The man did not observe the girls in the rowboat, although they were only a few yards away.
“Good morning,” sang out Madge cheerfully, forgetting the vow of silence which the girls had made that morning against the Cape Mayites. But then, the girls had never dreamed of seeing such a fascinating seafaring old mariner. Their vow had been taken against the society people.
The sailor, however, did not return Madge’s friendly salutation; he went on examining his oyster and mussel shells.
Madge looked crestfallen. The old sailor had such a splendid, strong face. He did not seem to be the kind of man who would fail to return a friendly good morning greeting.
“I don’t think he heard you, Madge. Let’s all halloo together,” proposed Lillian.
“Good morning!” shouted five young voices in a mischievous chorus.
The seaman lifted his big head. His smile came slowly, wrinkling his face into heavycreases. “Good morning, mates,” he called heartily. “Coming ashore?”
“Oh, may we?” cried Madge in return. “We shoulddearlylove to!”
The five girls needed no further invitation. They piled out of the “Water Witch” before their host could come near enough to assist them.
The seaman did not invite them into the house. The girls took their seats on the big rock near the water. Madge was farthest away, but promptly the monkey leaped from its master’s shoulder and planted itself in Madge’s hair, pulling the strands violently while he chattered angrily.
“You horrid little thing!” she cried; “you hurt. I wonder if you hate red hair. Is that the reason you are trying to pull mine out? Please, somebody, take this playful beast away.”
The old sea captain, as the girls guessed him to be, promptly came to Madge’s rescue and removed the angry monkey.
“You must forgive my pet,” he remarked kindly. “My little Madge is jealous. She doesn’t like strangers and we don’t often have young lady visitors.”
“Madge!” exclaimed the little captain, smiling as she tried to re-arrange her hair. “Whata funny name for a monkey. Why, that is my name!”
After a few advances the monkey became very friendly with the other girls, but she would have nothing to do with Madge. She would fly into a perfect tempest of rage whenever Madge approached her or tried to talk to her. The monkey even deserted her master to perch in Tania’s arms. The animal put its little, scrawny arms about the queer child’s neck, and there was almost the same elfish, wistful look in both pairs of dark eyes.
“Do you catch many fish in these waters?” inquired Eleanor, whose housewifely soul was interested in the big basket of lobsters that she saw crawling about, writhing and twisting as though they were in agony.
“Almost every kind that lives in temperate waters,” answered the sailor, “but there is nothing like the variety one finds in the tropics.”
“Were you once a sea captain?” asked Lillian curiously.
The man shook his head. “I’m not a captain in the United States service,” he returned. “I am called captain in these parts, ‘Captain Jules,’ but I have only commanded a freight schooner.”
“I know I have no right to be so curious,” interposedMadge, “but I dearly love everything about the sea. Were you ever a deep sea diver? Somehow you look like one.”
“I was a pearl-fisher for many years,” the seaman answered as calmly as though diving for pearls was one of the most ordinary trades in the world. But his eyes twinkled as he heard Madge’s gasp of admiration and caught the expression on the faces of the other girls.
“You were looking for pearls in those oysters and mussel shells when our boat came along, weren’t you?” divined Madge, regarding him with large eyes.
The man nodded a smiling answer.
“Yes, but I didn’t expect to find any pearls,” he answered. “It is strange how a man’s old occupation will cling to him, even after he has long ago given it up. There are very few pearls to be found now in the Delaware Bay or the waters around here.”
Captain Jules was gravely removing lobsters from his basket for Tania’s entertainment while he talked to Madge. Tania was watching him, breathless with admiration and terror. The captain would take hold of one of the great, crawling things, rub it softly on its horned head as one would rub a tabby cat to make it purr. He would then set the lobster up on its hind claws and the funny crustacean would fallquietly asleep, as though it were nodding in a chair.
“I never saw anything so queer in my life,” chuckled Phil. “You hypnotize the lobsters, don’t you?”
Captain Jules shook his shaggy head. He was proud of the appreciation his accomplishment had excited. “No; I don’t hypnotize them,” he explained. “Anybody can make old Father Lobster fall asleep if he only rubs him in the right place. You are not going, are you?” for the girls had risen to depart.
“I am afraid we must,” said Madge; “we promised to get back to our houseboat by noon. If you come down to Cape May, won’t you please come to see us? Our houseboat is a rival to your boathouse.”
“You are very kind,” answered the old captain, shaking his head, “but I don’t do much visiting. I thank you just the same. Let me fix you up a basket of fish. Afraid of the lobsters, aren’t you, little girl?” he said, smiling at Tania.
The old sailor followed his visitors to help them aboard their rowboat. He walked beside Madge, keeping a careful watch on his monkey, which still chattered and gesticulated, showing her hatred of the little captain.
The girls realized that this man had the mannersof a gentleman, although he looked as rough and uncouth as a common sailor. There was a kind of nobility about him, as of a man who has lived and fought with the big things of the earth.
