“Help! Help!” crowed Neale. “Ath-thith-tance, pleathe!”

“Now, don’t be common, Neale O’Neil!” hissed Agnes angrily, prettier than usual when her cheeks flamed so.

She smiled very winningly and looked straight into Nalbro Hastings’ eyes as the latter came down the deck again. The daughter of the Back Bay millionaire was not unattractive herself. And she was dressed in the very best of taste. But she was not a person to gain unbounded admiration.

She looked coolly at Agnes in return. She must have noticed the change in the Kenway girl’s expression since she had passed her and Neale before. As Agnes smiled and bowed Nalbro Hastings returned the greeting with the very faintest of nods and walked on immediately as though having no desire to improve shipboard acquaintance.

Neale began to shiver and his teeth chattered. Agnes stared at him sternly.

“I believe if you would behave, Neale O’Neil, I’d get on better in the world,” she sighed. “I believe you were laughing when Miss Hastings went by. Well, now, listen! I am going to get acquainted with her. Maybe she will go to the St. Sergius Arms where Mr. Howbridge has got reservations for us. It is the most fashionable hotel on the island.”

“Do I have to put on full dress for dinner at night?” demanded Neale, not at all pleased.

“You do,” said Agnes wickedly. “And I shall insist upon your going to the manicure every other day.”

“Ow! Ow!” groaned Neale. “Lucky I don’t have to frequent the barber shop as Luke does. I suppose you would then insist upon facial massage, my lady?”

“Be still!” commanded the girl half in laughter and half serious. “I mean to become very snug with Nalbro Hastings, now you see.”

“I can see you’ve got a crush on her,” grumbled Neale, “just because you think she’s of the smart set. I wish you wouldn’t get these fits, Agnes. You are such a jolly good sport otherwise.”

At that Agnes Kenway took real offense and would not speak to him again for half an hour.

CHAPTER IX—THE GIRL FROM THE BACK BAY

Some of this knowledge “spilled over,” as Neale said, at the cabin concert, without which no pleasant steamship voyage would be complete. Agnes saw that “Nalbro Hastings” was written at the head of the list of patronesses of this concert, and she sighed bitterly because her name or Ruth’s was not there at all. The charity for which the concert was held was worthy, and Ruth said that was enough. But it was not enough for her social-striving sister.

However, to plan for a concert and for its object was one thing; to find talent to offer a fairly interesting program, was another.

“And that stuck-up Nalbro Hastings will never get anybody to work for her in this show,” declared one girl to the equally outspoken Agnes.

“Is she really stuck-up?” queried Agnes.

“When I asked her a question just now she only mumbled and turned away,” declared the critical girl. “She’ll spoil the whole thing.”

“We won’t let her,” Ruth said quietly. “If they have used her name as patroness because her father is a big man, as they say he is, in the steamship company, it is not her fault. You know, she may be bashful.”

“Bashful!” exclaimed Agnes.

“And you see her name in all the Boston papers,” gasped the other girl. “She is just stuck-up.”

Ruth had no opportunity of speaking to Miss Hastings herself. The daughter of the shipowner did not eat in the cabin with the other first-class passengers. The very fact that she had her meals served to her in her stateroom seemed to support the idea that had got about pretty generally, that Nalbro Hastings was a very snobbish girl.

“I hope that idea will not serve to ruin the concert,” Ruth said more than once.

“I don’t know where she expects to find her talent,” sniffed Agnes. Then, twinkling: “She hasn’t asked me to sing or dance.”

“I know a couple of stokers who do a regular double-shuffle,” said Neale. “Caught ’em at it on one of the ventilators, below. Say! No stage dancer ever turned ’em off better.”

“Stokers! Grimy coal-passers?” sniffed Agnes.

“Why wouldn’t it be a good thing—and a novel thing, too—to get the talent for this concert from the steerage, stokehole, and forecastle? Usually the concert is given by the cabin passengers and the workmen aboard listen out on the edges of the crowd. Why not let the poor fellows give the concert and then everybody in the first and second cabins can be asked to pay a round sum for tickets.”

Agnes said not a word, but Neale threw up his hat.

“I’m going to ask those fellows——”

“No, no!” cried Ruth. “You have no right to do anything of the kind. The suggestion should be made to Miss Hastings.”

“Well, I guess nobody will dare do that,” said Agnes, and settled back into her chair with more satisfaction.

Neale went off at once, however, without saying another word to the sisters. He had noticed Nalbro Hastings leaning against the rail, forward. He marched up to her and pulled off his cap. Miss Hastings looked rather startled and Neale wondered if she was bashful, as Ruth had suggested.

“Beg pardon, Miss Hastings,” said the boy, quite untroubled himself, “have you got all the talent you need for the concert?”

The young girl (she was not far from Agnes’ age, after all) stared at him. Her lips moved, but at first no sound came forth. She really looked scared.

