Grace listened with wondering eyes.

"Oh, that's just like Uncle Robert," she declared. "But I think you were brave to ask him."

CHAPTER XV

"WHERE IS SYLVIA?"

The b.u.t.terfly was all ready and waiting for its pa.s.sengers when Grace and Sylvia, followed by the smiling and delighted Estralla, who was carrying Sylvia's cape and trying to act as much like a "rale grown-up lady's maid" as possible, came down to the long wharf.

Although it was December, there was little to remind anyone of winter.

The air was soft and clear, the sun shone brightly, and only a little westerly breeze ruffled the blue waters of the harbor.

Negroes were at work on the wharf loading bales of cotton on a big ship. They were singing as they worked, and Sylvia resolved to remember the words of the song:

"De big bee flies high, De little bee makes de honey, De black man raise de cotton, An' de white man gets de money."

She repeated it over and then Grace sang it, with an amused laugh at her friend's interest in "n.i.g.g.e.r songs."

Mr. Fulton came to meet them and helped them on board the boat. As the b.u.t.terfly made its way out into the channel the little girls looked back at the long water-front, where lay many vessels from far-off ports. In the distance they could see the spire of St. Philip's, one of the historic churches of Charleston, and everywhere fluttered the palmetto flag.

Sylvia sat in the stern beside her father, and very soon the tiller was in her hand and she was shaping the boat's course toward the forts.

Grace watched her admiringly.

"I believe you could steer in the dark," she declared.

"Of course she could if she had a compa.s.s and was familiar with the stars," said Mr. Fulton; and he called Grace's attention to the compa.s.s fastened securely near Sylvia's seat, and explained the rules of navigation.

"Is that the way the big ships know how to find their harbors?" asked Grace, when Mr. Fulton told her of the stars, and how the pilots set their course.

"Yes, and if Sylvia understood how to steer by the compa.s.s she could steer the b.u.t.terfly as well at night as she can now."

Sylvia looked at the compa.s.s with a new interest; she was sure that navigation would be a much more interesting study than grammar, and resolved to ask her father to teach her how to "box the compa.s.s."

There had been many changes at Fort Moultrie since Sylvia's last visit.

A deep ditch had been dug between the fort and the sand-bars, and many workmen were busy in strengthening the defences, and Sylvia and Grace wondered why so many soldiers were stationed along the parapet.

Captain Carleton seemed very glad to welcome them, and sent a soldier to escort the girls to the officers' quarters, while Mr. Fulton went in search of Major Anderson. Sylvia wondered if she would have a chance to tell Mrs. Carleton that she had safely delivered the message.

Mrs. Carleton was in her pleasant sitting-room and declared that she had been wishing for company, and held up some strips of red and white bunting. "I am making a new flag for Fort Sumter," she said. "Perhaps you will help me sew on the stars, one for each State, you know."

"Is there one for South Carolina?" asked Grace, as Mrs. Carleton found two small thimbles, which she said she had used when she was no older than Sylvia, and showed the girls how to sew the white stars securely on the blue.

"Yes, indeed! One of the first stars on the flag was for South Carolina," replied Mrs. Carleton, "and this very fort was named for a defender of America's rights."

While Grace and Sylvia were so pleasantly occupied Estralla had wandered out, crossed the bridge which connected the officers' quarters with the fort, and now found herself near the landing-place, so that when Mrs. Carleton made the girls a cup of hot chocolate and looked about to give Estralla her share, the little colored girl was not to be seen.

"I'll call her," said Sylvia, and ran out on the veranda.

No response came to her calls, so she went down the steps and along the walk which led to the sand-bars, past the houses and barracks on Sullivan's island. No one was in sight whom she could ask if Estralla had pa.s.sed that way. She climbed a small sand-hill covered with stunted little trees and looked about, but could see no trace of the little darky. It had not occurred to Sylvia that Estralla would go back to the fort.

"Oh, dear! I wonder where she can be," thought Sylvia, calling "Estralla! Estralla!" and sure that if she was within hearing Estralla would instantly appear. As Sylvia climbed over the sandy slope she saw here and there a small green vine with glossy leaves and a tiny yellow blossom, and resolved to gather a bunch to carry back to Mrs. Carleton.

