THE "SWALLOW" IS GONE
"What is the child saying?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband, for she
did not hear all that Freddie said.
"He's calling about having found a hen's nest," Mr. Bobbsey answered,
"but he must be mistaken. There can't be any chickens on this island."
"Maybe there are," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Perhaps, after all, some one
lives here, on the other side where we haven't been. And they may keep
chickens."
"Oh, no," answered her husband.
"I hardly think so," said Cousin Jasper. "But we'll go to look at what
Freddie has found."
Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, with Cousin Jasper, followed by Bert and Nan,
hurried down the beach to Flossie and Freddie, standing beside a hole
they had dug in the sand. The children were looking down into it.
"I busted one egg with my clam-shell shovel," Freddie was saying, "but
there's a lot left."
"They were all covered with sand," added Flossie. "And we dug 'em up!
Didn't we, Freddie? We dug up the chickie's nest!"
"But we didn't see any chickens," said the little boy.
"And for a very good reason," stated Cousin Jasper with a laugh, as he
looked down into the little sand pit. "Those are the eggs of a turtle.
Perhaps the very turtle that had hold of your dress, Flossie."
"Do turtles lay eggs?" asked Freddie in surprise.
"Indeed they do," said Cousin Jasper.
"O-o-oh!" gasped Flossie.
"And the turtle's eggs are good to eat, too. They are not quite as nice
as the eggs of a hen, but lots of people, especially those who live on
some of these islands, like them very much," went on Mr. Dent.
"Does a turkle lay its eggs in a nest like a hen?" Flossie questioned.
"What made them all be covered up?"
"Well," answered Cousin Jasper, as they all looked at the eggs in the
sand, "a turtle lays eggs like a hen, but she cannot hover over them,
and hatch them, as a hen can, because a turtle has no warm feathers. You
know it takes warmth and heat to make an egg hatch. And, as a turtle
isn't warm enough to do that, she lays her eggs in the warm sand, and
covers them up. The heat of the sun, and the warm sand soon hatch the
little turtles out of the eggs."
"Would turtles come out of these eggs?" asked Nan.
"Really, truly?" added Flossie.
"Just as surely as little chickens come out of hen's eggs," answered
Cousin Jasper. "But they must be kept warm."
"Then we'd better cover 'em up again!" exclaimed Freddie. "We found the
turtle's eggs when we were digging in the sand--Flossie and me. And I
didn't know they were there and I busted one of the eggs. First I
thought they were white stones, but when I busted one, and the white and
yellow came out, I found they were eggs."
"And the shells aren't hard," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she leaned over the
hole and touched the queer eggs in the sand-nest. "The shells are like
the shell of a soft egg a hen sometimes lays."
"Except that the shells, or rather, skins, of these eggs are thicker
than those of a chicken," explained Cousin Jasper. "These egg-skins are
like a piece of leather. If they were hard, like the eggs of a hen,
perhaps the little turtles could not break their way out, as a turtle,
though it can give a hard bite, has no pointed beak to pick a hole in
the shell."
"Well, you have made quite a discovery," said Mr. Bobbsey to the little
twins. "Better cover the eggs up now, so the little turtles in them will
not get cold and die."
"Are there turtles in them now?" asked Freddie.
"No, these eggs must be newly laid," Cousin Jasper said. "But if they
are kept warm long enough the little turtles will come to life in them
and break their way out. Would you like some to eat?" he asked Mr.
Bobbsey.
The father of the twins shook his head.
"I don't believe I care for any," he answered. "I'm not very fond of
eggs, anyhow, and I'll wait until we can find some that feathered
chickens lay."
"Well, I'll take a few for myself, and I know Captain Crane likes them,"
said Cousin Jasper. "The rest we will leave to be hatched by the warm
sun."
Mr. Dent took some of the eggs out in his hat, and then Flossie and
Freddie covered the rest with sand again.