“For if you haven’t,” Neale O’Neil went on to say, “I’ve found a couple of fellows who might help out. If you are going to have sort of a vaudeville entertainment, I mean.”

“Would—would that be thuitable, do you thuppoth?” lisped Nalbro Hastings. “I couldn’t imagine what thort of conthert would be exthpected, don’t you know.”

“Oh, my aunt!” thought Neale. “She lisps. Wow!”

Aloud he said, keeping a perfectly straight face: “Who have you got already and what do they do?”

“I—I haven’t done a thing,” admitted Miss Hastings, in evident desperation.

“Whew!” whistled Neale.

“I—I don’t know what to do,” she added. “I—I can’t talk to people, Mithter—er——”

“My name’s Neale O’Neil. I’m with the Kenways and Mr. Howbridge.”

“Oh, with that pretty, pretty Agneth Kenway?”

“Don’t tell her that!” commanded Neale. “She is proud enough already. And she has a deadly crush on you, Miss Hastings.”

“On me?” Miss Hastings smiled; then, as her upper lip began to lift she grew suddenly sober again. “And—and I can’t talk to her—or to any one!” she groaned.

“But you are talking all right,” said Neale, amazed.

“But you made me. And I have to pick my wordth. Oh! Don’t you thee!” wailed the girl from the Back Bay. “My—my—oh, dear me, my teeth——”

“Lost ’em?” asked Neale, with quick sympathy. “But you can get more.” Then he grinned suddenly. “Mr. Howbridge has an extra set; maybe he would lend them.”

“Oh!” gasped Miss Hastings. Then she actually laughed, and in laughing she showed a little red gap in her upper front teeth.

“Don’t—don’t!” she begged. “I know you are funny. You have thuch good timeth with that Mith Kenway. But pleathe don’t make me laugh. I had a dreadful acthident latht fall. Wath thrown from my horthe in the Fenway. The dental thurgeon promithed to have the plate ready before the Horridole thailed. But it didn’t come to the dock. Now I have thent a wireleth meththage——Oh! Ithn’t it terrible?”

“It’s a shame,” agreed Neale, but with dancing eyes. “And can’t you have a concert because of that?”

“Well, I thertainly can’t take part in one,” she said rather tartly.

“You’d bring down the house if you did,” giggled Neale O’Neil. “But never mind. I’ll help you. Have you talked with the other members of the committee?”

“Not very much,” admitted Miss Hastings. “I—I’ve had to talk with my handkerthief in front of my mouth and I am not thure that they know what I have thaid. Maybe they think I’ve got the flu,” and she began to laugh, herself, now.

“That’s right! Cheer up,” said Neale, who would be friendly with the most self-conscious or bashful person in existence, and found that Miss Hastings was pretty human after all.

He told her about his “Caruso” and the dancing team from the stokehole. Nalbro Hastings seized upon the originality of the idea which Ruth Kenway had expressed.

“And there are two little girlth—Here they come now,” said Miss Hastings. “I heard them thinging—the cuteth little thingth.”

“Why, that’s Tess and Dot Kenway,” declared Neale, in surprise.

“Call them over, pleath,” commanded the Back Bay girl. “Athk them to thing that thong about ‘Dooley.’”

“That’s a new one on me,” Neale declared, beckoning to Tess and Dot. “What’s all this about the new song you’ve learned?” he asked the sisters, when they came near. “This is Miss Hastings, Tess and Dot. You want to know her. She’s a nice girl, only she’s made a vow that she won’t speak till she gets to St. Sergius and the parcel post catches up to us.”

“Oh, Mithter O’Neil!” murmured the Back Bay girl.

“She speaks some,” said Tess curiously.

“Let’s hear the song—and where did you learn it?” Neale said.

“Our friend, Mr. Billie Bowling, learned it us,” said Dot, referring to the deckhand before mentioned. “Do you really want to hear it?”

“Sure,” said Neale. “Is it good enough to sing at a concert?”

“Of course,” said Tess scornfully. “I’d sing it at a Sunday school concert.”

But after Neale heard it, and had recovered from his paroxysm of laughter, he said breathlessly:

“Don’t let Ruth hear of your singing that in Sunday school. But it will be a knockout at this cabin concert, Miss Hastings.”

“It will! It will,” agreed the Back Bay girl. “You muthtn’t tell anybody about it, children. You can rehearthe in my thtateroom. Oh! You tell them, Mr. O’Neil.”

And Neale did that.

What made Agnes mad—and she admitted it to any of the party who would listen—was the bold way in which Neale did it! To think of his walking right up to Nalbro Hastings and talking to her as though she was—was—well! Just common folks!

“She is,” growled Neale, at last getting rather tired of Agnes’ complainings. “She doesn’t claim to be any different from other people.”

“I’d like to know!” was his friend’s scornful remark. “And with her nose stuck up the way it is?”

“Nature did that; she’s not to blame,” declared Neale soberly.

“Indeed!”

