spoken if they had wanted to, forThe Shellingcollided so suddenly with whatever it was that had risen out of the mist that they had all they could do to keep from being thrown to the deck.
Then Paul gave a cry of joy and sprang wildly to the side of the boat.
“Say, how’s this for luck, fellows?” he cried. “I thought it was another boat and that we were bound for Davy Jones’ locker sure, and here it’s the dock instead. Say, talk about luck! I’ll say it’s grand!”
“The dock!” the others echoed wonderingly. The sudden relief was so great that they were feeling rather dazed.
“You mean it’s our dock—Lighthouse Island?” Connie asked stupidly, and Paul’s answer was impatient.
“I guess it is—looks like it,” he said. “But then it doesn’t matter much what dock it is as long asit’sadock. What do you people say to going ashore?”
What they said was soon shown by the eagerness with which they scrambled on to the dock. And when they found that it was really Lighthouse Island dock their thankfulness was mixed with awe.
“Why, it’s a miracle!” said Vi, staring wide-eyed about her.
“That’s just about what it looks like,” agreed Chet soberly.
“A miracle!” exclaimed Ferd derisively. “It’s just that the wind and the tide happened to be going in the right way, that’s all.”
“Well, it’s a miracle that the wind and the tide did happen to be going the right way,” retorted Laura.
“Yes, and it’s another miracle,” said Billie softly, “that even with the wind and the tide going the right way we didn’t run into something before we got here.”
“I guess we did come pretty close to it,” said Teddy soberly, staring out into the heavy mist that still showed no sign of lifting. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I do know that I’m mighty glad to be on the good old ground again. It beats the water, just now.”
“You bet,” said Paul fervently, as he made his boat fast to the dock. “It would have been a hotnote if I’d had to lose my boat that way after working all year to earn it.”
The girls and boys stared at him in surprise for a moment. Then they laughed, and the laughter broke the tension that they had been under and made them feel more natural.
“Never mind us as long as you saved your boat,” said Ferd with a chuckle. “Come on, folks. It’s mighty damp out here. I’ll be glad when we can get under cover and dry out a bit. Gee, but I’ll say I’m some wet.”
“And Mother will be just worried to death,” cried Connie penitently, for this was the very first minute she had given her mother a thought. “Oh, let’s hurry.”
They were starting off almost at a run when Billie called to them.
“Do you know we forgot something?” she asked. Then she pointed to the untouched lunch hamper which Mrs. Danvers had heaped high with good things. This was still standing close to the railing on the deck ofThe Shellingwhere the boys had put it when they climbed aboard.
“We forgot all about eating,” she said in an incredulous voice. “Now I know we were scared.”
“Say, what do you know about that?” asked Ferd weakly. “I’d have said it couldn’t be done.”
“And it must be away past lunch time, too,” added Chet.
“Oh, gosh! why did you go and remind me I was starving?” groaned Teddy, and with a quick movement he leaped into the boat and caught up the basket. “Come on, who’s first?” he cried.
But Billie stopped him by pressing a determined hand down on the lid.
“Not here,” she begged. “We’re all wet and uncomfortable, and we’ll enjoy it ever so much more if we wait till we get to the house. Please, Teddy, now mind.”
Teddy looked longingly at the basket, then at Billie, and gave in.
“All right,” he said. “Only we’ll have to walk fast!”
When they reached the cottage they found Connie’s mother almost beside herself with anxiety and Connie’s father doing his best to soothe her. So that when the young folks came in the door looking rather damp and bedraggled but safe, Mrs. Danvers cried out joyfully, ran to them, and hugged them one after another till she was completely and rapturously out of breath.
“You precious kiddies!” she cried, standing back and regarding them with shining eyes. “You will never know how horribly worried Dad and I have been. You poor children, why, you are soaked through! And,” as her eyes fell on the basket, “you don’t mean to tell me you haven’t had any lunch. Oh dear, oh dear! Run into the library, thelot of you. Daddy made a fire thinking if we ever did get you back you’d need some drying out—and you can be starting in on sandwiches while I make you some hot chocolate. Now run along—quick.” And she disappeared into the kitchen while the young folks went on into the library.
Connie would have run after her mother to offer her help, but Mr. Danvers stopped her.
“I’ll help Mother,” he said. “You run along with the others, dear, and get warmed through. I don’t want my little girl to catch cold. It might spoil your whole summer.”
So Connie went on into the library and found that the boys had arranged the chairs in a semicircle around the fire and were already opening the lunch basket.
Mrs. Danvers came in a few minutes later with the chocolate, and, oh, how that hot drink did taste! She demanded to know all about everything. They told her, speaking one at a time, two at a time, and all at once, till it was a wonder she could make any sense out of it at all. But when she and her husband did realize how terribly close the young folks had been to disaster they looked very sober and in their hearts thanked Providence for guiding them back to safety.
After they had eaten, the girls and boys felt very lazy and lingered in the pretty library before the open fire till the shadows began to fall.
“I hope we have half-way decent weather to start out on to-morrow,” said Paul suddenly as he gazed out of the window.
