They were coming down to the dock, one evening to take a boat out to their own craft, when an aged colored man, who spoke fairly good English, accosted them. At first Jack took him for a beggar, and gruffly ordered him away, but the fellow insisted.

"I've got news for you, boss," he said, with a curious British c.o.c.kney accent. "You lookin' for shipwrecked parties, ain't you?"

"Yes," said Jack, a bit shortly. But that was common news.

"Well, there's an island about fifty miles from here," the black went on, "and there's somethin' bloomin' stringe about it;" for so he p.r.o.nounced "strange."

"Strange--what do you mean?" asked Walter.

"Just what I says, boss, stringe. If you was to say it'd be worth arf a crown now--"

"Oh, I haven't time to bother with curiosities!" exclaimed Jack, impatiently.

"Let us hear his story, Jack," insisted Cora. "What is it?" she asked, giving him a coin, though not as much as he had asked for.

"'Thank ye kindly, Miss. It's this way," said, the colored Englishman. "I works on a fishin' boat, and a few days ago, comin'

back, we sighted this island. We needed water, and we went ash.o.r.e to get it, but--well, we comes away without it."

"Why was that?" asked Walter, curiously.

"Because, boss, there's a strange creature on that island, that's what there is," said the negro. "He scared all of us stiff. He was all in rage and t.i.tters, and when he found we was sheering off, without coming ash.o.r.e, he went wild, and flung his cap at us. It floated off sh.o.r.e, and I picked it up, bein' on that side of the boat."

"But how does this concern us?" asked Jack, rousing a little.

"I could show you that cap, boss," the Negro went on. "I've got it here. It's dark, but maybe you can make out the letters on it. I can't read very good."

Jack held the cap up in the gleam of a light on the water-front. His startled eyes saw a cap, such as sailors wear, while in faded gilt letters on the band was the name: "RAMONA."

CHAPTER XXII

THE LONELY ISLAND

Walter, looking over Jack's shoulder, rubbed his eyes as though to clear them from a mist, and then, as he saw the faded gilt letters, he closed both eyes, opening them again quickly to make sure of a perfect vision.

"Jack!" he murmured. "Do I really see it?"

"I--I guess so," was the faltering answer.

"Cora, look here!"

The girls, who had drawn a little aside at the close approach of the negro, came up by twos, Cora and Belle walking together.

"What is it?" asked Jack's sister, thinking perhaps the man had made a second charity appeal to her brother, and that he wanted her advice on it.

"Look," said Jack simply, and he extended the cap.

As Walter had done, Cora was at first unable to believe the word she saw there.

"The--Ramona," she faltered.

"The steamer mother and father sailed on?" asked Belle, her face pale in the lamp-light.

"The same name, at any rate," remarked Walter, in a low voice. "And there would hardly be two alike in these waters."

"But what does it mean? Where did he get the cap?" asked Cora, her voice rising with her excitement. "Tell me, Jack!"

"He says it was flung to him by some sort of an insane sailor, I take it, on a lonely island."

"That's it, Missie," broke in the man, his tone sufficiently respectful. "Me and my mates, as I was tellin' the boss here," and he nodded at Jack, "started to fill our water casks, but we didn't stay to do it arter we saw this chap. Fair a wild man, I'd call 'im, Missie. That's what I would. Fair a wild man!"

"And he flung you this cap?"

"That's what he done, Missie. Chucked it right into the tea, Missie, jest like it didn't cost nothin', and it was a good cap once."

It was not now, whatever it had been, for it bore evidence of long sea immersion, and the band had been broken and cracked by the manner in which the negro fisherman had crammed it into his pocket.

"Jack!" exclaimed Cora, in a strangely agitated voice. "We must hear more of this story. It may be--it may be a clue!"

"That's what I'm thinking."

A little knot of idlers had gathered at seeing the negro talking to the group of white 'young people, and Walter and Jack, exchanging glances mutually decided that the rest of the affair might better be concluded in seclusion. Jack gave the negro a hasty but comprehensive glance.

"Shall we take him aboard, Cora?" he asked his sister. Jack was very willing to defer to Cora's opinion, for he had, more than once, found her judgment sound. And, in a great measure, this was her affair, since she had been invited first by the Robinsons, and Jack himself was only a sort accidental after-thought.

"I think it would be better to take him to the Tartar," Cora said.

"We can question him there, and, if necessary, we can--"

She hesitated, and Jack asked:

"Well, what? Go on!"

"No, I want to think about it first," she made reply. "Wait until we girls hear his story."

"Will you come to our motor boat?" asked Jack of the sailor, who said he was known by the name of Slim Jim, which indeed, as far as his physical characteristics were concerned, fitted him perfectly. He was indeed slim, though of rather a pleasant cast of features.

"Sure, boss, I'll go," he answered. "Of course I might git a job by hangin' around here, but--"

"Oh, we'll pay you for your time--you won't lose anything." Jack interrupted. Indeed the man had, from the first, it seemed, accosted him with the idea of getting a little "spare-change" for, like most of the negro population of the Antilles, he was very poor.

"But what's it all about?" asked Bess, who had not heard all the talk, and who, in consequence, had not followed the significance of the encounter.

"Zey have found a man, who says a sailor on some island near here, wore a cap with ze name of your mozer's steamer," put in Inez, who, with the quickness of her race, had gathered those important facts.

"Oh!" gasped Bess.