“Come along, Aggie, and I’ll introduce you,” chuckled Neale. “Although she did tell me she didn’t want to meet anybody aboard ship.”

“The stuck-up thing!” For Agnes was as angry now as the other girls who considered Nalbro Hastings snobbish. “She never would have spoken to you if you weren’t a very good-looking boy, Neale O’Neil. And you fell right down before her and adored.”

“Oh! I never!” gasped the boy, hotly.

“Don’t you deny it. Her money, and everything——”

That settled it with Neale. He tramped away in the heat of anger. And because of what Agnes said, he took delight in keeping the secret of Nalbro Hastings’ retirement to himself.

However, because it was her duty, Miss Hastings met with the members of the concert committee—the “patronesses,” and arranged the program. Ruth’s suggestion, relayed through Neale O’Neil, governed Miss Hastings in choosing the talent. Sailors, stokers, engine-room men, and stewards were examined for talent.

Nor did Miss Hastings forget Tess and Dot Kenway. As Neale O’Neil said in his most vigorous language, their song was bound to be “a knockout.”

CHAPTER X—THE CONCERT

It was surprising, too, what a number of things there were to see while the steamship ploughed southward. One day a half-grown whale kept pace with the Horridole for hours, just as though he enjoyed racing with steam. One of the ship’s officers had been on several whaling voyages as a young man, and he related to the Kenways and Neale some exciting experiences he had had when chasing the great mammals.

A school of porpoises likewise gamboled about the ship, sometimes ahead, sometimes following, their changing colors bringing wondering cries to the lips of Tess and Dot. Circling seabirds flew high above them, for, after all, the route the steamship followed to the West Indies was never far from shore.

The evening before they expected to reach St. Sergius was appointed for the concert. Great secrecy had been maintained regarding the identity of the entertainers secured for it. There was part of an opera company going to St. Sergius for the winter season, and that had been drawn on for an augmented orchestra, the ship boasting a pretty good string band in any event.

But besides this help from the second and first cabin, nobody else had been asked to entertain among the cabin passengers. Save, of course, Tess and Dot Kenway. Ruth was a little anxious as to what the little girls were going to do; but knowing that they had committed to memory many songs and recitations, she did not doubt but that they would acquit themselves well.

Nalbro Hastings had taken a good deal of interest in the charity entertainment; but when the hour arrived for it she did not appear on the platform to announce the numbers. To Agnes Kenway’s expressed amazement Neale represented Miss Hastings—and he was not even a member of the committee!

Her boy friend, however, acquitted himself nobly. Agnes was forced to admit it and she was, secretly, pleased that this was so. But she did her best not to show it.

Of course, there could not be much dignity attached to any occasion in which Neale O’Neil was active. He began “jollying” when he introduced the first entertainer.

“We begin with Caruso Junior,” was his declaration when he introduced the Italian coal-passer to the company.

Somewhere Neale had found a dress suit for the young Italian, and as it was several sizes too big for the man’s slim figure it aided in the hilarity of the number. For the high note of the whole concert was comedy, and “Caruso Junior” sang only topical songs in both Italian and a brand of broken English that delighted the audience.

The two dancers who did “a brother act” were an oddity that pleased as well. If this concert was different from the usual kind on shipboard, it was all the more appreciated.

Even Tess’ and Dot’s friend, Bill Bowling, had been literally “roped in” for a number. It seemed that he had been something besides a deckhand in his life; and his past experience in roping cattle in the West enabled him to use a lariat equal to any vaudeville entertainer.

About the middle of the program Neale came forward with a solemn face and announced:

“The nicest little team of entertainers in captivity. I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, you are going to have a treat when the Misses Theresa and Dorothy Kenway sing their song. It is one of their own choosing, they learned it without professional assistance, and the sentiment and depth of feeling expressed in the words cannot be questioned. I bespeak for Theresa and Dorothy your gravest attention.”

“What is that boy up to now?” murmured Ruth, troubled.

Agnes glared at Neale as he came down from the platform.

“He has got something up his sleeve,” she said, almost angrily.

“Do you children know your piece?” demanded Ruth in a whisper, as Tess and Dot started for the stage.

“Of course we do,” declared Tess haughtily.

“Miss Hastings says we sing it fine,” said Dot eagerly, and trotted after her sister.

Facing an audience did not trouble Tess and Dot in the least. They had once played in a real play; and they had often sung and recited at school concerts. They mounted to the platform as the orchestra struck up a queer melody, and together, and hand-in-hand, began the song Bill Bowling had first taught them.

To the amazement of Ruth and the others it was a real Irish “come-all-ye,” and although the words might not have been altogether well-chosen, they were funny. When the little girls came to the chorus and, with appropriate gestures, emphatically half recited and half sang it, the audience burst into a roar of laughter that almost drowned the children’s voices:

Tess (stamping):—“And what did Dooley do to him?”
Dot (stamping):—“He vowed he was not tr-u-ue to him!”
Tess (stamping):—“Did Dooley owe him money?”
Together:—“No! (Pause.) He shtole McCarthy’s pants!”

