"And what do you know about the 'B. C.'? Caesar must have known they were going to change the calendar," chuckled Neale. "And the same informality of spelling. It seems Caesar and Columbus must have gone to the same school."

"And," said Agnes, gravely, but with dancing eyes, "if we accept the one as _bona fide_, then we must believe this one, too. This turtle is nearly two thousand years old."

"O-oo!" gasped Tess.

"'Julius Caesar' is the name of Bill Monnegan, the coal man's, horse,"

declared Dot. "And that horse never could have cut those letters into that turtle. So I guess it is maybe a joke, isn't it?"

"It must be a joke," laughed Ruth. Then, quite seriously, she added: "But think! Maybe this island isn't always deserted. Perhaps other people have been here and will come again."

"These turtles travel many hundreds of miles, Ruth," Neale said quietly.

"This discovery, I guess, offers no particular hope that we shall have visitors. But, of course, we'll get that old engine to working before long."

CHAPTER XVII

LOOKING FOR ADVENTURE

Imagine becoming bored on a desert island in the tropics! But that is exactly what happened in the case of Dot Kenway. Nor was Tess in much finer fettle on the fourth morning of their sojourn on Palm Island.

"I wish we had Tom Jonah here. Or even Billy b.u.mps," said Tess to her smaller sister. "There isn't really much to play with on this place but turtles. And they only lie on their backs and wave their paws at you."

"It is too bad we didn't bring that rabbit along that Sammy Pinkney gave us for Christmas," said Dot, quite as ruefully.

"That old Belgian hare!"

"We-ell, the Belgians are all right, I guess. They live over there in Europe."

"I guess that rabbit never came from Bel-Belgia, or whatever that place is called," said Tess.

"And we don't even know _his_ name," went on Dot. "We came away so soon after Christmas, and it snowed in between, that I didn't see that rabbit at all. But Uncle Rufus said it had a good appet.i.te."

"I'm hungry myself," announced Tess, rather despondently. "If I tell Ruth she'll only give me some funny fruit and tell me to eat it and be thankful."

"M-mm. I know," rejoined Dot, appreciating this. "But how can you be thankful for something you don't want? Now, if I had a piece of bread and b.u.t.ter--"

"Oh! And with honey on it!"

"No. Apricot jam. I like that better."

"Of all the stingy children!" exclaimed Tess, in a strangely quarrelsome mood for her. "When I want honey!"

"Can't you have honey if you want to? And me have apricot jam? It's only in our minds, anyway," mourned Dot, hugging up the Alice-doll. "Say, Tess, let's do something."

"What is there to do in this place?" repeated her sister despondently.

"Mr. Howbridge and Luke and Neale have gone hunting for springs again.

Ruth told them she had just got to have fresh water. I don't know what for," Dot remarked. "They have almost got the engine fixed. I heard Neale say so. Let us go see it."

This suggestion for action was better than no action at all. Tess agreed, and, unseen by the older girls, the two little ones made their way down to the rocky cove where the Isobel lay. She was not even at anchor now, for the anchor had been raised and the motor-boat drawn very close in to the rocks, as it was high tide. The log still lay like a gangplank from the rock to the forward part of the Isobel.

The boys and Mr. Howbridge had gone away and left the motor-boat in rather a precarious situation, but quite without realizing it. The tide was rising and that served to lift the log and make it rather unsafe for Tess and Dot to pa.s.s over; and when the little girls had done so, splash! The log fell into the water between the boat and the sh.o.r.e.

"O-oo! Now see what we've done," gasped Dot.

"Never mind. Neale will find another. And we can stay here till he comes back," Tess declared.

She did not notice, however, that the accident had brought a sudden strain upon the single line that bound the boat to the sh.o.r.e. This mooring was not very skillfully made, for neither Neale nor Luke were practical sailors, and so were not professional rope-knotters.

At any rate, with the falling of the log the hull of the _Isobel_ strained at the small hawser, and that rope loosened, almost imperceptibly at first, from the rock around which it had been looped.

Tess and Dot did not see this. They got down into the c.o.c.kpit, and from that place they could not see the rocks without standing up, nor could they be seen themselves from the sh.o.r.e.

The motor-boat rose and fell rather pleasantly upon the surface of the inlet. The tide had now risen to its highest point, and as it turned and began to recede, naturally everything afloat in the little cove began to drift out to sea. The log that had served as a gangplank between the _Isobel_ and the sh.o.r.e went first, but soon the motor-boat likewise got into the tide and blundered out through the mouth of the narrow estuary.

Strange as it may seem, the two smallest Corner House girls did not discover what had happened until the bobbing motor-boat was quite a long way from the island. It was then the freshening wind, that made the boat "joggle," which first annoyed Dot Kenway.

"I wish this boat would stay still, Tess," she complained. "Let's go back to the land. I feel all joggled up inside me."

Tess jumped up. "Why-ee!" she gasped. "Where-where is Palm Island?"

"Where is what?" her sister demanded, likewise scrambling to her feet.

They were both facing seaward. There were islands in that direction, but smaller ones, and, it seemed to Tess and Dot, a vast distance away! Tess whirled around. Palm Island was behind them. The motor-boat was blundering away from their refuge and their sisters and their friends!

If Dot and Tess had been looking for adventure, they certainly had found it this time.

"Is that Plam Island?" Dot demanded.

"Of course it is."

"But-but what's it doing 'way over there?" quavered Dot. "I thought we were tied to it."

"We came untied I guess," said Tess, despondently, seeing the rope dragging over the boat's rail. "Oh, dear me!"

"I told you I didn't like this place, Tess Kenway!" stormed Dot. "And now see what's happened to us. Ruthie will be awful mad."

But Tess knew that Ruth would experience a different emotion from anger.

As long as the boat remained on even keel Tess did not see how much harm could come to them. But suppose they b.u.mped into something?

"Let's shout!" she urged, climbing upon one of the seats. "Maybe they will hear us."

But the wind was blowing from the direction of Palm Island, and that and the tide carried the _Isobel_ away from their friends, and carried the sound of their shrill voices away, too.

It was an hour later before anybody on Palm Island imagined that anything out of the way had befallen Tess and Dot Kenway.