Chapter XI: A Sea Adventure

That afternoon tea-party in Miss Hastings’ suite was one of the nicest things that had ever happened to Agnes Kenway. She had dreamed of being entertained by a person like the Back Bay girl, served tea and cakes from a tea-wagon and by a French maid in beruffled cap and an apron not much bigger than a special delivery postage stamp!

Neale said that Agnes began to purr like a satisfied kitten almost as soon as she had shaken hands with the Back Bay girl. Once convinced that she had not been intentionally slighted on the boat (for Miss Hastings could tell of her dental predicament now with honest laughter), the beauty sister proved herself to be one of the most attractive girls in the world.

“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.”