The serious air with which Tess and Dot rendered these lines almost convulsed their own family. Even Ruth was helpless, although for a few moments she felt shocked. It was, after all, just a funny song, made more funny by the way it was rendered and the character of the singers. Tess and Dot realized that they had made a hit and sang the three verses with gusto.

“That Neale O’Neil!” murmured Ruth, turning to Mr. Howbridge for comfort.

But the lawyer was laughing so uproariously that she saw she would get no sympathy from him.

Agnes declared that it was “that Nalbro Hastings’ fault.” But, if it was a fault, it was something that everybody enjoyed to the utmost. Neale’s statement that the song would be “a knockout” was prophetic. Before the entertainment concluded there was a general request that the children sing “Dooley” again.

“I guess we are pretty popular,” said Tess, confidently.

“Didn’t we sing it right the first time, Tess?” her little sister wanted to know. “Have we got to do it all over again?”

“Oh, go and do it over!” gasped Ruth. “It can’t be helped now. But I’ll never let you prepare for another entertainment without first finding out what sort of song you mean to sing. To think of it!”

“Don’t worry, Ruth,” chuckled Luke. “It’s great. Worth the five dollars I paid for my ticket. Those two chicks are certainly the hit of the evening.”

The incident served not only to make Tess and Dot popular, but the other Kenway girls were likewise much flattered by the first cabin passengers after the entertainment. Agnes began to preen herself a little. There were some very nice people aboard the Horridole, and even if Agnes considered herself shut out from knowing Miss Hastings of the Back Bay, there were others of social prominence whom it pleased the girl to become acquainted with.

So they arrived at St. Sergius and went ashore next day amid great gayety. The St. Sergius Arms—a white and green building of Spanish architecture—overlooked the city, which nestled at the foot of the island cliffs. Yet the hotel was not too far from the bathing beaches and the curio shops along the plaza.

The Kenway girls continued to be made much of by their new friends, and in a couple of days they were as much at home in this strange environment as any of the tourists. For St. Sergius was certainly a very different place from any town the Corner House girls had ever before visited.

“I can’t help thinking all the men I see going past are millers,” declared Agnes. “All in white, you know. Only their broad-brimmed hats do not look like the caps millers wear.”

“The girls don’t look like milleresses,” chuckled Neale. “All of them with some kind of veil twisted about their hair——”

“The reboza,” said Ruth.

“Maybe. Anyway, there are some of them awfully pretty,” added Neale.

“It seems to me,” Agnes said with dignity, “that you are becoming a regular connoisseur in feminine loveliness. How is your friend, Nalbro Hastings?”

“She’s a whole lot better than she has been since she left Boston,” declared Neale cheerfully.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Ruth, while Agnes stared at him. “She has not been ill.”

“I’ll say she has!” declared Neale, broadly smiling. “Almost dumb. Very sad case.”

“I’d like to know what you mean, you horrid fellow,” Agnes complained. “I know there must be some joke about it, but I don’t understand.”

“Allow me,” Neale said, rising and bowing very low to Agnes. “I have here an invitation from Miss Hastings.” But the note he drew from his pocket he presented to Ruth. “Verbally, I am particularly to urge ‘that pretty Miss Agnes’ to attend afternoon tea as a special favor to Miss Hastings.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Agnes.

Ruth nodded, but seemed puzzled.

“Yes. That is what she asks—and very prettily. That all of us, not forgetting Tess and Dot, will come to her suite at five, with Luke and Neale.”

“Well, of all things!” gasped Agnes.

“Won’t you go?” Neale asked, just a little worried now. He had carried the joke pretty far, he thought.

“I have half a mind to refuse,” declared Agnes. “What shall I wear, Ruth?”

Neale was relieved by this question. He smiled engagingly.

“You don’t need to worry about what you wear, Aggie. She’s an awfully good kind. And she’s been wanting to know you all along. But—she couldn’t talk.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Agnes flatly.

“Neale says she had a vow,” remarked Tess soberly. “And she did speak sort of funny to me and Dot. But she’s nice.”

“She has nice candy,” observed the littlest Corner House girl. “She gave us some when we were rehearsing for the concert.”

“Of course you will go—and be a good girl,” said Ruth, when she and Agnes were alone.

“Well, I suppose I must,” sighed Agnes. “But I tell you what it is, Ruthie, I don’t like Neale O’Neil having secrets from me. And I don’t want him to be too friendly with other girls—not even when they are from the Back Bay and their names are in the society columns.”

CHAPTER XI—A SEA ADVENTURE

“I’ve wanted to know you, Miss Agnes, and Miss Kenway, ever since you came aboard the Horridole,” Nalbro Hastings said, in a winning way. “And I must thank you girls first of all for lending me Mr. O’Neil, who is a very efficient aid in almost anything social, I fancy.”

