LEFT ALONE
The flood of radiance from the electric light shone from Cora's room,
into that where Belle was, and with the gleam of the modern illumination,
Cora's bravery grew apace.
"What did you say, Belle?" she asked, now quite wide awake. "Are you
ill?"
"No, but, oh! I'm so frightened. There's some one in my room! I'm
sure of it!"
"Nonsense!"
"I tell you I can hear some one walking around!" insisted Belle.
"Did you get up and look?" asked Cora.
"Did I get up? Indeed I did not!" was the indignant answer. "I'm
scared stiff as it is."
"And you want me to look?" murmured Cora.
"Oh, but you have your light lit, Cora dear. And really I am afraid
to get up. Do come and see what it is. Perhaps it's only one of
those large fruit bats that Inez told us about."
"A bat! Indeed I'll not come in and have it get tangled in my hair!"
objected Cora. "I'm going to call some one of the hotel help."
But there was no need, for Jack, whose room was across the corridor
from that of his sister, heard the talking, and, getting into a
dressing gown and slippers, he knocked at Cora's door.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Belle thinks she hears something in her room."
"It's in mine, now," called out Bess, whose apartment was beyond that
of her sister.
"Open the door, and I'll have a look," suggested Jack,
good-naturedly.
"Wait a minute," Cora said, and, slipping into a robe, she admitted
her brother.
"Now we'll see what's going on," he promised.
"Cover up your heads, girls," he called to Bess and Belle, as he and
Cora went into the room of the latter. "If it's a villain, you won't
get nervous when you see me squelch him."
"Oh!" faintly murmured Belle, as she pulled the covers over her head.
Jack groped for the electric switch and found it, making light
Belle's room.
"I don't see a thing," he announced, looking carefully about.
"It is in here!" said Bess, faintly. "I can hear it walking about.
It's rattling some papers in a corner of my room."
Jack and Cora went on through to the farther apartment, and Jack,
turning on the light there, approached a pile of paper Bess had
tossed in one corner after unwrapping some purchases made during the
day.
"Look out!" warned Cora, while Bess adopted the same protective
measures as had her sister. "It may be a rat--or--or something!"
"Most likely--something," said Jack. He began picking up piece after
piece of paper, and then he suddenly uttered an exclamation.
"Ah! Would you!" he snapped, and, standing on one foot, he took the
slipper from the other, holding his bare member carefully off the
floor, while he slapped viciously at the pile of papers with his
bedroom weapon.
"Got him!" he announced triumphantly, after two or three blows.
"What was it--a bat?" asked Bess, in muffled tones.
"A centipede," answered Jack. "A big one, too. About seven inches
long."
"And their bite is--death!" murmured Bess, in awe-stricken tones.
"Nothing of the sort, though it's very painful" said Jack, shortly.
"Just as well to keep clear of them, however. I'll throw this
defunct specimen out of the window."
"Please do, and be sure my screen is down," begged Bess. "I wonder
how he got in?"
"Oh, there are more or less of them in all hotels, I guess," said
Jack, cheerfully enough.
"Don't you dare say so!" cried Belle. "Please look around my room,
and leave the light burning. I know I'll never sleep a wink."
Jack tossed out the centipede he had killed, and then looked among
the waste paper for more, standing with his bare foot raised, and
with ready slipper, for the bite of this insect, which grows to a
large size in Porto Rico, is anything but pleasant, though it is said
never to cause death, except perhaps in the case of some person whose
blood is very much impoverished.
Both Bess and Belle insisted on their lights being left aglow, though
Jack made a careful search and could discover no more of the
unpleasant visitors. How Belle had heard the one in her room, if it
really had been that which she said made the noise, was a mystery,
but the creature might have rattled paper as it did in the room of
Bess.
"Call me if you want anything more, Sis," said Jack to his sister, as
he started back to his own apartment. And then, as he was about to
close, Cora's door Jack looked fixedly at a place on the floor near
her bureau, and with a muttered exclamation hurried toward it.
"Oh! what is it?" his sister begged, alarmed at the look on his face.
"Another one--trying to hide," he murmured.
Off came his slipper again and there followed a resounding whack on
the floor.