Madge looked at him beseechingly just before they arrived at their skiff. Now, when Madge desired anything very greatly she was hard to resist. Her blue eyes wore their most bewitching expression. “Please,” she faltered, “I want you to do me a favor. I know I have no right to ask it, but, but——”
“What is it?” inquired Captain Jules, smiling.
“Have you your diving suit?” asked Madge. “If you have, and you would show it to me some day, I would be too happy for words.” Madge blushed at her own temerity.
The captain shook his head. There was little encouragement in his expression. “Maybe, some day,” he replied vaguely; “but I have had the suit put away for some time. Who knows when I will go down into the sea again? Be careful in that small skiff,” he warned the girls. “There are so many launches about on these waters, run by men and women that don’t know the very first principles of running a boat, that a small craft like yours may easily drift into danger. You must look lively.”
The girls waved their good-byes as Madge and Phil pulled away. Madge noticed that the old sailor stared curiously at her, and every now and then he shook his head and frowned. Madge supposed it was because she had been so bold as to ask a favor of a perfect stranger. Yet, if she could only see Captain Jules again and he might be persuaded to show her his diving suit and to tell her something of the strange business of pearl-fishing, she couldn’t be really sorry for her impudence. This accidental meeting with an old sailor inspired Madge afresh with her love of the sea and the mystery of it. She could not get the man out of her mind, nor her own desire to see him soon again and to ask him more questions.
As for Captain Jules, when the girls had fairly gone he lighted his pipe and strode along the line of the shore. “It’s a funny thing, Madge,” he said, addressing the monkey, “but when a man gets an idea in his head, everything and everybody he sees seems to start the same old idea a-going. I wish I had asked her to tell me her surname. I wonder if she is the real Madge?”
CHAPTER VIIITHE WRECK OF THE “WATER WITCH”
The girls began their row to the “Merry Maid” with all speed. They had had such an interesting morning that they did not realize how the time had flown. They did not know the exact hour now, but they feared it would be after twelve before they could rejoin Miss Jenny Ann. The sun was so nearly overhead and shining so brilliantly that the effect was almost dazzling. Madge and Phil did not try to see any distance ahead in their course. Lillian, however, was on the lookout. There were several inlets opening into the larger water-way down which the girls were rowing. Boats were likely to come unexpectedly out of these inlets, and the girls should have been far more watchful than they were.
“It’s too bad about Mrs. Curtis and Tom not coming on to Cape May as soon as we expected them, isn’t it?” remarked Phil, resting for half a moment from the strain of the steady pulling at her oars. “I hope they will arrive soon, before we have the responsibility of entertaining Mrs. Curtis’s friend, Philip Holt. It won’t be much fun to have a strange man following usabout everywhere, even if he should turn out to be nicer than we think he is.” Phil was the stroke oar. She was talking over her shoulder to Madge, who was paying more attention to her friend’s conversation than to her rowing.
“Oh, I think Mrs. Curtis and Tom will be along soon,” she rejoined. “I felt dreadfully when we received the telegram this morning. But now I hope Mrs. Curtis’s brother will get well in a hurry. Perhaps they will be here almost as soon as this Philip. I’ll wager you a pound of chocolates, Phil, that this goody-goody young man can’t swim or row, or do anything like an ordinary person. He will just think every single thing we do is perfectly dreadful, and will frighten Tania to death with his preaching. I know he thinks her fairy stories are lies. He told Mrs. Curtis that Tania never spoke the truth.” Madge lowered her voice. “I am sure we have never caught her in a lie. I suppose this Philip will think my exaggerations are as bad as Tania’s fairy stories. I hate too literal people.”
“Dear me, whom are you and Phil discussing, Madge?” inquired Lillian, leaning over from her seat in the stern with Tania, to try to catch her friends’ low-voiced conversation. “If it is that Philip Holt, you need not think that he will trouble us very much when he comes to CapeMay. He is just the kind of person who will trot after all the rich people he meets, and waste very little energy on those who have neither money nor social position.”
Lillian was looking at Madge and Phil as she talked. For the moment she forgot to keep a sharp watch about on the water. But a moment since there had been no other boats in sight near them. Eleanor was resting in the prow with her eyes closed. The sun blazed hotly in her face, she could only see a bright light dancing before her eyes.
As Lillian leaned back in her seat in the stern her face took on an expression of sudden alarm. At the same moment the four girls heard the distinct chug of a motor engine. Cutting down upon them was a pleasure yacht run by a gasoline motor. The prow of the yacht was head-on with the “Water Witch” and running at full speed. The boat had blown no whistle, so the girls had not seen its approach.
“Look ahead!” shouted Lillian.
The young man who was steering the yacht paid no heed to her warning. He kept straight ahead, although he distinctly saw the rowboat and its passengers.
Madge and Phyllis had no time to call out or to protest. They realized, almost instantly, that the motor launch meant to make no effort toslow down but to put the full responsibility of getting out of danger on the rowers.