“Oh! must you goto-morrow?” asked Billie, with such genuine regret that Teddy looked at her sideways.
“I’m afraid so,” said Paul, also turning to look at her. “We’ve had a bully good time and we’d like to stay longer, but you see I promised Dad I’d pick him up a little farther along the coast and I can’t do it unless we start to-morrow.”
“But suppose it isn’t a nice day?” Connie put in. “Will you go anyway?”
“Oh, of course, if it was really stormy we couldn’t. We would have to wire Dad or something. But I think it’s going to be clear to-morrow,” he finished cheerfully.
Connie shook her head.
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “Uncle Tom says that a terribly heavy mist like this generally forecasts a storm, and a pretty bad storm, too.”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about that now, anyway,” said Teddy, stretching his long legs out contentedly toward the fire. “Let’s enjoy ourselves while we can. By the way,” he added, turning to Billie, and Billie thought that Teddy was getting better looking every minute—or was it the firelight? “What did you girls mean by speaking of a mystery?We haven’t heard a word about any mystery.”
“Of course you haven’t. You don’t suppose we tell youeverything, do you?” said Laura, with a sisterly sniff.
“Well, but what did you mean?” asked Ferd, adding his voice to Teddy’s while the other boys seemed interested.
The girls looked at one another and then at Billie.
“Shall we tell them?” asked Vi.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t,” Billie answered, her eyes on the fire. “Of course we don’t know that there’s any mystery about it. It only looks queer, that’s all.”
Then with the help of the girls she told the boys all about the man who lived in a hut in the woods and called himself Hugo Billings, and also about Miss Arbuckle and the album she had been so overjoyed to recover. The boys listened with an interest that fast changed to excitement.
“Well, I should say there was something queer about it!” Ferd Stowing broke out at last. “Especially about the man who lives in the woods and makes fern baskets. He’s either crazy or he’s a thief or something.”
“Gee, I wish you had told us about it while we were there!” said Chet regretfully. “We mighthave been able to find out something—landed him in jail maybe.”
“Then I’m glad we didn’t tell you,” said Billie promptly.
“Why?” asked Chet, amazed.
“Because I felt awfully sorry for him,” his sister answered softly. “And I’d rather help him than hurt him. I’d like to see him smile again.”
“Smile?”
“Yes, for he looked so awfully downhearted.”
CHAPTER XXIITHE FURY OF THE STORM
The next day the boys went off again in spite of Mrs. Danvers’ entreaties to stay another night or two until the weather showed definite signs of clearing up.
But the boys were decided—saying that since the mist had lifted they had really no excuse for staying longer, and as Paul was evidently very anxious to get to his father, Mrs. Danvers had nothing else to do but to give in.
“It’s true, the fog has lifted,” she admitted, gazing up anxiously at an overcast sky, “but after a calm like this we are sure to have a storm—how much of one it’s hard to tell. Well, go on. But promise me to stay close to the mainland and to put in to shore if the weather man looks too threatening.”
The boys promised and the girls waved to them untilThe Shellingwas only a tiny speck on the water. Then they turned rather sadly back toward the Danvers’ home.
“I feel as if somebody were dead or something,”complained Vi, as they neared the bungalow. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“It’s the weather, I guess,” said Billie, feeling low in spirits herself—a very unusual state for merry Billie. “We shall all feel better when the sun comes out.”
“If it ever does,” said Laura, gloomily.
“It’s got to,” said Vi.
Half way home they saw Uncle Tom hurrying toward them with Robert Bruce at his heels, and they wondered what the matter was.
“Hello!” he cried when he came within earshot. “I was just going to see your dad, Connie. The boys haven’t gone yet, have they?”
And when Connie said that they had he looked so grave that the girls were frightened.
“Why, Uncle Tom, what’s the matter?” asked Connie fearfully.
“Matter enough,” said Uncle Tom, turning to scowl up at the overcast sky. “It’s as much as those youngsters’ lives are worth for them to set out to-day. Why, there’s a storm on the way,” and he fixed his eyes gravely on the girls, “such as this old Maine coast hasn’t seen for years. Why, every captain who can read the signs is going to make straight for the nearest port, or if he is too far away to make port before the storm breaks, he’s going to get down on his knees and pray the good Lord to make his old ship staunch enough to standthe test. It will be upon us by night.” His eyes sought the wild dreary waste of water and he spoke as though to himself. “Lord, how I dread to-night!”
“But, Uncle Tom, what can we do about the boys?” Connie shook his arm fiercely. “Why, if we have the kind of storm you say they may be drowned! Oh, can’t we do something?”
Uncle Tom’s eyes came back from the horizon and he shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know that there’s much we can do—now,” he said. “If they have any sense they’ll put in to port before the storm breaks. That is if they stick close in to shore.”
“They said they would,” Billie put in eagerly. “Oh, I hope they do!”
Uncle Tom nodded absently, for his mind seemed to be upon other things.
