The weather was calm enough now, save for a heavy ground swell. The waters were marvelously blue, and overhead was the blue sky. Seen against the background of the wonderfully tinted hills of palms, the city of San Juan presented a most beautiful picture.

"Well, let's get busy," suggested Jack, and it was only by keeping thus occupied, mentally and physically, that he and his sister, as well as the twins, were enabled not to succ.u.mb to the grief that racked them. Belle, rather more nervous and temperamental than her sister, did give way to a little hysterical crying spell, as they were on their way back to the marina from the steamer, but this was due merely to a reaction.

"Don't, dear," said Cora, softly. "We'll find them, never fear!"

She put her arms about her chum, and Inez slipped a slim brown hand into one of Belles. Then the wave of emotion pa.s.sed, and the girl was herself again.

"Are you going out for a long cruise?" asked Walter, "or shall you come back to San Juan from time to time? I ask, because I want to send word to my folks not to worry, if they don't hear from me very often."

"I think we'll cruise as long as we can," said Cora, who had a.s.sumed as much of the burden of the search as had her brother. "If the Tartar is large enough to allow us to take a big enough supply--of provisions and stores, we'll cruise until we--well, until we find out for certain what has happened."

Her voice faltered a little.

"Oh, the Tartar's big enough, Senorita," said the engineer of the motor boat in which they were making their way to sh.o.r.e. "You could go for a long cruise in her."

"Then we'll plan that," declared Jack. "Notify your folks accordingly, Wally."

"I shall. But you'll have to have help along, if she's as big as all that, won't you?"

"I suppose so," agreed Jack. "I'm not altogether up to the mark, if it comes to tinkering with a big, balky motor."

"I'd like to go as engineer," said the man at the wheel. "I've often run her, and I know her ways. If you were to ask the owner, Senor Hendos, he'd let me go."

The young people had taken a liking to Joe Alcandor, the obliging young engineer of the motor boat they had engaged to go out to the steamer, and Jack made up his mind, since he had to have help aboard the Tartar, to get this individual.

"This is a strange ending to our happy holiday," said Cora, with a sigh, as they left the boat and walked up the steps at the water's edge of the marina. The outing, up to now, had been a most happy one, once Jack's improvement in health was noticed.

"It hasn't ended yet," said Jack, significantly. "There's more ahead of us than behind us."

"I hope more happiness," said Cora, softly.

"Of course," whispered Jack.

They told Joe they would see Senor Hendos, and arrange with him for chartering the Tartar. Then, in two hacks, they made their way back to the hotel. All of them were anxious to get started on the cruise that might mean so much. "Do you really mean you'll take me wiz you?" asked Inez, of Cora, as they entered the hotel.

"Of course, my dear! I wouldn't think of leaving you," was the warm answer. "And we need you with us. Besides, you heard what Jack said about your father."

"Oh, will he try to rescue him?"

"I'm sure he will, if it's at all possible."

Something of the news concerning the young Americans was soon current in the hotel, and Cora and her friends were favored with many strange glances, as they walked through the foyer.

"We must thank Senor Ramo for his kindness in giving us the note to the captain,"' said Cora, ever thoughtful of the nice little courtesies of life.

"Indeed we must," agreed Belle, who had quite recovered her composure, and, save for a suspicious redness of the eyes, showed little of the grief at her heart.

Indeed, they were all rather stunned by the suddenness of the news, and only for the fact that under it lay a great hope, they would not have been able to hear up as well as they did.

The blow was a terrible one--to think that their loved ones were lost in a shipwreck! But there was that merciful hope--that eternal hope, ever springing up to take away the bitterness of death or despair.

There was, too, the necessity of work--hard work, if they were to go off on an unknown and uncertain cruise. And work is, perhaps, even better than hope, to mitigate grief.

So, though the sorrow would have been a terrible one, and almost unbearable, were it not for the ray of light and hope, they were able to hold themselves well together--these young Americans in a strange land.

"Jack, perhaps you had better go and thank Senor Ramo at once,"

suggested Cora. "He may be able to give you some good advice, too, about fitting up the Tartar for the cruise. He seems to know a great deal about these islands."

"I'll see him at once," agreed her brother. "Just send up my card to him, please," he requested the hotel clerk.

"To whom, Senor?"

"To Mr. Ramo."

"But he is not here--he is gone!"

"Gone?" Jack looked at the clerk blankly.

"Yes. He left, Senor, soon after you went away. He said business called him."

"That is strange," murmured Jack.

Inez, who had heard what was said, looked curiously at Cora, and then exclaimed:

"Ze papairs--for my father's release!"

A look of alarm showed in her face, as she hurried toward the stairway that led to her room.

CHAPTER XVII

OFF IN THE "TARTAR"

"What's the matter?" asked Walter, quickly, as he saw Inez hurrying away. "She see alarmed about something."

"She is--or fancies she is," answered Cora. "It's about those papers which she hopes will free her father of that political charge which keeps him locked up--poor man."

"Did she lose them?"

"No, but as soon as she heard that Senor Ramo had left suddenly, she a.s.sociated it with the taking of her doc.u.ments, evidently."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Walter.

"That's what I say," added Cora. "But we mustn't make fun of Inez--she can't bear it."

"Of course not. Besides, I guess none of us feel very much like making fun," went on Walter.