"We'll dig in another place, so we won't burst any more turtle's eggs,"
said the little boy, as he walked down the beach with Flossie, each one
carrying a clam shell.
It was so nice on Palm Island that Mrs. Bobbsey said they would have
supper there, before going back on board the _Swallow_ to spend the
night. So more things to eat were brought off in the small boat, and, as
the sun was sinking down in the west, turning the blue waves of the sea
to a golden color, the travelers sat on the beach and ate.
"Maybe we could build a little campfire here and stay for a while after
dark," suggested Bert, who felt that he was getting to be quite a large
boy now.
"Oh, no indeed! We won't stay here after dark!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Snakes and turtles and all sorts of things might crawl up out of the
ocean and walk all around us on the beach. As soon as it gets dark we'll
go back to the ship."
"Yes, I think that would be best," said Mr. Bobbsey. "When we get to the
other island, where we hope to find Jack, it will be time enough to camp
out."
"Shall we stay there long?" Bert wanted to know.
"It all depends on how we find that poor boy," answered Cousin Jasper.
"If he is all right, and doesn't mind staying a little longer, we can
make a camp on the island. There are some tents on board and we can live
in them while on shore."
"Oh, that'll be almost as much fun as Blueberry Island!" cried Nan.
"It'll be nicer!" Bert said. "Blueberry Island was right near shore, but
this island is away out in the middle of the ocean, isn't it, Cousin
Jasper?"
"Well, not exactly in the middle of the ocean," was the answer. "But I
think, perhaps, there is more water around it than was around your
Blueberry Island."
After supper, which, like their lunch, was eaten on the beach under the
palm trees, the Bobbsey twins and the others went back to the _Swallow_.
The men working for the engineer, Mr. Chase, had not yet gotten the
engine fixed, and it would take perhaps two more days, they said, as the
break was worse than they had at first thought.
"Well, we'll have to stay here, that's all," said Cousin Jasper. "I did
hope we would hurry to the rescue of Jack, but it seems we can't. Anyhow
it would not do to go on with a broken engine. We might run into a storm
at sea and then we would be wrecked. So we will wait until everything is
all right before we go sailing over the sea again."
"It seems like being back home," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she sat down
later in a deck chair.
"Didn't you like it on the island?" asked Bert.
"Yes. But after it got dark some big turtle might have come up out of
the sea and pulled on you, as one did on Flossie," and Bert's mother
smiled.
"Well, no mud turkles can get on our ship, can they?" asked the little
"fat fairy."
"No turtles can get on board here, unless they climb up the anchor
cable," said Captain Crane with a laugh. "Now we'll get all snug for the
night, so if it comes on to blow, or storm, we shall be all right."
It was a little too early to go to bed, so the Bobbsey twins and the
grown folks sat on deck in the moonlight. The men of the crew, and the
cook, sat on the other end of the deck, and also talked. It was very
warm, for the travelers were now in southern waters, nearer the equator
than they had ever been before. Even with very thin clothes on the air
felt hot, though, of course, just as at Lakeport or Meadow Brook, it was
cooler in the evening than during the day.
"It's almost too hot to go down into the staterooms," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
"I wonder if we couldn't sleep out on deck?"
"Yes, we could have the mattresses brought up," said Cousin Jasper. "I
have often slept on the deck of my own boat."
"Some of the crew are going to, they tell me," Captain Crane said.
"Then we will," Mr. Bobbsey decided. "It will be more like camping out.
And it certainly is very hot, even with the sun down."
"We may have a thunderstorm in the night," the captain said, "but we can
sleep out until then."
So the mattresses and bed covers were brought up from the stateroom.
"This is a new kind of camping out, isn't it?" remarked Flossie, as she
viewed the bringing up of the bed things with great interest.
"It's a good deal like moving, I think," answered Freddie. "Only, of
course, we haven't got any moving van to load the things on to."
"What would you do with a moving van out here on a boat?" demanded Bert.
