"Sure," Torry rejoined. "We want to see some fighting."

"'Tis not fighting you-uns'll see," croaked the woman. "Old Mag tells you, and she knows. Yo' fine, big ship will go down in the midst of the seas and her crew with her. Better yo' luck if it happens befo' yo' git back to her already."

"You don't mean that?" Whistler cried.

"I'm a-tellin' yo' so," said the queer old woman. "Old Mag knows mo'

than other folks. Oh, yes! She'll sink. Better yo' boys stay ash.o.r.e."

"What do you know about 'the witch's warning'?" whispered Torry to Whistler. "She thinks she's got second sight. Knows more than anybody else. She's like one of the Seven Sutherland Sisters--she prophesies."

"Shucks!" chuckled Whistler in the same cautious tone, "they weren't prophetesses; they sold hair restorer."

But to himself Whistler muttered:

"Maybe she does know more than we do. But how does she know it? There's something awfully queer about this whole business."

CHAPTER XXI

THE EXPLANATION

Although Whistler was quite sure "Old Mag," as she called herself, possessed no powers of divination, he knew she did have certain knowledge that he considered she had no moral right to have.

Here she was, an ignorant old creature living on a well nigh uninhabited island off an isolated coast, with some mysterious means of information upon subjects that she should know nothing about.

She claimed not to have seen the other party of castaways; yet she knew at once that Mr. MacMasters and his companions were from a craft that had been blown up miles away from her cabin, and completely out of sight and hearing of this island.

Whistler did not believe any fishing boat, or other craft, had brought this information to Mag. There had been no vessel in sight when the _Kennebunk's_ tender was blown up by the floating mine.

The sc.r.a.p of a letter addressed to "Herr Franz Linder" he had found in the cabin connected the old crone, in Whistler's mind, with the German spy system. She was of Teutonic extraction herself.

Clearly the old woman was trying to befool her visitors. She probably possessed some local celebrity as a witch or wise woman.

Whistler, however, was not ready to believe her any wiser than her neighbors.

He thought out the matter back to the time the auxiliary steamer was blown up in the channel between the islands. The wireless operator sent out S O S messages till the very last. Small as the radius of the instrument was, a station along the adjacent coast would surely pick up the cry for help.

It was an important thought, but he had no time that evening to mention it to Mr. MacMasters. He and Torry shared one of the wide and fishy smelling bunks together, and they did not wake up until it was broad daylight.

There was a heavy smell of rank, boiling coffee in the air. Bacon was sizzling over the fire and a huge corn pone was baking on a plank before the coals. Mag did not propose to starve her guests, that was sure.

The sun had burst through the clouds and the gale had ceased. The surf still thundered upon the outer sh.o.r.es of the island; but the sound, upon which the cabin fronted, was smooth and sparkling. It was a pretty view from the cabin door.

And almost at once, when Whistler and his chum ran out of the cabin to look about, they saw a number of familiar figures approaching along the rock-strewn sh.o.r.e. These newcomers were as shabby and bedraggled as themselves, and it was easy to identify them.

"Here they come!" yelled Torry, and rushed toward the approaching party.

Whistler was not behind him; but when they reached the refugees they discovered that Mr. MacMasters was already with them. The ensign had been up since before dawn and had searched out Mr. Mudge and his companions at the other end of the island.

"Oi, oi!" wailed Ikey Rosenmeyer, meeting the older boys. "Such a time!

I swallowed enough salt water to make me a pickled herring yet!" Ikey could not get away from memories of the delicatessen shop.

"By St. Patrick's piper that played the last snake out of Ireland!" was Frenchy Donahue's complaint, "it was holdin' a wake over you two fellers, we was, all the night long."

"Where did you put in the night, anyway?" asked Whistler.

"Say! we didn't have no more home than a rabbit," cried Ikey.

"After we got ash.o.r.e," began Frenchy, when Torry interrupted to ask:

"How did you do that? Give us the particulars."

"Why, when you fellers went off and left us without sayin' 'by your leave,' even----"

"What's that?" growled Whistler. "You know that hawser snapped."

"Just the same you parted company from us mighty brusk," grinned Frenchy. "We drifted in with the tide. Mr. Mudge took a line ash.o.r.e--Oh, boy! he's some swimmer. So we followed him along the line, hand over hand----"

"And head under water," grunted Ikey. "Oi, oi!"

"Aw, Ike would kick if you was hangin' him," scoffed Frenchy, "unless you tied his feet. We all got out of the water safe, and that's enough.

The wind and the rain beat us so that we went up into the woods for shelter. And then we found a clearing and in it a cabin."

"Ah-ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Whistler. "Another cabin like this one?"

"Not on your life!" said Frenchy.

"No," added Ikey. "Nothing like it."

"It was a little cabin without any windows, and the door was padlocked.

We couldn't get into it; but we camped there in the clearing all night.

I'm as soggy right now as a sponge."

"There was a flagstaff sticking out of the roof of the cabin," Ikey observed. "And somebody must have thought a deal of whatever's in the shack, by the size of the padlock on the door."

There was a call to breakfast from the cabin just then. Whistler slipped aside and caught Mr. MacMasters' attention.

"Something mysterious, Morgan?" asked the ensign, observing Whistler's expression of countenance.

The young fellow briefly related what the old woman had said to him and Torry the night before, and then told the officer of the suspicions that her words had aroused in his mind.

In addition, he told Mr. MacMasters what Frenchy and Ikey had said about the locked cabin in the woods. Whistler put great stress upon this matter.

"Why, I did not see the cabin myself, although Mudge mentioned it," said the ensign. "I met them marching out of the woods up along the sh.o.r.e yonder."

"Can't we find that cabin and have a look at it?" urged Whistler earnestly.