“Then they ought to be all right,” he said, adding, while the lines deepened about his mouth: “But Heaven help the ships that can’t put into shore to-night.”
He turned slowly and strode away from them toward the lighthouse with Bruce still following worshipfully after him. He had forgotten they were there.
“Poor Uncle Tom!” said Connie, as they went slowly on toward the bungalow. “He always getsso queer when there’s a storm along the coast. I guess it makes him think of—her.”
It was night, and the storm had burst in all its fury. The four girls and Connie’s mother had gathered in the little front sitting room on the second floor.
Mr. Danvers had started a few minutes before to press the button that would flood the room with light, but Billie had begged him not to.
“I want to see the light in the tower,” she had pleaded, adding softly: “Somehow I’m not quite so afraid for the ships out there when I see the light. Oh, listen to that wind!”
“I don’t see how we can very well help it,” said Vi, with a little shiver and cuddling up close to Billie on the window seat and slipping a hand into hers. “Oh—h!” and she clapped her hand to her ears as the wind rose to a wailing scream and the windows all over the house shook and rattled with the impact.
“I guess Uncle Tom was right,” said Connie, from somewhere out of the darkness. “Dad says, too, that this is the worst summer storm we have had around these parts for years. Oh, I do hope the boys are safe somewhere on shore.”
“I don’t think we need worry about them,” said Mr. Danvers. Or rather he started to say it, but at that moment the wind rose with insane fury,bringing the rain with it in driving torrents that beat swishingly upon the sand and drove viciously against the windows.
He waited for a moment until the wind died down. Then he began again.
“The storm was a long time in coming,” he said. “The boys had plenty of warning. Paul is very cautious, and I know he wouldn’t go on in the face of such danger. But,” and he turned toward the window again, “heaven help the ship that can’t make port to-night.”
“That’s almost exactly what Uncle Tom said,” remarked Connie, and then there was silence in the little room again while outside the storm raged and the light from the lighthouse tower sent its warning far out over the foam-crested waves.
The girls went to bed at last. Not because they expected to sleep, but because Connie’s mother insisted.
“Poor Uncle Tom!” murmured Billie to herself as, in her little white nightie, she stood at the window looking out toward the lighthouse tower. “All alone out there. What was it he said? 'You think of the men and the women and the little children out there on the sinking ships, and you curse the storm that’s bringing disaster along with it.' Poor, poor Uncle Tom! I wonder if heisthinking of—her.”
And with a sigh she turned from the window and crept into bed beside Connie.
Toward morning the girls were awakened from an uneasy sleep by a strange white light flashed suddenly in their eyes. They stumbled out of bed, dazed by the suddenness with which they had been awakened and stared out into the black night.
“What was it?” gasped Billie. “Oh my, there it is again!”
“The searchlight,” cried Connie, running over to the window, her eyes wide with horror. “Billie, that’s the signal to the life-savers. And there goes the siren,” she groaned, clapping her hands over her ears as the moan of the siren rose wailingly into the night. “It’s a wreck! Billie—oh—oh!”
“A wreck!” cried a voice behind them, and they turned to see Laura in the doorway with Vi peering fearfully over her shoulder. “Oh, girls, I was just dreaming——”
“Never mind what you were dreaming,” cried Billie, beginning to pull on her clothes with trembling hands. “If it is a wreck, girls, we may be able to do something to help. Oh, where is my other stocking? Did any one see it? Never mind, here it is. Oh, hurry, girls; please, hurry.”
Twice more while they were dressing the searchlight flashed round upon the island, filling their rooms with that weird white light, and the siren wailed incessantly its wild plea for help.
The girls were just pulling on their waterproof coats when Connie’s mother, white and trembling, appeared in the doorway and stared with amazement at sight of them.
“I heard you talking, girls,” she said, “and knew you were awake. I hoped you would sleep through it.”
“Sleep throughthat?” asked Connie, as the siren rose to a shriek and then died off into a despairing moan. “Oh, Mother——”
“But what are you going to do, kiddies?” asked Mrs. Danvers, taking a step toward them. “The life-savers will be coming soon—perhaps they are at work now—and they will do all that can be done. Why are you putting on your coats?”
“Oh, please, please don’t make us stay at home,” begged Billie, turning an earnest, troubled face to Connie’s mother. “We may not be able to do anything to help, but we shall at least be there if we should be needed.”
“Muddie, dear, we couldn’t stay here, we just couldn’t,” added Connie, and with a little choked cry Mrs. Danvers turned away.
“You darling, darling kiddies,” she cried. “Run along then if you must. Only,” she stopped at the doorway to look earnestly back at them, “don’t go any farther than the lighthouse until Dad and I come. We’ll be along right away.”
The girls ran down the stairs, and Connie openedthe front door with hands that fumbled nervously at the lock. As the door swung open the wind sprang at them like a living thing, taking their breath, making them stagger back into the hall.
“Th—that wind!” cried Laura, clenching her hands angrily. “I’d like to kill it! Come on, girls.”
Laura rushed out into the storm while the other girls followed, pulling the door shut behind them.