The girls had no particular desire to be thrown into the water, nor to have their boat cut in two, so they pulled for dear life, with white faces and straining throats and arms.
They just missed making their escape by a hair’s breadth. The young man running the yacht must have believed that the skiff would get safely by or else when he found out his mistake it was too late for him to slow down. The prow of his yacht ran with full force into the frail side of the “Water Witch” near her stern.
The little skiff whirled in the water almost in a semi-circle. By a miracle it escaped being completely run down by the launch. Yet a second later, before any one of the girls could stir, the water rushed into the hole in its side and it sank. Madge and Phyllis had had their oars wrenched from their hands. Then they found themselves struggling in the water.
A cry rose from the launch as the “Water Witch” and her passengers disappeared. But there was no sound from the little rowboat, save the gurgle of the water and a shrill scream from Tania as the waves closed over her head.
The yacht swept on past, borne perhaps by her own headway.
As Madge went down under the water twothoughts seemed to come to her mind in the same second: she must look after Eleanor and Tania. Her cousin, Nellie, was not able to swim as well as the other girls. She had always been more nervous and timid in the water and was liable to sudden cramp. Madge knew that being hurled from a boat in such sudden fashion with her clothes on instead of a bathing suit would completely terrify Eleanor. She might lose her presence of mind completely and fail to strike out when she rose to the surface of the water. As for Tania, Madge was aware that she, of course, could not swim a stroke. The little one had never been in deep water before in her life.
Madge struggled for breath for a second as she came to the surface of the bay again. She had swallowed some salt water as she went down. In the next desperate instant she counted three heads above the waves besides her own. Phyllis was swimming quietly toward Eleanor. Evidently she had entertained Madge’s fear. “Make for the ‘Water Witch,’ Nellie,” Madge heard Phil say in her calm, cool-headed fashion. “It has overturned and come up again and we can hang on to that. Don’t be frightened. I am coming after you. Try to float if your clothes are too heavy to swim. I’ll pull you to the boat.”
Lillian’s golden head reflected the lightfrom the sun’s rays as she swam along after Phil. But nowhere could Madge see a sign of a little, wild, black head with its straight, short locks and frightened black eyes.
She waited for another breathless moment. Why did Tania not rise to the surface like the rest of them? Madge was trying to tread water and to keep a sharp lookout about her, but her clothes were heavy and kept pulling her down; swimming in heavy shoes is an extremely difficult business, even for an experienced swimmer. All of a sudden it occurred to Madge that Tania might have risen under the overturned rowboat. Then her head would have struck against its bottom and she would have gone down again without ever having been seen.
There was nothing else to be done. Madge must dive down to see what had become of her little friend, yet diving was difficult when she had no place from which to dive. Madge knew she must get all the way down to the very bottom of the bay to see if by any chance Tania’s body could have been entangled among the sea weed, or her clothes caught on a rock or snag.
Once down, she looked in vain for the little body along the sandy bottom of the bay. She espied some rocks covered with shimmering shells and sea ferns, but there was no trace of Tania. For the second time she rose to the surfaceof the water. She hoped to see Tania’s black head glistening among those of her older friends clustered about the overturned boat. She had grown very tired and was obliged to shake the water out of her eyes before she dared trust herself to look.
Then she saw that Phil had hold of one of Eleanor’s hands and with the other was clinging to the slippery side of their overturned boat. Eleanor was numb with cold and shock. Although her free hand rested on the boat, Phil dared not let go of her for fear she would sink.
Phyllis was beginning to feel uneasy about Madge. She had given no thought to her during the early part of the accident, she knew Madge to be a water witch herself, but when the little captain did not come to the skiff with the rest of them Phil’s heart grew heavy. What could she do? Dare she let go her hold on Eleanor? Strangely enough, in their peril, Phyllis had given no thought to the little stranger, Tania.
Phyllis Alden breathed a happy sigh of relief when she saw Madge’s curly, red-brown head moving along toward them.
“Have you seen Tania?” she called faintly, trying to reserve both her breath and her strength.
Then Phil remembered Tania with a rush ofremorse and terror. “No, I haven’t, Madge. What could have become of the child?” she faltered.
Lillian looked out over the water. Surely the launch that had wrecked them would have been able by this time to come back to their assistance. The boat had stopped, but it had not moved near to them. So far, its crew showed no sign of giving them any aid. Lillian could not believe her eyes.
“I’d better dive for Tania again,” said Madge quietly, without intimating to her chums that she was feeling a little tired and less sure of herself in the water than usual. She knew they would not allow her to dive.
When she went down for Tania the second time she chose a different place to make her descent. She must find the little girl at once.
She was swimming along, not many inches from the bottom of the bay, when she caught sight of what seemed to her a large fish floating near some rocks. Madge swam toward it slowly. It was Tania’s foot, swaying with the motion of the water. Caught on a spar, which might have once been part of a mast of an old ship, was Tania’s dress. On the other side of her was a rock, and her body had become wedged between the two objects. It was a beautiful place and might have been a cave for a mermaid,but it held the little earth-princess in a death-like grasp.