“Easy on the Mister O’Neil stuff,” growled Neale. “I’ve got a first name, you know.”

“We have trained him very well,” said Ruth demurely, “save in language. He uses the most atrocious slang.”

“But he’s a good worker,” admitted Agnes, staring coolly at Neale. “We have brought him up to be useful.”

“Good in the pinches,” muttered the much maligned Neale, but grinning.

It was a jolly occasion in every particular. Agnes perhaps had her eyes opened regarding the manners of Back Bay society girls. Nalbro Hastings was just as friendly and demure a girl as the flyaway Kenway had ever met. The latter continued somewhat subdued, herself.

During the next few days the Kenways saw a good deal of Miss Hastings. They searched out all the interesting parts of the old town together. The settlement dated back to a time soon after the coming of Columbus to the West Indies. It was not so old as Nassau; but there was an old fort at the harbor’s mouth; a monastery, grim enough of appearance, that might be turned very easily into a fortress overlooking the town; and a nunnery of dazzling white outer walls, but glowing with color inside, where the girls almost wrecked their pocketbooks buying fancy work.

Luke had to attend Professor Keeps on his first jaunt into the interior of the island, and was gone a week. Meanwhile Mr. Howbridge had several conferences with a business friend whose grapefruit plantations dotted the island. It was to see this man and arrange for the investment of some of his loose capital in the States that the lawyer from Milton had made this trip to St. Sergius.

So Neale was left alone to “beau the girls around.” He did his duty nobly, nor were all the ventures he engineered too tame. There were only twenty miles of auto road on the island; and, although a few people had small cars, it was no paradise for motorists. But the trails over the hills and along the verge of the chalk cliffs were wonderful.

The natives had bred small donkeys, or burros, in the comfortable saddles of which the tourist could observe nature, at sea and ashore, in an agreeable way. The Corner House girls, often with others, including Nalbro Hastings, and under Neale’s protection, traveled miles by donkey-back over the trails of St. Sergius.

The trails were bordered by jungle, it was true; but that was because a cleared spot in the jungle would return to its primeval state in two years. But little plantations dotted the ways—a cabin, palms, a grapefruit orchard, and a tiny vegetable garden, all over-run with naked babies of all shades from deepest ebony to a saddle-color tan.

“I don’t see how anybody can be so black as the black ones are,” sighed Agnes. “And so shiny. Their skin shines, and their teeth shine, and their eyes shine. Even Uncle Rufus’ Petunia, as black as she is, doesn’t glisten like these darkies.”

All the adventures the Corner House girls had were not on shore. There were both sail and power boats in the bay for hire. Neale felt himself able to handle a sailing craft, and they ventured out in one. But he obeyed Mr. Howbridge’s injunction and did not go beyond the fort.

During this first week at the resort letters arrived from Milton and one of them was of particular interest to the girls and Neale O’Neil. It was from Mrs. Oscar Pendleton and was addressed to Ruth.

The troubled woman said in part:

“We have many things to be thankful for, and are especially indebted to you, Miss Ruth, and your sisters. Don’t think us ungrateful. But it does seem too bad that Mr. Howbridge asked my husband to work for Peter Conroy, and without learning first how Peter felt about Mr. Pendleton’s affairs. It seems he gave Mr. Pendleton a job just because he felt himself obliged to do so. He was under obligation, he said, to Mr. Howbridge. He told Mr. Pendleton so.

“All the time he was watching him, and counting the money in the cash-drawer over and over, and not letting Mr. Pendleton wait on cash customers. It was very embarrassing for Mr. Pendleton and sometimes forced him to explain to people who were quite strangers, his misfortune in having to work for Peter.

“And finally Peter miscounted the sacks of potatoes that were delivered to the store and came right out and accused Mr. Pendleton of carrying off a 180 pound bag of potatoes! He accepted his dismissal before Peter found the miscounted bag, and I told Mr. Pendleton he should not go back to work for the old curmudgeon. I hope you will say I was right, Miss Ruth, although it does seem that as long as these accusations hang over him we shall continue in straits.”

The letter was somewhat rambling; but it gave the older girls the impression that Mrs. Pendleton was dreadfully worried. And if her husband was again out of work it was no wonder that she was anxious.

“I know that old fellow who keeps the store on Plane Street. He’s just as ill-tempered as Billy Bumps,” declared Neale O’Neil. “I guess Mr. Howbridge did not know Peter Conroy, or he would not have sent Mr. Pendleton to work there.”

This proved to be the case, as the lawyer admitted when he returned to the hotel at the end of the week.

“I am sorry for Pendleton. I had a personal interview with him before we left home and he seemed patient and willing. I am waiting now to hear from my clerk whom I instructed by wireless to look up the personal character of Mr. Israel Stumpf.”

“Oh!” murmured Ruth, in some trouble, “I only felt a suspicion of him. I do not really know anything about Mr. Kolbeck’s stepson.”