"I could put it on another boat--one of those flat ones, like they have
down at New York, where the horses and wagons walk right on," insisted
Freddie, thinking of a ferryboat.
"Well, we haven't any such boats around here, so we'd better not have
any moving vans either," remarked Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh.
"I don't want to move anywhere, anyway," said Flossie. "I'm too tired to
do it. I'm going to stay right where I am."
"Oh, so'm I going to stay!" cried Freddie quickly. "Come on--let us make
our beds right over here," and he caught up one of the smaller
mattresses. He struggled to cross the deck with it, but got his feet
tangled up in one end, and pitched headlong.
"Look out there, Freddie Bobbsey, or you'll go overboard!" cried his
brother, as he rushed to the little boy's assistance.
"If I went overboard, could I float on the mattress?" questioned
Freddie, as he scrambled to his feet.
"I don't think so," answered his father. "And, anyway, I wouldn't try
it."
Presently the mattresses and bedcovers were distributed to everyone's
satisfaction, and then all lay down to rest.
For a time, Flossie and Freddie, as well as Nan and Bert, tossed about,
but at last they fell asleep. It was very quiet on the sea, the only
noise being the lapping of the waves against the sides of the _Swallow_.
Mrs. Bobbsey was just falling into a doze when there was a sudden splash
in the water, and a loud cry.
"Man overboard! Man overboard!" some one yelled.
"Oh, if it should be one of the children!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. For, no
matter whether it is a boy, girl or woman that falls off a ship at sea,
a sailor will always call: "'Man' overboard!" I suppose that is easier
and quicker to say.
"Who is it? What's the matter?" cried Mr. Bobbsey, awakened suddenly
from his sleep.
There was more splashing in the water alongside the boat, and then
Captain Crane turned on a lamp that made the deck and the water about
very light.
"Jim Black fell overboard," answered Mr. Chase, the engineer. "He got up
to draw a bucket of water to soak his head in so he could cool off, and
he reached over too far."
"Is he all right?" asked Captain Crane.
"Yes, I'm all right," was the answer of the sailor himself. "I feel
cooler now."
At this the older people laughed.
He had fallen in with the clothes on, in which he had been sleeping, but
as soon as he struck the water he swam up, made his way to the side of
the ship, grabbed a rope that was hanging over the side, and pulled
himself to the deck.
"My! what a fright I had!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I thought one of the
children had rolled into the ocean!"
"That couldn't happen," said Captain Crane. "There is a strong railing
all about the deck."
"Well, it's cooler now," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I think I'll take the twins
and go to our regular beds."
She did this and was glad of it, for a little later a thunderstorm
broke, and it began to rain, driving every one below. The rest of the
night the storm kept up, and though the thunder was loud and the
lightning very bright, the rain did one good service--it made the next
day cooler.
"Well, shall we go ashore again?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, when breakfast had
been eaten aboard the _Swallow_.
"Oh, yes!" cried the twins. "We want to go swimming again!"
"And I'm going to watch out for 'mud turkles,'" said Flossie, as she
called them.
Once more they went to the beach of Palm Island, and they had dinner on
the shady shore. In the afternoon, leaving the engineer and his helpers
on board to work away at the motor, the whole party of travelers,
Captain Crane, Cousin Jasper and all, started on a walk to the other
side of the island. This took them out of sight of the boat.
They found many pretty things at which to look--flowers, a spring of
sweet water where they got a drink, little caves and dells, and a place
where hundreds of birds made their nests on a rocky cliff. The birds
wheeled and soared about, making loud noises as they saw the Bobbsey
twins and the others near their nests.
It was along in the afternoon when they went back to the beach where
they had eaten, and where they were to have supper. Bert, who had run on
ahead around a curve in the woodland path, came to a stop on the beach.
"Why--why!" he cried. "She's gone! The _Swallow_ is gone!" and he
pointed to the little bay.
The motor boat was no longer at anchor there!