"When I give them to her I'll have a chance to say that Mr. Doane has the letter," she thought.

Wandering on in search of the flowers, she went further and further from the fort, up one sand slope and clown another, almost forgetting her search for Estralla, and finally deciding that it was time to go back to Mrs. Carleton.

"Probably Estralla is there before this, and they will be looking for me," she thought, and climbed another sandy slope, expecting to see the houses and barracks directly in front of her. But she found herself facing the open sea, and look which way she would there was only sh.o.r.e, sand heaps and blue water.

But Sylvia was not at all alarmed. She was sure that all she had to do was to follow the line of sh.o.r.e and she would soon be in sight of some familiar place, so she started singing to herself as she walked on:

"De big bee flies high, De little bee makes de honey,"

and hoping that Mrs. Carleton would not think that she had been careless in losing her way.

It was rather difficult walking. Her feet slipped in the sand, and after a little Sylvia decided not to follow the sh.o.r.e, but to climb back over the sand-hills.

A cold wind was now blowing from the water, and she was glad of the shelter of the stunted trees, and decided to rest for a little while.

"Of course I can't be lost, because I know exactly where I am. This is Sullivan Island, and the fort is right over there. I mustn't rest but a minute, for my father said we would start home early," she thought, and again started on, going directly away from the fort, and over sand-hills and into little sloping valleys farther and farther away from familiar places.

The December day drew to a close, and dusky shadows crept over the island. Once or twice Sylvia's wanderings had brought her back to the sh.o.r.e, but not until the darkness began to gather did she really understand that she was lost, and that she was too tired to walk much longer. She thought of the little compa.s.s on board the b.u.t.terfly, and wondered if a compa.s.s would help anyone find her way on land as well as on the sea. At last she began to call aloud: "Estralla! Estralla!"

feeling almost sure that, like herself, Estralla must be wandering about lost in the sand-hills.

It was nearly dark before she gave up trying to find her way to the fort, and, shivering and half afraid, crawled under the scraggly branches of some stunted trees on a sheltered slope. "My father will come and find me, I know he will," she said aloud, almost ready to cry.

"I'll wait here, and keep calling 'Estralla,' so he will hear me."

A few moments after Sylvia started to find Estralla Mrs. Carleton had been called to a neighbor's house. "Tell Sylvia I won't be gone long,"

she had said to Grace.

Grace did not mind being alone until Sylvia returned. She helped herself to the rich creamy chocolate and the little frosted cakes, and then curled up on a broad couch near the window with a book full of wonderful pictures. The pictures were of a tall man on horseback, and a short, fat man on a donkey. "The Adventures of Don Quixote," was the t.i.tle of the book, and after Grace began to read she entirely forgot Sylvia, Estralla, and Mrs. Carleton. And not until Mr. Fulton came into the room an hour later did she lift her eyes from the book.

"All ready to start!" said Mr. Fulton, "and it will be dusk before we reach home. Where is Sylvia?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Grace, looking up in surprise. "Hasn't she come back with Estralla? Mrs. Carleton has just gone to the next house."

"Well, put on your things and run after them, that's a good girl," said Mr. Fulton. "Why, here is Estralla now," he added, as the little colored girl appeared at the door. "Tell Miss Sylvia to come down to the landing; I'll meet you there," and he hurried away, thinking his little daughter was safe with Mrs. Carleton.

"Whar' is Missy Sylvia?" asked Estralla, who had been asleep in a sunny corner of the veranda for the last hour.

"Where is Sylvia?" echoed Mrs. Carleton, who came in at that moment.

"Has she gone to the boat?"

"Why, I don't know. Perhaps she has. Mr. Fulton said for us to come right to the landing," said Grace, her thoughts still full of the faithful Sancho Panza of whom she had been reading.

"I will go to the wharf with you. It was too bad to leave you. I must see Sylvia before she goes. Perhaps I may not be permitted to have visitors much longer," said Mrs. Carleton, and she and Grace left the pleasant room and, followed closely by Estralla, made their way over the bridge to the landing-place.