“No. Neither do I,” said Mr. Howbridge dryly. “But I mean to.”

“I know Mr. Pendleton has been ill used,” declared Agnes, with her usual energy. “And Mrs. Pendleton is a dear.”

“Carrie and Margy are real nice,” said Tess, who overheard the discussion. “I guess their father must be, too.”

“Anyway, he is the only man we ever saw that fell out of a tree,” Dot observed. “He’s real int’resting, I think.”

Ruth and Agnes were very much worried, and talked the matter over together before retiring.

“I am sure I don’t know what poor Mrs. Pendleton is going to do if the money stops coming in,” said Ruth.

“It will certainly be a hardship for them,” answered Agnes. “He hasn’t been at his job long enough to have saved any money.”

“Saved money! Why, Agnes, they’re not out of debt yet for what they owed to the butcher and the grocer and a whole lot of other people!”

“Yes, and think of its being in the dead of winter, too!” went on the sister, with a troubled face. “I do hope they’ve coal and wood enough in the house to keep warm.”

“Yes, and clothing too. Think of those children going out in the bitter cold winter weather only about half clad!”

Nothing at present could be done, however, by any of them to help the Pendletons. Matters would have to take their course. Mr. Howbridge knew that his clerk would be informed of Oscar Pendleton’s loss of employment and would take steps to aid the family accordingly. But nothing vital could be done for the Pendletons until the truth about the robbery of the Kolbeck & Roods warehouse was discovered.

Luke came back with Professor Keeps from their first expedition for the study of the flora of the island. The botanist was delighted with his discoveries, and he was intent upon classifying and mounting his specimens during the next few days, so his young assistant was excused from attendance upon him.

The Kenway party planned a voyage around the island, for Mr. Howbridge’s business friend owned a large motor-boat and had put the craft at the disposal of the party from the North.

Both Neale and Luke had some knowledge of the management of a launch, and the Kenway party got under way early one morning, provisioned for a voyage of at least forty-eight hours. That they took no native seaman along was a misfortune rather than an oversight. The caretaker of Señor Benno’s motor-launch had been taken ill during the night and lay groaning in his hammock unable to go with the “Americanos.”

“Shucks!” grumbled Neale, “we don’t need him. He wouldn’t be much good anyway, like enough.”

“I suppose he would know the shoals and tides better than we do,” said Luke.

“I’ve got the newest chart,” declared Neale. “And we will have a care in getting near the islands. Now, don’t say anything to scare the girls.”

“How will you scare them?” Luke wanted to know. “Agnes will always take a chance, and Ruth really isn’t much afraid of anything. As for the kids——”

“Well, then,” Neale added, grinning, “say nothing to Mr. Howbridge or he will want to send up to the hotel for Hedden. And Hedden, you know, would want to serve afternoon tea at five, even if we were wrecked on a desert island.”

They laughed over the possibilities of catastrophe, without considering that anything may happen upon a voyage like this, and in these tropical but treacherous seas.

The day was gloriously fair, and the motor at first acted as though charmed. The craft, named Isobel, made the circuit of the island long before evening. They had kept well off shore and were then in sight of the string of pearl-like islets that extended farther than they could see into the southeast. Palm-fronded, edged with white ruffles of water, and in the distance hazed in blue, they made an entrancing picture.

“We must see them all,” Ruth declared. “Doesn’t your chart tell you where there is a cove, or bay, where we can spend the night in safety, Neale?”

“Of course. And we can get there before nightfall,” declared Neale.

“What do you say, Mr. Howbridge?” Ruth asked their guardian.

“It seems quite safe to venture,” the lawyer returned. “Is the engine acting all right, boys?”

“Don’t see anything the matter with it,” replied Luke.

But one can never prophesy regarding a motor-boat engine.

St. Sergius was twenty-five miles behind them, and the nearer of the chain of small islands was not less than ten miles away, when the power went wrong on the Isobel.

“That comes of blowing about how fine she worked without knocking wood,” grumbled Neale O’Neil.

“Is it going to keep us long?” asked Agnes.

“What a ridiculous question that is!” rejoined her friend. “Am I a prophet, or the son of a prophet? What do you say, Luke?”

Luke had been scanning the horizon to westward. He stepped down into the cockpit of the Isobel with some haste.

“I tell you what I think about one thing, Neale,” he whispered in the latter’s ear. “There is going to be a change in the weather—and a big change—within a very short time.”

“For the worse?” asked Neale, startled.

“It couldn’t be for the better,” replied Luke. “We’ve had a perfect day; but the end of it is going to be squally. And I’ve heard that even at this time of year, which is not the hurricane season, the weather in this part of the Caribbean can be distinctly nasty.”

CHAPTER XII—THE ISLAND REFUGE

Fortunately the children did not understand the threat of the elements. Tess and Dot were not often affrighted by a thunderstorm. And Ruth and Agnes could not wholly understand what was coming.