It is possible to be sick with fear and yet to be brave. Madge knew her danger. She saw that Tania’s dress was caught fast. She would have to tug at it valiantly to get it away. First, she pulled desperately at Tania’s shoe, hoping she could free her body. A suffocating weight had begun to press down on her chest. She could hear a roaring and buzzing in her ears. She knew enough of the water to realize that she had been too long underneath; she should rise to the surface again to get her breath. But she dared not wait so long to release Tania. Nor did she know that she could find the child again when she returned. She must do her work now.
So Madge pulled more slowly and carefully at Tania’s frock, unwinding it from the spar that held it. With a few gentle tugs she released it and Tania’s slender body rose slowly. The child’s eyes were closed, her face was as still and white as though she were dead. Madge was glad of Tania’s unconsciousness. She knew that in this lay the one chance of safety for herself and the child. If Tania came to consciousness and began to struggle the little captain knew that her strength was too far gone for her to save either the child or herself. She would notleave her. She would have to drown with her.
She caught the little girl by her black hair, and swam out feebly with her one free arm. At this moment Tania’s black eyes opened wide. She realized their awful peril. She was only a child, and the fear of the drowning swept over her. She gave a despairing clutch upward, threw both her thin arms about Madge’s neck and held her in a grasp of steel. For a second Madge tried to fight Tania’s hands away. Then her strength gave out utterly. She realized that the end had come for them both.
CHAPTER IXTHE OWNER OF THE DISAGREEABLE VOICE
It may be that Madge had another second of consciousness. Afterward she thought she could recall being caught up by a giant, who unloosed Tania’s hands from about her throat. Quietly the three of them began to float upward with such steadiness, such quietness, that she had that blessed sense of security and release from responsibility that a child must feel who has fallen asleep in its father’s arms.
The first thing that she actually knew was, when she opened her eyes, to look into a pair of deep blue, kindly ones that were smiling bravely and encouragingly into hers. Near her were her three friends, looking very wet and miserable, and one little, dark-eyed elf who was sobbing bitterly. Farther away were two strange girls and one red-faced young man. Then Madge understood that she had been brought aboard the yacht that had run down their rowboat.
The little captain sat up indignantly. “I am quite all right,” she said haughtily, looking with an unfriendly countenance at their wreckers. Then, feeling strangely dizzy, she sank back and with a little sigh closed her eyes.
“Don’t do that,” protested Eleanor tragically. “You must not faint. Captain Jules, please don’t let her.”
The old captain’s strong hands took hold of Madge’s cold ones. “Pull yourself together, my hearty,” he whispered. “A girl who can dive down into the bottom of the bay as you can shows she has good sea-blood in her. She can see the old captain’s diving suit any day she likes—own it if she has a mind to. Fishing for pearls isn’t half so good a trade as fishing for a human life. You’ll be yourself in a minute. Lucky I happened to walk down the beach in the same direction your boat went.”
One of the two strange girls came to Madge’s side at this moment with a cup of strong tea. “Dodrink this,” she pleaded. “It has taken some time to make the water boil. I wish to give some to the other girls, too. I am so sorry that we ran into you. You must know that it was an accident.”
Madge drank the tea obediently, gazing a little less scornfully at the girl who was serving her, her face pale with fright and sympathy. The other girl stood apart at a little distance with a young man. They were both staring at the wet and shivering girls with poorly concealed amusement.
“We are awfully sorry to give you so muchtrouble,” said Madge to the girl with the tea. She was trying to control her feelings when she caught sight of the owner of the small yacht and his friend and her temper got the better of her.
“I am sorry,” she repeated, “that we are givingyoutrouble. But, really, your motor launch had no right to bear down on our boat without blowing its whistle or giving the faintest sign of its approach. It put the whole responsibility of getting out of the way on us.”
Madge was sitting beside the old captain. Her direct mode of attack showed that she was feeling more like herself.
“What the young lady says is true,” declared Captain Jules with emphasis. “I doubt if you have the faintest legal right to navigate a boat in these waters. If I hadn’t happened to walk along down the shore of the bay after these young ladies left me two of them would have been drowned. I’ll have to see to it that you keep off this bay if you do any more such mischief as you did this morning.”
The young man in a handsome yachting suit worthy of an admiral in the United States Navy frowned angrily at Madge and her champion.
“I say it wasn’t my fault that I ran into your little paper boat,” he protested angrily. “I gave you plenty of time to get out of my way, but you girls pulled so slowly that we did slide into you.Still, if you will admit that it was your fault and not mine, I will have your old skiff mended, if she isn’t too much used up and you can get somebody to tow her back to land for you. I can’t; I have enough to carry as it is.”
The girl standing beside the young man giggled hysterically. Madge decided that she had heard her high, shrill notes before. Phyllis, Lillian and Eleanor were furiously angry at the young man’s retort to Madge and Captain Jules, but they bit their lips and said nothing. They were on his yacht, although they were enforced passengers; it was better not to express their feelings.
