The little skiff whirled in the water almost in a semi-circle. By a miracle it escaped being completely run down by the launch. Yet a second later, before any one of the girls could stir, the water rushed into the hole in its side and it sank. Madge and Phyllis had had their oars wrenched from their hands. Then they found themselves struggling in the water.

A cry rose from the launch as the "Water Witch" and her pa.s.sengers disappeared. But there was no sound from the little rowboat, save the gurgle of the water and a shrill scream from Tania as the waves closed over her head.

The yacht swept on past, borne perhaps by her own headway.

As Madge went down under the water two thoughts seemed to come to her mind in the same second: she must look after Eleanor and Tania. Her cousin, Nellie, was not able to swim as well as the other girls. She had always been more nervous and timid in the water and was liable to sudden cramp. Madge knew that being hurled from a boat in such sudden fashion with her clothes on instead of a bathing suit would completely terrify Eleanor. She might lose her presence of mind completely and fail to strike out when she rose to the surface of the water. As for Tania, Madge was aware that she, of course, could not swim a stroke. The little one had never been in deep water before in her life.

Madge struggled for breath for a second as she came to the surface of the bay again. She had swallowed some salt water as she went down. In the next desperate instant she counted three heads above the waves besides her own. Phyllis was swimming quietly toward Eleanor. Evidently she had entertained Madge's fear. "Make for the 'Water Witch,' Nellie," Madge heard Phil say in her calm, cool-headed fashion. "It has overturned and come up again and we can hang on to that. Don't be frightened. I am coming after you. Try to float if your clothes are too heavy to swim.

I'll pull you to the boat."

Lillian's golden head reflected the light from the sun's rays as she swam along after Phil. But nowhere could Madge see a sign of a little, wild, black head with its straight, short locks and frightened black eyes.

She waited for another breathless moment. Why did Tania not rise to the surface like the rest of them? Madge was trying to tread water and to keep a sharp lookout about her, but her clothes were heavy and kept pulling her down; swimming in heavy shoes is an extremely difficult business, even for an experienced swimmer. All of a sudden it occurred to Madge that Tania might have risen under the overturned rowboat. Then her head would have struck against its bottom and she would have gone down again without ever having been seen.

There was nothing else to be done. Madge must dive down to see what had become of her little friend, yet diving was difficult when she had no place from which to dive. Madge knew she must get all the way down to the very bottom of the bay to see if by any chance Tania's body could have been entangled among the sea weed, or her clothes caught on a rock or snag.

Once down, she looked in vain for the little body along the sandy bottom of the bay. She espied some rocks covered with shimmering sh.e.l.ls and sea ferns, but there was no trace of Tania. For the second time she rose to the surface of the water. She hoped to see Tania's black head glistening among those of her older friends cl.u.s.tered about the overturned boat. She had grown very tired and was obliged to shake the water out of her eyes before she dared trust herself to look.

Then she saw that Phil had hold of one of Eleanor's hands and with the other was clinging to the slippery side of their overturned boat. Eleanor was numb with cold and shock. Although her free hand rested on the boat, Phil dared not let go of her for fear she would sink.

Phyllis was beginning to feel uneasy about Madge. She had given no thought to her during the early part of the accident, she knew Madge to be a water witch herself, but when the little captain did not come to the skiff with the rest of them Phil's heart grew heavy. What could she do?

Dare she let go her hold on Eleanor? Strangely enough, in their peril, Phyllis had given no thought to the little stranger, Tania.

Phyllis Alden breathed a happy sigh of relief when she saw Madge's curly, red-brown head moving along toward them.

"Have you seen Tania?" she called faintly, trying to reserve both her breath and her strength.

Then Phil remembered Tania with a rush of remorse and terror. "No, I haven't, Madge. What could have become of the child?" she faltered.

Lillian looked out over the water. Surely the launch that had wrecked them would have been able by this time to come back to their a.s.sistance.

The boat had stopped, but it had not moved near to them. So far, its crew showed no sign of giving them any aid. Lillian could not believe her eyes.

"I'd better dive for Tania again," said Madge quietly, without intimating to her chums that she was feeling a little tired and less sure of herself in the water than usual. She knew they would not allow her to dive.

When she went down for Tania the second time she chose a different place to make her descent. She must find the little girl at once.

She was swimming along, not many inches from the bottom of the bay, when she caught sight of what seemed to her a large fish floating near some rocks. Madge swam toward it slowly. It was Tania's foot, swaying with the motion of the water. Caught on a spar, which might have once been part of a mast of an old ship, was Tania's dress. On the other side of her was a rock, and her body had become wedged between the two objects. It was a beautiful place and might have been a cave for a mermaid, but it held the little earth-princess in a death-like grasp.

It is possible to be sick with fear and yet to be brave. Madge knew her danger. She saw that Tania's dress was caught fast. She would have to tug at it valiantly to get it away. First, she pulled desperately at Tania's shoe, hoping she could free her body. A suffocating weight had begun to press down on her chest. She could hear a roaring and buzzing in her ears. She knew enough of the water to realize that she had been too long underneath; she should rise to the surface again to get her breath. But she dared not wait so long to release Tania. Nor did she know that she could find the child again when she returned. She must do her work now.

So Madge pulled more slowly and carefully at Tania's frock, unwinding it from the spar that held it. With a few gentle tugs she released it and Tania's slender body rose slowly. The child's eyes were closed, her face was as still and white as though she were dead. Madge was glad of Tania's unconsciousness. She knew that in this lay the one chance of safety for herself and the child. If Tania came to consciousness and began to struggle the little captain knew that her strength was too far gone for her to save either the child or herself. She would not leave her. She would have to drown with her.

