OUT OF THE FOG
That afternoon the boys and girls went in swimming and that evening
Connie's mother treated them all to a substantial dinner such as only she
knew how to cook.
And the way it disappeared before those ravenous girls and boys made even
Mr. Danvers hold up his hands in consternation. But Connie's mother
laughed happily, pressed them to eat everything up, "for it would only
spoil," and looked more than ever like Connie's older sister.
That night the boys were put up in a spare room which contained one bed
and two cots which Connie's mother always kept stowed away for
emergencies. For the cottage on Lighthouse Island was a popular place
with Mrs. Danvers' relatives and friends, and she often had unexpected
company.
They went out on the porch a little while after supper, and the boys were
at their funniest and kept the girls in a continual gale of merriment.
The time passed so quickly that before they knew it eleven o'clock chimed
out from the hall inside and in consternation Connie's mother hurried
them all off to bed.
"To-morrow is another day," she added with a little smile.
As they started up the stairs Teddy looked down at Billie and said
boyishly:
"Say, Billie, you've got _some_ sunburn, haven't you? You're--you're
mighty pretty."
Then Teddy blushed and Billie blushed, and Billie hoped with all her
heart that Laura had not heard it.
Laura had not, for she was talking and laughing with Paul Martinson and
Connie. And so Billie, running ahead and reaching her room first, turned
on the light and stepped over to the mirror.
Was that Billie, she wondered, who gazed back at her from the mirror? For
this girl was surely prettier than Billie ever had been. Her eyes were
shining, her cheeks were flushed under their tan, and her hair, a little
tumbled by the breeze from the sea, made an unexpectedly pretty frame for
a very lovely face.
The next day the girls insisted that the boys take them out in their
motor boat. The boys protested a little, for the sun was acting rather
queerly--going under a cloud and staying there sometimes for half an hour
on a stretch.
"I don't know," said Paul, a doubtful eye on the sky. "It isn't what you
could call a real clear day, girls, and I don't want to take any chances
with you."
"Oh, we're not afraid, if you're not," sang out Laura teasingly, and he
turned round upon her with a scowl.
"I'm not afraid for myself, and I think probably you know that. Just the
same----"
"Oh, but here's the sun!" called Vi suddenly, as the sun burst forth from
the cloud and showered a golden glory over everything. "It's going to be
a beautiful day--just beautiful."
So it was settled, and amid great fun and laughter they picked up the
lunch that Connie's mother prepared for them and started happily off,
humming as they went.
As they clambered aboard _The Shelling_--Paul had named his craft after
Captain Shelling, the master of Boxton Military Academy,--the sun went
under a cloud again, and this cloud was bigger and blacker than any that
had swallowed it before. But Laura's taunt still rang in Paul's ears, and
he said nothing.
In a little while there was no need for words. The girls began to see for
themselves that Paul had been right and that it would have been far
better if they had waited till a really clear day.
They had put some distance between them and the mainland when the sun
went under a cloud for good, and a cool little breeze began to rise.
This had been going on for some time before they even realized it, they
were having such fun. Then it was Connie who spoke.
"Doesn't it look a little--a little--threatening, Paul?" she asked
timidly. "Do you suppose it is going to rain?"
"No, I don't think it's going to rain," Paul answered, his hands on the
wheel, his eyes rather anxiously fixed on the water ahead. "But I do
think we're going to have one of those sudden heavy mists that come off
the coast here. Dad said to look out for them, because they're thick
enough to cut, and if you get caught in one you can't see your hand
before your face."
The girls were sober enough now as they looked at each other.
"But what makes you think we're going to have one, Paul?" asked Laura
humbly.
"Because the air is so still and muggy," Paul answered, then added with a
wave of his hand out over the water: "Look--do you see that?"
"That" was a faint, misty cloudlike vapor hanging so low that it seemed
almost to touch the water. And suddenly the girls were conscious that
their hair was wet and also their hands and their clothes.
"Goodness, we must be in it now!" said Vi looking wonderingly down at her
damp skirt. "Only it's so light you can't see it."
"I'm afraid it won't be light very long," said Paul grimly, as he swung
_The Shelling_ around and headed back the way they had come.
"What are you going to do?" asked Laura, still more humbly, for she now
was beginning to think that she was to blame for the fix they were in--if
indeed it were a fix.
"I'm going to get back to land as soon as I can," Paul answered her.
"Before this fog closes down on us."
"What would happen, Paul?" asked Billie softly. "I mean if it should
close down on us."
"We'd be lost," said Paul shortly, for by this time he was more than
anxious. He was worried.
"Lost!" they repeated, and looked at each other wide-eyed.
"Well, you needn't look as if that was the end of the world," said Teddy,
trying to speak lightly. "All we would have to do would be to keep on
drifting around till the fog lifted. It's simple."
"Yes, it's simple all right," said Chet gloomily. "If we don't run into
anything."
"Run into anything!" gasped Connie, while the other girls just stared.
"Oh, Paul, is there really any danger of that?"
"Of course," said Paul impatiently, noticing that the fog was growing
thicker and blacker every moment. "There's always danger of running into
something when you get yourself lost in a fog. And it's the little boat
that gets the worst of it," he added gloomily.
"Say, can't you try being cheerful for a change?" cried Teddy
indignantly, for he had noticed how white Billie was getting and was
trying his best to think of something to say that would make her laugh.
"There's no use of singing a funeral song yet, you know."
"No, and there's no use in starting a dance, either," retorted Paul,
wondering how much longer he would be able to keep his course. "We're in
a mighty bad fix, and no harm can be done by everybody knowing it. I
can't possibly get back to the island--or the mainland either--before
this fog settles down upon us."
It took a minute or two for this to sink in. There was no doubt about it.
He was telling them that in a few minutes they would be lost in this
horrible fog. And that might mean--they shivered and turned dismayed
faces to each other.
"I--oh, I'm awfully sorry," wailed Laura. "If I hadn't said what I did to
Paul we might never have come."
"Nonsense! that had nothing to do with it," said Billie, putting a loyal
arm about her chum. "We would have come just the same."
Then followed a waking nightmare for the boys and girls. In a few moments
the fog settled down upon them in a thick impenetrable veil, so dense
that, as Paul had said, you could almost have cut it.
It became impossible for Paul to steer, and all there was to do was to
sit still and wait and hope for the best. Fog horns were sounding all
about, some seeming so close that the girls fully expected to see some
great shape loom up through the mist, bearing down upon them.
For a long time nobody spoke--they were too busy listening to the weird
meanings of the fog horns and wondering how they could have escaped a
collision so long. For a while Paul had kept the engine running in the
hope that he might be able to keep to his course and eventually get to
Lighthouse Island. But he had decided that this only made a collision
more likely, and so had shut it off. And now they had been floating for
what seemed hours to the miserable boys and girls.
It was Connie who finally broke the silence.
"Oh, dear," she said, apropos of nothing at all, "now I suppose we'll
have to die and never solve our mystery after all." She sighed
plaintively, and the girls had a wild desire to shout with laughter and
cry at the same time.
"Goodness," said Laura hysterically, "if we've got to die who cares about
mysteries anyway?"
The boys, who had been peering ahead into the heavy unfriendly fog,
looked at the girls in surprise.
"What do you mean--mystery?" Ferd asked.
Before the girls could answer a sharp cry from Paul jerked their eyes
back to him.
"Look!" he cried, one hand on the wheel and the other pointing excitedly
before them to a dark something which loomed suddenly out of the mist.
"There! To starboard. We'll bump it sure!"