But Madge was in a white heat of passion over the young man’s boorish retort.
“It was not our fault in the least that we were run down,” she said in a low, evenly pitched voice. “We are not willing to take the least bit of the blame. You not only ran into our little boat and sunk her, but you did not take the least trouble to come to our aid when you had not the faintest knowledge whether any one of us could swim.Menin the part of the world where I come from don’t do things of that kind. Put your boat back and tow our rowboat to land,” ordered Madge imperiously. “We certainly will not allow you to have it mended. Neither my friends nor I wish to accept anykind of recompense from a man who is acoward!”
The word was out. Madge had not meant to use it, but somehow it slipped off her tongue.
“Steady,” she heard the old sailor whisper in her ear. He was gazing at her intently, and something in his face calmed the hot tide of her anger. “I am sorry I said you were a coward,” she added, with one of her quick repentances. “I don’t think you were very brave, but perhaps something may have happened that prevented your coming to our aid.”
“Mr. Dennis does not swim very well,” the nicer of the two girls explained, sitting down beside Madge. She was blushing and biting her lips. “Mr. Dennis meant to put back as soon as he could. I am Ethel Swann. I received a letter from Mrs. Curtis this morning, who is one of my mother’s old friends. She wrote that she and her son would be down a little later to open their cottage, but she hoped that we would meet you girls before she came. I am so sorry that we have met first in such an unfortunate fashion.”
“Oh, never mind,” interrupted Madge impatiently. “If you are Ethel Swann, Mrs. Curtis has talked to us about you. We are very glad to know you, I am sure.”
“These are my friends, Roy Dennis and MabelFarrar,” Ethel went on, her face flushing. The four girls bowed coldly. Mabel Farrar acknowledged the introduction by a stiff nod. The young man took off his cap for the first time when Madge introduced Captain Jules.
“Run your boat along the side of the overturned skiff and I’ll tie her on for you,” ordered Captain Jules quietly. “I think I had better go along back to land with you.”
Roy Dennis, who was a little more frightened at his deed than he cared to own, was glad to obey the captain’s order.
Just as the girls were landing from the launch Mabel Farrar’s foot slipped and she gave a shrill scream. Instantly the girls recognized the voice which they had heard the night before condemning them to social oblivion.
Although Captain Jules had only a short time before positively refused the invitation of the girls to come aboard the “Merry Maid” to pay them a visit, it was he who handed each girl from the deck of Roy Dennis’s boat into the arms of their frightened chaperon. Finally he crossed over to the deck of the houseboat himself, bearing little Tania in his arms and looking in his wet tarpaulins like old King Neptune rising from the brine.
Captain Jules was made to stay to luncheon on board the houseboat. There was no gettingaway from the determined young women. In his heart of hearts the old sailor had no desire to go. Something inspired him with the desire to know more of these charming girls.
When the girls had put on dry clothing they led Captain Jules all over the houseboat, showing him each detail of it. He insisted that the “Merry Maid” was as trim a little craft as he had ever seen afloat.
After luncheon, at which the captain devoured six of Miss Jenny Ann’s best cornbread gems, he sat down in a chair on the houseboat deck, holding Tania in his arms. He talked most to Phyllis, but he seldom took his eyes off Madge’s face. Sometimes he frowned at her; now and then he smiled. Once or twice Madge found herself blushing and wondering why her rescuer looked at her so hard, but she was too interested to care very much.
She sat down in her favorite position on a pile of cushions on the deck, with her head resting against Miss Jenny Ann’s knee and her eyes on the water. “Do tell us, Captain Jules,” she pleaded, “something about your life as a pearl-fisher. You must have had wonderful experiences. We would dearly love to hear about them, wouldn’t we, girls?”
The girls chorused an enthusiastic “Yes,” which included Miss Jenny Ann.
Captain Jules laughed. “Haven’t you ever heard that it is dangerous to get an old sea dog started on his adventures? You never can tell when he will leave off,” he teased, stroking Tania’s black hair. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if Tania would like to hear how once I was nearly swallowed whole, diving suit and all, by a giant shark. I was hunting for pearls in those days off the Philippine Islands. I had been tearing some shells from the side of a great rock when, of a sudden, I felt a strange presence before I saw anything. I might have known it was time to expect trouble, because the little fish that are usually floating about in the water had all disappeared. A creepy feeling came over me. I was cold as ice inside my diving suit. Then I turned and looked up. Just a few feet in front of me was a giant shark that seemed about twenty-five feet long. He was an evil monster. The upper part of his body was a dirty, dark green and his fins were black. You never saw a diving suit, did you? So you don’t know that all the body is covered up but the hands. I tucked my hands under my breastplate in a hurry. It didn’t seem to me that a pearl diver would be much good without any hands. Well, the great fish made a sweep with its tail, and in a jiffy he and I were face to face. I stood still for about a second. I held my breath, myheart pounding like a hammer. Nearer and nearer the monster came swimming toward me, with its shovel nose pointing directly at the glass that covered my face. I couldn’t stand it. I threw up my hands. I yelled way down at the bottom of the sea with no one to hear me. There was a swirl of water, a cloud of mud, and my enemy vanished. He didn’t like the noise any better than I liked him.”
