Chapter XXIV: The Groan of a Grampus

The startled and sleepy children beside the pool on the smaller island clung together in speechless terror for the few minutes following their being aroused by the marine “ghost” that had risen through the waters. Its glistening, high-shouldered body was a most mysterious sight, that was true.

The starlight was so vivid, however, that soon Tess and Dot were able to distinguish the outlines of the beast more clearly. No denial could be made of its voice, for it puffed out a most astonishing sigh. Nothing like this beast had either girl ever imagined.

“O-oo!” murmured Dot. “Look at the whale!”

She came not far from the proper designation. It was a grampus. But a grampus is a cetacean, and that is the family to which whales belong. The grampus stood on its tail in the water, with the greater upper part of its body exposed, and sighed again as though its heart were broken.

Then it flung itself flat upon the water with a splash that must have echoed to the far end of the island. At least, Dot Kenway’s shriek of fear echoed that far.

“Stop yelling. It’s gone,” said Tess.

“But he spattered me all over,” sobbed the smaller girl. “Oh! I don’t like this place, Tess. The whales come in and wake you up and—and——”

“Hush!” commanded Tess, hearing something new. “Listen.”

“Won’t hush,” sobbed Dot. “Is it another whale?”

“It’s—it’s——Oh, Dot Kenway!” shrieked Tess suddenly, and darted up from the sand, “it’s Neale O’Neil!”

This was a sufficiently impressive declaration to stop Dot’s sobs and complaints. She staggered hastily to her feet, clinging to her sister, and joined her voice to the latter’s in shrieking: “Help!”

Just what they wanted help for now that the grampus was gone, was a question quite beside the situation. The little girls continued to scream. Neale’s voice answered them. They heard other voices.

“I guess we are rescued, Tess,” gulped Dot. “They have found out where we are. No use yelling any more.”

“I’m going to shout till I see them,” said the practical Tess, who did not propose giving their friends any chance to get away from them.

Neale came crashing through the brush after a time. Luke and Mr. Howbridge were right behind him, and Luke carried a flashlight. The ray of this flashed into the girls’ faces just as another splash and groan was heard from the pool.

“For goodness’ sake! What’s that?” demanded the lawyer, panting in the rear of the trio.

“No wonder the kids yelled!” exclaimed Neale.

“What is it?” cried Luke.

They were startled to see the glistening, ghostly object rise from the depths. But they loudly greeted Tess and Dot. The latter explained:

“Oh, it’s a whale come up to breathe. He scared us dreadful!”

Luke named the creature correctly the next moment. “And they are not often seen, I understand. They’re enough to frighten a high school at night, let alone a couple of little kiddies.”

He grabbed Tess and Dot, one in the crook of each arm, and kissed them soundly as he raised them to his shoulders. Mr. Howbridge exclaimed over the lost children, too, and afterward Dot told Tess that she had no idea their guardian “could cry.”

There was reason for Mr. Howbridge shedding a few tears over the recovery of the smallest Kenways. The stranding of the _Isobel_ on this island in safety had been a miracle indeed. A hundred untoward things might have happened to the children.

A little after nightfall the boys and Mr. Howbridge had worked their raft into the shallow cove where the motor-boat lay and had landed. Looking for Tess and Dot in the dark of the tropical night was almost a hopeless task.

By chance Neale had heard Dot’s shriek when she had been frightened by the marine monster in the pool. Charging across the island, he had led the way to the small sisters.

That night, about the fire on the shore, was a cheerful one indeed for the boys and the lawyer while the little girls slept soundly. Their discovery and recovery of Tess and Dot by the trio of searchers had been easier than they had hoped in their most sanguine moments.

“And Ruth will certainly be a happy girl again,” Luke often repeated.

“Hope we can get back to them soon,” Neale rejoined.

“Wish we could signal to them that the children are found,” ruminated Luke.

The nearest they could do in the matter of signaling was to take down Tess’ plaid skirt from the top of the palm tree the next morning. This Neale did after a while, and he praised Tess for thinking of putting up the skirt in the first place.

“If I finally decide to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, Tessie,” Neale said soberly, “I’ll take you along as a partner.”

“No, you won’t,” said Tess promptly. “For I won’t go, Neale O’Neil. I don’t ever expect to be cast away again, so there!”

Early in the afternoon the trio got the motor-boat into the water again and anchored it off shore. The mechanism was already adjusted. It had to be tried out, changed a little, and finally set to running. There was sufficient gasoline to carry them a long way if the machinery ran perfectly.

