"Hush! He'll hear you," cautioned Belle.

"Well, we want him to, don't we?" and he smiled at her.

Eagerly they gazed toward sh.o.r.e, but there was no sign of a human being around there. Lonely indeed was the little island in the midst of that blue sea, over which the setting sun cast golden shadows.

"Are you going ash.o.r.e?" asked Walter of Jack, in a low voice.

Somehow it seemed necessary to speak in hushed tones in that silent place.

"Indeed we're not--until morning!" put in Cora. "And don't you boys dare go and leave us alone," and she grasped her brother's arm in a determined clasp.

"I guess it will be better to wait until morning," agreed Jack.

Supper--or dinner, as you prefer--was served aboard, and then the searchers sat about and talked of the strange turn of events, while Jim and Joe, in the motor compartment, tinkered with the engine, which had not been running as smoothly, of late, as could be desired.

"I hope it doesn't go back on us," remarked Jack, half dubiously.

"Don't suggest such a thing," exclaimed his sister.

They agreed to go ash.o.r.e in the morning, and search for the marooned sailor supposed to be on Lonely Island. The night pa.s.sed quietly, though there were strange noises from the direction of the island.

Jack, and the others aboard the Tartar, which swung at anchor in the little coral encircled lagoon, said they were the noises of birds in the palm trees. But Slim Jim shook his head.

"That crazy sailor makes queer noises," he said.

"If he's there," suggested Walter.

In the morning they found him, after a short search. It was not at all difficult, for they came upon the unfortunate man in a clump of trees, under which he was huddled, eating something in almost animal fashion.

With Jack and Walter in the lead, the girls behind them, and Joe and Jim in the rear, they had set off on their man-hunt. They had not gone far from the sh.o.r.e before an agitation in the bushes just ahead of them attracted the attention of the two boys.

"Did you see something?" asked Walter.

"Something--yes," admitted Jack. "A bird, I think."

"But I didn't hear the flutter of wings."

"I don't know as to that. Anyhow, there are birds enough here. Come on."

They glanced back to where Bess had stopped to look at a beautiful orchid, in shape itself not unlike some bird of most brilliant plumage.

"Oh, if father could only see that!" she sighed. "It is too beautiful to pick."

Cora and her chums closed up to the boys, and then, as they made their way down a little gra.s.sy hill, into a sort of glade, Cora uttered a sudden and startled cry.

"Look!" she gasped, clutching Jack's arm in such a grip that he winced.

"Where?" he asked.

"Right under those trees."

And there they saw him--the lonely sailor, crouched down, eating something as--yes, as a dog might eat it! So far had he fallen back to the original scale--if ever there was one.

Some one of the party trod on a stick, that broke with a loud snap-almost like a rifle shot in that stillness. The lone sailor looked up, startled, as a dog might, when disturbed at gnawing a bone. Then he remained as still and quiet as some stone.

"That's him," said the negro sailor, and though he meant to speak softly, his voice seemed fairly to boom out. At the sound of it, the hermit was galvanized into life. He dropped what he had been eating, and slowly rose from his crouching att.i.tude. Then he turned slowly, so as to face the group of intruders on his island fastness. He seemed to fear they would vanish, if he moved too suddenly--vanish as the figment of some dream.

"Poor fellow," murmured Cora. "Speak to him, Jack. Say something."

"I'm afraid of' frightening him more. Wait until he wakes up a bit."

"He does act like some one just disturbed from a sleep," spoke Walter. "Maybe you girls--"

"Oh, we're not afraid," put in Bess, quickly.

Not with all this protection, and she looked from the boys to the two st.u.r.dy men.

Now the lonely sailor was moving more quickly. He straightened up, more like the likeness and image of man as he was created, and took a step forward. Finding, evidently, that this did not dissipate the images, he pa.s.sed his hand in front of his face, as though brushing away unseen cobwebs. Then he fairly ran toward the group.

"Look out!" warned Joe. But there was nothing to fear. When yet a little distance off, the man fell on his knees, and, holding up his hands, in an att.i.tude of supplication cried out in a hoa.r.s.e voice:

"Don't say you're not real. Oh, dear G.o.d, don't let 'em say that!

Don't let 'em be visions of a dream! Don't, dear G.o.d!"

"Oh, speak to him, Jack!" begged Cora. "He thinks it's a vision.

Tell him we are real--that we've come to take him away--to find out about our own dear ones--speak to him!"

There was no need. Her own clear voice had carried to the lonely sailor, and had told him what he wanted to know.

"They speak! I hear them! They are real. And now, dear G.o.d, don't let them go away!" he pleaded.

"We're not going away!" Jack called. "At least not until we help you--if we can. Come over here and tell us all about it. Are you from the Ramona?"

"The Ramona, yes. But if--if you're from her--if you've come to take me back to her, I'm not going! I'd rather die first. I won't go back! I won't be a pirate! You sha'n't make me! I'll stay here and die first."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE REVENUE CUTTER

The story told by Ben Wrensch--for such proved to be the name of the lonely sailor-cannot be set down as he told it. In the first place, there was little of chronological order about it, and in the second place he was interrupted so often by Cora, or one of the others, asking questions, or he interrupted himself so frequently, that it would be but a disjointed narrative at best. So, I have seen fit to abridge it, and tell it in my own.

As a matter of fact, the questions Cora, her girl chums, or the boys asked, only tended to throw more light on the strange affair, whereas the interruptions of Ben himself were more dramatic. He was so afraid that it was all a dream that, he would awaken from it only to find himself alone again.

"But you are real, aren't you, now?" he would ask, pathetically.

"Of course," said Cora, with a gentle smile.