The girls breathed sighs of relief. The captain chuckled. “Oh, a diver is not in real danger from a shark,” he went on, “his suit protects him. But there are plenty of other dangers. Maybe I’ll tell you some of them at another time. Why, I declare, it is nearly sunset. You don’t know it, children, but the bottom of the tropic sea has colors in it as beautiful as the lights in that sky. The sea-bottom, where the diver is apt to find pearl shells, is covered with all sorts of sea growths—sponges twelve feet high, coral cups like inverted mushrooms, sea-fans twenty feet broad.”
As the old diver talked, the girls could see the magic coral wreaths, glowing rose color and crimson, the tall ferns and sea flowers that waved with the movement of the water as the earth flowers move to the stirring of the wind. And there in the land of the mermaids, hidden between wonderful shells of mother-of-pearl, liethe jewels that are the purest and most beautiful in the world.
Madge’s chin was in her hands. She did not hear the old captain get up and say good-bye. She was wishing, with all her heart, that she, too, might go down to the bottom of the sea to view its treasures.
“Madge,” Phil interrupted her reverie, “Captain Jules is going.”
Madge put her soft, warm hands into the big man’s hard, powerful ones. “Good-bye,” she said gratefully. “There is something I wish to tell you, but I won’t until another time.”
Miss Jenny Ann stared thoughtfully after the giant figure as Captain Jules left the houseboat and strode up the shore in search of a small skiff to take him home.
“You girls have made an unusual friend,” she said slowly to Madge. “In many ways Captain Jules is rough. He may be uneducated in the wisdom of schools and books, but he is a great man with a great heart.”
Before Madge went to bed that night she wrote Tom Curtis. She told him how sorry they all were that he could not come at once to Cape May. She also described the day’s adventures. She made as light of their accident as possible, but she ended her letter by asking Tom if he would not send her a book about pearl fishing.
CHAPTER XTHE GOODY-GOODY YOUNG MAN
“Philip Holt has come, Madge,” announced Phyllis Alden a few days later. “He is staying at one of the hotels until Mrs. Curtis and Tom arrive to open their cottage. He has already been calling on a number of Mrs. Curtis’s friends here. Now he has condescended to come to see us. Miss Jenny Ann says we must invite him to luncheon; so close that book, if you please, and come help us to entertain him. I am sure you will besopleased to see him.”
Madge frowned, but closed her book obediently. “What a bore, Phil! I was just reading this fascinating book on pearl-fishing. A few valuable pearls have been found in these waters. There was one which was sold to a princess for twenty-five hundred dollars. Who knows but the ‘Merry Maid’ may even now be reposing on a bank of pearls! Dear me, here is that tiresome Mr. Holt! Of course, we must be nice with him on Mrs. Curtis’s account. I hope she and Tom will soon come along. Let us take Mr. Holt with us to the golf club this afternoon. Wepromised Ethel Swann to come and she won’t mind our bringing him.”
The girls were not altogether surprised that the young people whom they had lately met at Cape May were divided into two sets. The one had taken the girls under their protection and seemed to like them immensely. The other, headed by Mabel Farrar and Roy Dennis, treated them with cool contempt. But the girls felt able to take care of themselves. Not one of them even inquired what story Mr. Dennis and Miss Farrar had told about their memorable meeting on the water.
The Cape May golf course stretches over miles of beautiful downs and the clubhouse is the gathering place for society at this summer resort.
Ethel Swann bore off Lillian and Eleanor to introduce them to some of her friends, and the three girls followed the course of two of the players over the links.
Philip Holt was plainly impressed by the smartly-dressed women and girls whom he saw about him. He was a tall, thin young man with sandy hair and he wore spectacles. He insisted that Madge and Phyllis should not forget to introduce him as the friend of Mrs. Curtis, who expected him to be her guest later on. Indeed, Philip Holt talked so constantly and so intimatelyof Mrs. Curtis that Madge had to stifle a little pang of jealousy. She had supposed, when she was in New York City, that Mrs. Curtis, who was very generous, only took a friendly interest in Philip Holt and his work among the New York poor, but to-day Philip Holt gave her to understand that Mrs. Curtis was as kind to him as though he were a member of her family. And Madge wondered wickedly to herself whether Tom Curtis would be pleased to have him for a brother. She determined to interview Tom on the subject as soon as he should return from Chicago.
Later in the afternoon Madge and Phyllis were surprised to see Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar come down the golf clubhouse steps and walk across the lawn toward them, smiling with apparent friendliness. Madge’s resentful expression softened. She did not bear malice, and she felt that she had said more to Roy Dennis about his treatment of them than she should have done. She, therefore, bowed pleasantly. Phil followed suit. To their amazement they were greeted with a frozen stare by the newcomers, who walked to where the two girls were standing without paying the least attention to the latter. Madge’s color rose to the very roots of her hair. Phil’s black eyes flashed, but she kept them steadily fixed on the girl and man.
