"I wonder if we couldn't sleep out on deck?"

"Yes, we could have the mattresses brought up," said Cousin Jasper. "I have often slept on the deck of my own boat."

"Some of the crew are going to, they tell me," Captain Crane said.

"Then we will," Mr. Bobbsey decided. "It will be more like camping out.

And it certainly is very hot, even with the sun down."

"We may have a thunderstorm in the night," the captain said, "but we can sleep out until then."

So the mattresses and bed covers were brought up from the stateroom.

"This is a new kind of camping out, isn't it?" remarked Flossie, as she viewed the bringing up of the bed things with great interest.

"It's a good deal like moving, I think," answered Freddie. "Only, of course, we haven't got any moving van to load the things on to."

"What would you do with a moving van out here on a boat?" demanded Bert.

"I could put it on another boat--one of those flat ones, like they have down at New York, where the horses and wagons walk right on," insisted Freddie, thinking of a ferryboat.

"Well, we haven't any such boats around here, so we'd better not have any moving vans either," remarked Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh.

"I don't want to move anywhere, anyway," said Flossie. "I'm too tired to do it. I'm going to stay right where I am."

"Oh, so'm I going to stay!" cried Freddie quickly. "Come on--let us make our beds right over here," and he caught up one of the smaller mattresses. He struggled to cross the deck with it, but got his feet tangled up in one end, and pitched headlong.

"Look out there, Freddie Bobbsey, or you'll go overboard!" cried his brother, as he rushed to the little boy's a.s.sistance.

"If I went overboard, could I float on the mattress?" questioned Freddie, as he scrambled to his feet.

"I don't think so," answered his father. "And, anyway, I wouldn't try it."

Presently the mattresses and bedcovers were distributed to everyone's satisfaction, and then all lay down to rest.

For a time, Flossie and Freddie, as well as Nan and Bert, tossed about, but at last they fell asleep. It was very quiet on the sea, the only noise being the lapping of the waves against the sides of the _Swallow_.

Mrs. Bobbsey was just falling into a doze when there was a sudden splash in the water, and a loud cry.

"Man overboard! Man overboard!" some one yelled.

"Oh, if it should be one of the children!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. For, no matter whether it is a boy, girl or woman that falls off a ship at sea, a sailor will always call: "'Man' overboard!" I suppose that is easier and quicker to say.

"Who is it? What's the matter?" cried Mr. Bobbsey, awakened suddenly from his sleep.

There was more splashing in the water alongside the boat, and then Captain Crane turned on a lamp that made the deck and the water about very light.

"Jim Black fell overboard," answered Mr. Chase, the engineer. "He got up to draw a bucket of water to soak his head in so he could cool off, and he reached over too far."

"Is he all right?" asked Captain Crane.

"Yes, I'm all right," was the answer of the sailor himself. "I feel cooler now."

At this the older people laughed.

He had fallen in with the clothes on, in which he had been sleeping, but as soon as he struck the water he swam up, made his way to the side of the ship, grabbed a rope that was hanging over the side, and pulled himself to the deck.

"My! what a fright I had!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I thought one of the children had rolled into the ocean!"

"That couldn't happen," said Captain Crane. "There is a strong railing all about the deck."

"Well, it's cooler now," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I think I'll take the twins and go to our regular beds."

She did this and was glad of it, for a little later a thunderstorm broke, and it began to rain, driving every one below. The rest of the night the storm kept up, and though the thunder was loud and the lightning very bright, the rain did one good service--it made the next day cooler.

"Well, shall we go ash.o.r.e again?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, when breakfast had been eaten aboard the _Swallow_.

"Oh, yes!" cried the twins. "We want to go swimming again!"

"And I'm going to watch out for 'mud turkles,'" said Flossie, as she called them.

Once more they went to the beach of Palm Island, and they had dinner on the shady sh.o.r.e. In the afternoon, leaving the engineer and his helpers on board to work away at the motor, the whole party of travelers, Captain Crane, Cousin Jasper and all, started on a walk to the other side of the island. This took them out of sight of the boat.

They found many pretty things at which to look--flowers, a spring of sweet water where they got a drink, little caves and dells, and a place where hundreds of birds made their nests on a rocky cliff. The birds wheeled and soared about, making loud noises as they saw the Bobbsey twins and the others near their nests.

It was along in the afternoon when they went back to the beach where they had eaten, and where they were to have supper. Bert, who had run on ahead around a curve in the woodland path, came to a stop on the beach.

"Why--why!" he cried. "She's gone! The _Swallow_ is gone!" and he pointed to the little bay.

The motor boat was no longer at anchor there!

CHAPTER XIX

AWAY AGAIN

"What's that you say?" asked Captain Crane. "The _Swallow_ gone?"

"She isn't there," Bert answered. "But maybe that isn't the bay where she was anch.o.r.ed. Maybe we're in the wrong place."

"No, this is the place all right," said Cousin Jasper. "But our boat _is_ gone!"

There was no doubt of it. The little bay that had held the fine, big motor boat was indeed empty. The small boat was drawn up on the sand, but that was all.

"Where can it have gone?" asked Mr. Bobbsey. "Did you know the men we left on it were going away, Captain Crane?"

"No, indeed, I did not! I can't believe that Mr. Chase and the others have gone, and yet the boat isn't here."