The seaman lifted his big head. His smile came slowly, wrinkling his face into heavy creases. "Good morning, mates," he called heartily. "Coming ash.o.r.e?"

"Oh, may we?" cried Madge in return. "We should _dearly_ love to!"

The five girls needed no further invitation. They piled out of the "Water Witch" before their host could come near enough to a.s.sist 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. "What a 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," interposed Madge, "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 sh.e.l.ls 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 fall quietly 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 manners of a gentleman, although he looked as rough and uncouth as a common sailor. There was a kind of n.o.bility 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 sh.o.r.e. "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 VIII

THE 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 us about 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 Cape May. 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 pa.s.sengers.

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 to slow 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.