She caught the little girl by her black hair, and swam out feebly with her one free arm. At this moment Tania's black eyes opened wide. She realized their awful peril. She was only a child, and the fear of the drowning swept over her. She gave a despairing clutch upward, threw both her thin arms about Madge's neck and held her in a grasp of steel. For a second Madge tried to fight Tania's hands away. Then her strength gave out utterly. She realized that the end had come for them both.

CHAPTER IX

THE OWNER OF THE DISAGREEABLE VOICE

It may be that Madge had another second of consciousness. Afterward she thought she could recall being caught up by a giant, who unloosed Tania's hands from about her throat. Quietly the three of them began to float upward with such steadiness, such quietness, that she had that blessed sense of security and release from responsibility that a child must feel who has fallen asleep in its father's arms.

The first thing that she actually knew was, when she opened her eyes, to look into a pair of deep blue, kindly ones that were smiling bravely and encouragingly into hers. Near her were her three friends, looking very wet and miserable, and one little, dark-eyed elf who was sobbing bitterly. Farther away were two strange girls and one red-faced young man. Then Madge understood that she had been brought aboard the yacht that had run down their rowboat.

The little captain sat up indignantly. "I am quite all right," she said haughtily, looking with an unfriendly countenance at their wreckers.

Then, feeling strangely dizzy, she sank back and with a little sigh closed her eyes.

"Don't do that," protested Eleanor tragically. "You must not faint.

Captain Jules, please don't let her."

The old captain's strong hands took hold of Madge's cold ones. "Pull yourself together, my hearty," he whispered. "A girl who can dive down into the bottom of the bay as you can shows she has good sea-blood in her. She can see the old captain's diving suit any day she likes--own it if she has a mind to. Fishing for pearls isn't half so good a trade as fishing for a human life. You'll be yourself in a minute. Lucky I happened to walk down the beach in the same direction your boat went."

One of the two strange girls came to Madge's side at this moment with a cup of strong tea. "_Do_ drink this," she pleaded. "It has taken some time to make the water boil. I wish to give some to the other girls, too.

I am so sorry that we ran into you. You must know that it was an accident."

Madge drank the tea obediently, gazing a little less scornfully at the girl who was serving her, her face pale with fright and sympathy. The other girl stood apart at a little distance with a young man. They were both staring at the wet and shivering girls with poorly concealed amus.e.m.e.nt.

"We are awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," said Madge to the girl with the tea. She was trying to control her feelings when she caught sight of the owner of the small yacht and his friend and her temper got the better of her.

"I am sorry," she repeated, "that we are giving _you_ trouble. But, really, your motor launch had no right to bear down on our boat without blowing its whistle or giving the faintest sign of its approach. It put the whole responsibility of getting out of the way on us."

Madge was sitting beside the old captain. Her direct mode of attack showed that she was feeling more like herself.

"What the young lady says is true," declared Captain Jules with emphasis.

"I doubt if you have the faintest legal right to navigate a boat in these waters. If I hadn't happened to walk along down the sh.o.r.e of the bay after these young ladies left me two of them would have been drowned.

I'll have to see to it that you keep off this bay if you do any more such mischief as you did this morning."

The young man in a handsome yachting suit worthy of an admiral in the United States Navy frowned angrily at Madge and her champion.

"I say it wasn't my fault that I ran into your little paper boat," he protested angrily. "I gave you plenty of time to get out of my way, but you girls pulled so slowly that we did slide into you. Still, if you will admit that it was your fault and not mine, I will have your old skiff mended, if she isn't too much used up and you can get somebody to tow her back to land for you. I can't; I have enough to carry as it is."

The girl standing beside the young man giggled hysterically. Madge decided that she had heard her high, shrill notes before. Phyllis, Lillian and Eleanor were furiously angry at the young man's retort to Madge and Captain Jules, but they bit their lips and said nothing. They were on his yacht, although they were enforced pa.s.sengers; it was better not to express their feelings.

But Madge was in a white heat of pa.s.sion over the young man's boorish retort.

"It was not our fault in the least that we were run down," she said in a low, evenly pitched voice. "We are not willing to take the least bit of the blame. You not only ran into our little boat and sunk her, but you did not take the least trouble to come to our aid when you had not the faintest knowledge whether any one of us could swim. _Men_ in the part of the world where I come from don't do things of that kind. Put your boat back and tow our rowboat to land," ordered Madge imperiously. "We certainly will not allow you to have it mended. Neither my friends nor I wish to accept any kind of recompense from a man who is a _coward_!"

The word was out. Madge had not meant to use it, but somehow it slipped off her tongue.

"Steady," she heard the old sailor whisper in her ear. He was gazing at her intently, and something in his face calmed the hot tide of her anger.

"I am sorry I said you were a coward," she added, with one of her quick repentances. "I don't think you were very brave, but perhaps something may have happened that prevented your coming to our aid."

"Mr. Dennis does not swim very well," the nicer of the two girls explained, sitting down beside Madge. She was blushing and biting her lips. "Mr. Dennis meant to put back as soon as he could. I am Ethel Swann. I received a letter from Mrs. Curtis this morning, who is one of my mother's old friends. She wrote that she and her son would be down a little later to open their cottage, but she hoped that we would meet you girls before she came. I am so sorry that we have met first in such an unfortunate fashion."

"Oh, never mind," interrupted Madge impatiently. "If you are Ethel Swann, Mrs. Curtis has talked to us about you. We are very glad to know you, I am sure."

"These are my friends, Roy Dennis and Mabel Farrar," Ethel went on, her face flushing. The four girls bowed coldly. Mabel Farrar acknowledged the introduction by a stiff nod. The young man took off his cap for the first time when Madge introduced Captain Jules.