Had Ruth and Agnes not been so frightened by the fact that their presence on Palm Island had been discovered by the turtle fishers, they would surely have spied the _Isobel_ when she first came into view from behind the smaller island where Tess and Dot had been marooned.

The older girls hid in the jungle down by the rocky point and waited through the evening in much alarm. They heard and even saw some of the rough men passing and repassing the place of their concealment. They dared not go to sleep, and feared that they would have to remain awake, and in hiding, until another day.

But while the minutes crept by so slowly, Agnes, quick-eared as well as sharp of eye, began to hear a sound that at first puzzled then excited her. She seized Ruth more tightly in her arms.

“Oh, Ruthie! Listen! What is it?”

“Sh! They will hear you,” murmured her sister.

“I—I want them to, I guess,” choked Agnes. “Hear that? It’s the chugging of a motor-boat, Ruth!”

“Oh, never!” exclaimed the older girl, but getting up to her knees.

“It is the _Isobel_. Surely it is. They are coming! Neale! Neale!”

Wildly excited at last, the younger girl leaped to her feet and bounded out of concealment. As she landed in the sand and struck out for the rocky point, Ruth heard a shout behind them and the heavy tread of men running down the beach.

“Agnes! Agnes! They will catch us!” she shrieked, and ran madly after her sister.

Agnes thought of nothing, however, but the fact, as she believed, that their friends were near at hand. She climbed upon the highest boulder in the neighborhood and shrieked a welcome.

“Neale! Guardy! Luke! Here we are!” cried the wild girl. “Are the children safe? Tessie! Dot! Tell Agnes if you are all right!”

Her wild cry was echoed from the sea. She could even observe the _Isobel_ approaching. And the voices of the children and those of the boys and Mr. Howbridge were soon distinguishable.

Had the turtle fishers intended the two girls any harm, these cries from the water and the approach of the motor-boat must have warned the natives. Ruth and Agnes stood on the rock, and the fishermen approached to within a few yards of them.

They chattered much in Spanish, and then one spoke in English:

“Eet ees that the _señoritas_ haf friend—_amigo_—in the boat—no?”

“Tell them that we’ve got friends coming, _yes_!” exclaimed Agnes.

Ruth could remember just about enough Spanish to make herself understood. She told the fishermen their friends had been away in the motor-boat but were now arriving.

“Ah! If the señors should weesh help of any kind, we are of the willingness to do—_si_, _señorita_!” exclaimed the man, and led his comrades away along the beach just as the _Isobel_, by the light of the stars, shoved her nose into the little inlet.

The boys leaped ashore the moment the motor-boat was near enough to the rocky landing. Such a noisy time as it was for a minute, with Tess and Dot shrieking greetings and the boys hurrahing! Suddenly Agnes was heard to say sharply:

“I like your impudence, Neale O’Neil! Who said you could do that, I’d like to know?”

“Don’t lay it up against me,” drawled her boy chum. “Really couldn’t help it. I merely followed Luke’s example.”

“Come, come!” exclaimed Mr. Howbridge. “No quarreling there—especially on such a joyful occasion. Who were those men I saw?”

Agnes ran to meet him as he moored the boat and explained about the turtle fishers and told how frightened she and Ruth had been.

“Well, well! Perhaps they are harmless. But what do you say, boys? The engine is working like a charm, and the night is lovely. Had we better not head for St. Sergius before something worse happens to us?”

“Oh!” cried Ruth, clasping her hands, “that sounds sweet.”

“Guess we all have got enough of Palm Island,” said Luke.

The bigger girls had by this time got aboard the motor-boat to greet Tess and Dot. The four sisters cuddled down in the cockpit and chattered like four magpies. There was so much to tell!

The _Isobel_ was therefore backed around and headed out of the little harbor once more. There was nothing much on the island that they would need. And, in any case, Mr. Howbridge considered it quite as well to get away without coming into contact with the turtle catchers.

Everything that had happened to the little girls had to be told over and over again, right down to the excitement of the grampus—which Dot insisted upon calling a grandpa.

“But he wasn’t anything like Margaret and Holly Pease’s grandpa—for he’s real nice,” added the littlest Corner House girl with her usual loose association of ideas. “He’s got the nicest white hair and a gold-headed cane——”

“Not the grampus, Dot,” groaned Tess, in despair.

“No; of course not that grandpa. Margaret and Holly Pease’s. You’ve seen his gold-headed cane yourself, Tess Kenway. I wish you wouldn’t always interrupt me. Now—now,” and she yawned, “I forget—forget what I was going to say.”

She proceeded almost instantly to go fast asleep with her head in Ruth’s lap.