There was not the usual hush which is so often noted before the striking of such a tempest. In this case the wind and lightning drew on with equal velocity; but the rain stayed behind. On and on the forefront of the storm came, as savagely persistent as a pack of wolves, and then leaped upon its prey with a force that seemed to crush every object on the surface of the sea.

The only craft in sight was their own Isobel. The waves flattened about her for a considerable space, and for some moments, as though the wind came from directly overhead.

“Get inside, every one of you girls!” commanded Mr. Howbridge, shouting at the top of his voice. “Close that cabin door and keep it closed.”

The little ones were already below. Ruth went down the steps, shouting back over her shoulder:

“You’d all better come too. You can do nothing here.”

Agnes scuttled behind her, terrified indeed. They jammed shut the slide. Almost the next instant the thunder of the rain on the deck deafened those in the cabin. The two boys and the lawyer lay under a tarpaulin which shed a portion of the deluge. But they could not distinguish each other’s speech.

It seemed as though the very weight of the rain must sink the motor-boat. It thundered on the deck and foamed in the cockpit. Such a cloudburst none of them had ever seen, or even dreamed of.

In ten minutes the rain passed. It roared on toward the east like the rattle of a giant drum corps. But the darkness and wind remained. It was impossible to see more than a few yards about the Isobel. Islands, and all, had disappeared. But the launch was moving now—racing into the east, like the rain, and with all the force of the wind and sea astern.

Neale crawled out from under the tarpaulin and climbed up on a cushion seat out of the knee-deep water. That water was roaring out through the vents, or seeping into the lower bilge. When Luke got up he made straight for the pump and began to work it. It sucked immediately, and the water spurted through the hosepipe.

“My goodness, boys!” shouted Mr. Howbridge, “what are we going to do?”

“Keep our eyes open for an island,” shouted back Neale.

“Hope we’ll find one,” was the muttered reply.

“Keep the old boat from sinking,” declared Luke, vigorously pumping.

“The girls will be scared to death,” grumbled the lawyer.

“Let them stay below and they won’t know much about it,” Luke told him.

“Good idea,” tossed down Neale, as he staggered upon the break of the cabin roof.

There came a knocking on the cabin door. It was stuck.

“There! They want to get out already,” cried Mr. Howbridge.

“‘Want to’ and ‘Can’ are two different things,” replied Luke. “Let ’em knock!”

It was not that the boys were callous, but they knew that if the girls came out of the cabin they would immediately appreciate the full danger of the situation. Agnes and Ruth would not be able to see much through the narrow deadlights.

Mr. Howbridge went to the cabin slide. He put his lips close to the door and shouted:

“Don’t bother! Stay where you are! We are all right, but must wait for the wind to stop.”

“Let—us—out!” shrieked Agnes’ voice.

“Stay where you are and keep still!” commanded their guardian more sternly. Then he asked the boys, with no little anxiety: “Is it safe to let them stay down there? Suppose she should turn turtle?”

“We’re riding pretty fair now,” said Luke.

“And if she turned over they would have a better chance than we would,” declared Neale O’Neil. “There would be air enough confined in the cabin to keep them going for a time. But if we were thrown into this sea there isn’t one of us could live five minutes.”

This was so evidently the fact that Mr. Howbridge said nothing more. The lawyer was not much of an out-of-doors man at the best. He had not spent much time on the sea or in the wilds, and he was now past middle age. But he possessed something that not all men used to roughing it possess. He had a broad knowledge from reading of boat-sailing as well as of other sports.

He was less ready to show apprehension than the young fellows. The responsibility for this condition of affairs must rest more on Mr. Howbridge’s shoulders. The lawyer accepted this fact, and proceeded to cudgel his brains to find a way out of the difficulty.

“We’ve got to overhaul that engine, in spite of the heavy sea, and try to make her go,” Mr. Howbridge said. “You’ve cleared out the water pretty well, Luke. She rises to each wave, and as long as it does not rain again we certainly will not be swamped.”

“We need a lantern,” complained Neale. “Guess we’ll have to pry open that door, Mr. Howbridge.”

“Think so? I don’t want the girls up here.”

“Well, we can make the little ones stay down, and Ruth will look out for them. If Aggie insists on coming up here we’ll set her to work.”

“That will please her only too well,” said Agnes’ guardian.

Which was true enough. Agnes rushed out on deck, sputtering. Neither she nor Ruth had any idea of the extent of the disaster. When she saw the racing, foam-capped waves and the blackness of sea and sky, even the flyaway was subdued.

“Are we headed in the right direction?” Ruth asked at the open slide.

“We sure are,” grumbled Neale. “Heading right with the wind. If we tried to shift our course the wind would like enough roll us over and over like a barrel.”

“Isn’t it fortunate the wind is heading us toward St. Sergius, then,” observed Agnes.