“How do you do, Mr. Holt?” asked Mabel in bland tones, addressing the girls’ companion. “I believe I am right in calling you Mr. Holt. I have heard that you were a friend of Mrs. Curtis and her son. This is my friend, Roy Dennis. We are so pleased to meet any of dear Mrs. Curtis’srealfriends. We should like to have you take tea with us.”
Philip Holt looked perplexed. He opened his mouth to introduce Madge and Phyllis to Miss Farrar, but the girls’ expressions told the story.
Miss Farrar and Mr. Dennis had purposely excluded the two girls from the conversation.
For the fraction of a second Philip Holt wavered. Mabel Farrar was smartly dressed. Roy Dennis looked the rich, idle society man that he was. Moneyed friends were always the most useful in Mr. Holt’s opinion, he therefore turned to Miss Farrar with, “I shall be only too pleased to accompany you.”
“You’ll excuse me,” he turned condescendingly to Madge and Phil, “but Mrs. Curtis’s friends wish me to have tea with them.”
Madge smiled at the young man with such frank amusement that he was embarrassed. “Oh, yes, we will excuse you,” she said lightly. “Please don’t give another thought to us. Miss Alden and I wish you to consult your own pleasure. I am sure that you will find it in drinkingtea!” She turned away, the picture of calm indifference, although she had a wicked twinkle in her eye.
“Well, if that wasn’t the rudest behavior all around that I ever saw in my life!” burst out Phil indignantly after the disagreeable trio had departed. “Mrs. Curtis or no Mrs. Curtis, I don’t think we should be expected to speak to that ill-bred Mr. Holt again. The idea of his marching off with that girl and man after the way they treated us! I shall tell Mrs. Curtis just how he behaved as soon as I see her, then she won’t think him so delightful.”
Madge put her arm inside Phil’s. “You had better not mention it to Mrs. Curtis, Phil. Mrs. Curtis is the dearest person in the world, but she is so lovely and so rich that she is used always to having her own way. She thinks that we girls are prejudiced against this Mr. Holt because he said the things he did about Tania. By the way, I wonder what the little witch has against him? I mean to ask her some day. But let’s not trouble about Philip Holt any more. He is just a toady. I don’t care what he says or does. We have done our duty by him for this afternoon at least. He won’t join us again. Let’s go over to that lovely hill and have a good, old-fashioned talk.”
Phil’s face cleared. After all, she and Madgecould get along much, better without troublesome outsiders.
“Isn’t it a wonderful afternoon, Phil?” asked the little captain after they had climbed the little hill and were seated on a grassy knoll. “We can see the ocean over there! Wouldn’t you like to be swimming down there under the water, where it is so cool and lovely and there would be nothing to trouble one?”
“What a water-baby you are,” smiled Phil, giving her chum’s arm a soft pressure. “I sometimes think that you must have come out of a sea-shell. I suppose you are thinking of the old pearl diver again.”
“Phil,” demanded Madge abruptly, “have you ever thought of what profession you would have liked to follow if you had been born a boy instead of a girl?”
“I do not have to think to answer that,” replied Phyllis, “I know. If I were a boy, I should study to become a physician, like my father; but even though I am a girl, I am going to study medicine just the same. As soon as we get through college I shall begin my course.”
“Phil,” Madge’s voice sounded unusually serious, “don’t set your heart too much, dear, on my going to college with you in the fall. I don’t know it positively, but I think that Uncle is having some business trouble. He and Aunt havebeen worried for the past year about some stocks they own. I shan’t feel that I have any right to let them send me to college unless I can make up my mind that I shall be willing to teach to earn my living afterward. And I can’t teach, Phil, dear. I should never make a successful teacher,” ended Madge with a sigh.
“I can’t imagine you as a teacher,” smiled Phil, “but I am sure that you will marry before you are many years older.”
“Marry!” protested Madge indignantly. “Why do you think I shall marry? Why, I was wishing this very minute that I were a man so that I could set out on a voyage of discovery and sail around the world in a little ship of my own. Or, think, one might be a pearl-diver, or lead some exciting life like that. Now, Phil Alden, don’t you go and arrange for me just to marry and keep house and never have a bit of fun or any excitement in my whole life!”
Phyllis laughed teasingly. “Oh, you will have plenty of excitement, Madge dear, wherever you are or whatever you do. Don’t you remember how Miss Betsey used to say that she knew something was going to happen whenever you were about? I suppose you would like to be a captain in the Navy like your father, so that you could spend all your time on the sea.”
“No,” returned Madge, “I should want aship of my own. I wouldn’t like to be a captain in the Navy. There, you always have to do just what you are told to do, and you know, Phil, that obedience is not my strong point.” The little captain laughed and shook her russet head. “You see, Phil, I think that if I could go around the world, perhaps in some far-away land I would find my father waiting for me.”