"Got that one, too!" Jack announced, and then, as Coral made brave by
the declaration of the death, came closer, she uttered a cry.
"Jack Kimball!" she gasped, accusingly, "you've broken my best
barrette," and she picked up from the floor the shattered fragments
of a dark celluloid hair comb, which had fallen from the bureau.
"Barrette," murmured Jack, in dazed tones.
"Yes--a sort of side comb, only it goes in the back."
"Well, it looked just like a centipede trying to hide under the
bureau," Jack defended himself. "Is it much damaged?"
"Damaged? It's utterly ruined," sighed Cora. "Never mind, Jack, you
meant all right," and she smiled at her brother.
"Oh, dear! I don't believe I'm going to like it here, even if the
waters are such a heavenly blue."
"What was it--another?" demanded Belle.
"It was my barrette, my dear," laughed Cora.
"Come, young folks! You must quiet down," came the voice of Cora's
mother from the next room. "What's all the excitement about?"
"Just--insects," said Jack, with a chuckle. "We are hunting the
deadly barretted side comb!"
"You'll have to get me another," said Cora, as she bade Jack
good-night.
There was no further disturbance, and the hotel clerk said, next
morning, that the presence of one or two scorpions, or centipedes,
could be accounted for from the fact that the rooms occupied by our
friends had not recently been used. He promised to see to it that all
undesirable visitors were hunted out during the day.
For a week or more, life in San Juan was an experience of delight for
the motor girls. They visited points of interest in and about the
city, taking Inez with them. Of course Jack and Walter also went,
and the change was doing the former a world of good.
The mysterious "fat man," as Jack insisted on calling Senor Ramo, had
not come ashore at San Juan, going on with the steamer. His
destination was another of the many West Indian islands.
As yet, Mr. Robinson had had no chance to communicate with, or make
arrangements for rescuing the father of Inez. But he was making
careful plans to do this, and now, being on the ground, he could
confirm some information difficult to get at in New York.
The motor girls, and their party, soon accustomed themselves to the
changed conditions. They learned to eat as the Porto Ricans do--little
meat making eggs take the place, and they never knew before what a
variety of ways eggs could e served.
The weather was growing more pleasant each day, and with the gradual
passing of the hurricane season, they were allowed to take longer
trips in one of the many motor boats with which the harbor abounded.
Sometimes they spent whole days on the water, their dusky captain
keeping a sharp watch out for hurricanes. These can be detected some
hours off, and a run made for safety. Some of the whirling storms
are very dangerous, and others merely squalls.
It was when they had been in San Juan about a month, and Mr. Robinson
had promised, in the next few days, to take some measures regarding
the liberation of Senor Ralcanto, that something occurred which
changed the whole aspect of the visit of the motor girls to waters
blue.
Mr. Robinson found that he would have to go on business to a coffee
plantation near Basse Terre, on the French island of Guadeloupe, and
as he had heard there were also rare orchids to be obtained them, he
wanted to stay a few days after his trade matters had been attended
to.
"But I did want to start for Sea Horse Island, and begin my plan to
liberate your father," he said to Inez.
"It can wait, Senor,"' she said, softly. "A few days more will not
make much of ze difference, as long as he is to be rescued anyhow. I
would not have you disappointed in ze orchids."
"Then I'll go when we come back," said Mr. Robinson. "I'll go to
Guadeloupe, and take my wife and Mrs. Kimball with me. I want them
to see the place."
"And leave us here alone?" asked Bess.
"Certainly, why not? You are in good hands at the hotel, especially
as the boys are with you. And Inez is as good as a guide and
European courier made into one."
The weather, which had been fine on the evening when Mr. Robinson and
the two ladies went aboard the steamer, underwent a sudden change
before morning, and when Cora and her chums awoke in the hotel, and
looked out, they found raging a storm that, in its fury, was little
short of a hurricane.
"Oh, Jack!" his sister exclaimed, as she listened to the roar of the
wind and the sharp swish of the rain, "I'm so afraid!"
"What about? This hotel is a good one."
"I know. But mamma on that ship--they're out at sea now, and--"
She did not finish.
"That's so," spoke Jack, and a troubled look came over his face.