“Oh, shoot!” ejaculated Neale. “Do you think even the elements play in our favor, Aggie Kenway? According to the needle of this compass we are heading due east, and St. Sergius is some distance behind us.”

“Oh!” gasped Agnes and Ruth in unison.

“Now, Ruth,” said Mr. Howbridge sternly, “I expect you girls to do your share. You look out for the children in there. If Agnes insists on being out here she can come and hold this pry-bar. I believe we’ve got to block up the engine at this corner before she will make an even stroke. I could see that she jarred when we started, and I should have insisted upon having her jacked up then.”

Agnes came very meekly and did his bidding. Neale stuck to the wheel, or the craft would have wobbled much worse than she did. Luke aided the lawyer at the cranky engine.

Ruth tried to be cheerful with Tess and Dot. But both little girls had already gained the impression that they were in danger. Tess asked seriously:

“Don’t you suppose, Ruthie, that it would be a good thing if we said our prayers, even if it isn’t bedtime?”

But Dot’s mind ran upon more mundane things. She remarked after a little silence:

“I wonder if Sammy Pinkney was here, if he would feel much like being a pirate on this wiggly boat?”

As the storm continued to sweep the Isobel on and on, with no sign of abatement, the older ones at least felt no desire to converse uselessly, and the little girls went to sleep in a berth. Fortunately they were not so seriously troubled by the peril that menaced as their elders. Even Agnes was subdued; but she, like Ruth, was courageous.

Mr. Howbridge finally gave up the attempt to start the engine. While the launch pitched so it was impossible to make any headway with the crippled mechanism of the Isobel. They managed to make some coffee, and with this and crackers, they tried to satisfy their appetites. Then they went to rest for the night. But nobody slept much.

In addition to the force of the wind, a certain current must have seized the boat, for she drove on for hours in a direction quite opposite to that in which the party wished to go. St. Sergius and any inhabited island they knew anything about were behind them.

With dawn the wind fell, the sea became calmer, and the clouds began to break. The first rays of the sun, when flung into their faces, did not dazzle their eyes so much that they could not observe an isle almost dead ahead. A cheerful green island it was with a hill in its center on which grew a very tall palm.

“We’re going to land there if it can be done,” declared Mr. Howbridge. “There are two long oars and you boys do what you can with them when we get close in.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” cried Neale cheerfully. “Looks as if we were going to play Robinson Crusoe for a while, doesn’t it?”

“More like the Swiss Family Robinson,” Luke remarked. “Looks like a deserted place, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t see any hotel,” rejoined the lawyer dryly. “But there is quiet water in that cove yonder. See if you can paddle us into it.”

At any rate, the strange island offered a refuge. And a bit of solid earth under their feet was what they all most craved.

CHAPTER XIII—A LONG WAY FROM THE CORNER HOUSE

“I declare!” exclaimed Agnes. “He has got his bathing suit. How did you ever think to bring it, Neale O’Neil?”

“Never know when it may rain,” chuckled her friend. “Now I’m going to drop over the bow, and I’ll take you ashore first, Aggie, if you want me to.”

“I don’t know about that,” objected Agnes. “We don’t know what may be lurking in that jungle. The hill around the foot of that big palm is clear, I know. But that thicket between us and the hill——”

“What do you think will hurt you?” Luke demanded. “There are no wild animals in these islands. Not even snakes, I am told.”

“Just the same, I’ll wait till you are ready to carry Ruth, Luke,” said Agnes decidedly. “We can wait together on the shore while you bring over the children and Mr. Howbridge.”

“This is another case like the man who had to cross the river with the goose, the fox, and the bag of corn,” chuckled Neale. “But I guess we’ll make it somehow. Come on, girls.”

“Here comes the goose!” cried Agnes, stepping off the bow of the launch into Neale’s arms. “Hurry up, Ruth. If there are savages in that jungle I want you to be present at the first introduction. Your manners are so much better than mine.”

The transportation of the four girls did not take long. Meanwhile Mr. Howbridge removed his shoes and socks and came ashore carrying some wraps and a few cooking utensils.

“We want breakfast first of all. I do not believe we shall find here any natives, savage or otherwise, who will offer us a meal,” the lawyer said.

Neale had carried ashore the end of the painter and they moored the motor-boat safely to a stub driven into the sand above high-water mark. The young fellows went about making a camp at the edge of the jungle in a matter-of-fact way.

“Doesn’t your chart tell what island this is?” Ruth asked Neale O’Neil. “Surely it can’t be an unknown island.”

“Probably not,” Mr. Howbridge said, smiling, and before Neale could reply. “But it is safe enough to say that it is unoccupied save by ourselves.”

“And—and have we got to stay here?” gasped Agnes.

“Until we can repair the motor-boat engine, or some one appears to take us off,” said the lawyer soberly. “But we have some provisions and I can see that there is fruit growing in plenty yonder, and this cove probably offers many shellfish, and finny denizens of the sea as well.“