For several minutes the two chums were silent. At last Phil leaned forward and gave Madge’s arm a gentle pinch. “Wake up, dear,” she laughed, “perhaps some day you will own that little ship and go around the world in it. Just now, however, we had better go on to the houseboat. I believe Nellie and Lillian are going to wait at the golf club until the last mail comes in, so they can bring our letters along home with them. We must say good-bye to that nice Ethel Swann. She is a dear, in spite of her ill-bred friends.”
Phyllis and Madge found Miss Jenny Ann sitting in a steamer chair on the houseboat deck exchanging fairy stories with Tania. The little girl knew almost as many as did her chaperon, but Tania’s stories were so full of her own odd fancies that it was hard to tell from what source they had come.
“Do you know the story of ‘The Little Tin Soldier,’ Tania?” Miss Jenny Ann had justasked. “He was the bravest little soldier in the world, because he bore all kinds of misfortunes and never complained.”
With a whirl Tania was out of Miss Jenny Ann’s lap and into Madge’s arms. The child was devoted to each member of the houseboat party, but she was Madge’s ardent adorer. She liked to play that she was the little captain’s Fairy Godmother, and that she could grant any wish that Madge might make.
Phil, Madge and Tania sat down at Miss Jenny Ann’s feet to hear more about “The Brave Little Tin Soldier.” Tania huddled close to Madge, her black head resting against the older girl’s curls, as she listened to the harrowing adventures that befell the Tin Soldier.
The sun was sinking. Away over the water the world seemed rose colored, but the shadows were deepening on the land. Phil espied Lillian and Eleanor coming toward the houseboat. Lillian waved a handful of white envelopes, but Eleanor walked more slowly and did not glance up toward her friends.
Miss Jenny Ann rose hurriedly. “I must go in to see to our dinner,” she announced. “Phil, after you have spoken to the girls, will you come in to help me? Madge may stay to look after Tania.”
The little captain was absorbed in a quiet twilightdream, and as Tania was in her lap she did not get up when Phil went forward to meet Lillian and Eleanor.
Instantly Phil realized that something was the matter with Nellie. Eleanor’s face was white and drawn and there were tears in her gentle, brown eyes. Lillian also looked worried and sympathetic, but was evidently trying to appear cheerful.
“What is the matter, Eleanor? Has any one hurt your feelings?” asked Phil immediately. Eleanor was the youngest of the girls and always the one to be protected. Phyllis guessed that perhaps some one of the unpleasant acquaintances of Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar might have been unkind to her.
But Eleanor shook her head dumbly.
“Nellie has had some bad news from home,” answered Lillian, tenderly putting her arm about Eleanor. “Perhaps it isn’t so bad as she thinks.”
Madge overheard Lillian’s speech and, lifting Tania from her lap, sprang to her feet.
“Nellie, darling, what is it? Tell me at once!” she demanded. “If Uncle and Aunt are ill, we must go to them at once.”
“It isn’t so bad as that, Madge,” answered Eleanor, finding her voice; “only Mother has written to tell us that Father has lost a greatdeal of money. He has had to mortgage dear old ‘Forest House,’ and if he doesn’t get a lot more money by fall, ‘Forest House’ will have to be sold.”
Nellie broke down. The thought of having to give up her dear old Virginia home, that had been in their family for five generations, was more than she could bear.
Madge kissed Eleanor gently. In the face of great difficulties Madge was not the harum-scarum person she seemed. “Don’t worry too much, Nellie,” she urged. “If Uncle and Aunt are well, then the loss of the money isn’t so dreadful. Somehow, I don’t believe we shall have to give up ‘Forest House.’ It would be too frightful! Perhaps Uncle will find the money in time to save it, or we shall get it in some way. I am nearly grown now. I ought to be able to help. Anyhow, I don’t mean to be an expense to Uncle and Aunt any more after this summer.” Madge’s face clouded, although she tried to conceal her dismay. “Do Uncle and Aunt want us to leave the houseboat and come home at once?”
Phil’s and Lillian’s faces were as long and as gloomy as their other chums’ at this suggestion.
But Eleanor shook her head firmly. “No; Father says positively that he does not wish us to leave the houseboat until our holiday is over.It is not costing us very much and he wishes us to have a good time this summer, so that we can bear whatever happens next winter.”
No one had noticed little Tania while the houseboat girls were talking. Her eyes were bigger and blacker than ever, and as Madge turned to go into the cabin she saw that there were tears in them.
“What is it, Tania?” putting her arms about the quaint child.
“Did you say that you didn’t have all the money you wanted?” inquired Tania anxiously. “I didn’t know that people like you ever needed money. I thought that all poor people lived in slums and took in washing like old Sal.”
Madge laughed. “I don’t suppose the people in the tenements are as poor as we are sometimes, Tania, because they don’t need so many things. But don’t worry your head about me, little Fairy Godmother. I am sure that you will bring me good luck.”